Digital Indoor Systems Key Critical Infrastructure for National Digital Economic Transformation

Developments in technologies such as connectivity, digital services, augmented/virtual reality, big data and artificial intelligence, are revolutionizing the way consumers interact and the way enterprises compete. Across of ASEAN, it is certain that technology is growing in importance as it transforms industries and contributes to greater digital economic efficiency.

"Digital solutions and services contribute up to 10 percent of GDP among ASEAN economies. While embracing the digital economy is important for local governments, equally important is enabling enterprises to address the evolving needs of the consumer," said Mei Lee Quah, principal industry analayst, ICT, Frost & Sullivan Asia-Pacific.

The majority of transformative technologies and activities under these government-driven initiatives happen indoors for example at homes, offices, transportation hub, shopping centres, and even manufacturing plants. As of today, over 80 percent of network traffic originates from indoors, and this number is set to increase to 96 percent with the onset of 5G. As a result, the indoor experience will become increasingly important going forward.

"The inability of Distributed Antenna System (DAS) as the current indoor architecture to facilitate the much higher data rates needed to satisfy demand and maximum efficiency required presents a bottleneck, especially for local government agendas," said Quah.

"Digital Indoor System (DIS) will play a vital role as key infrastructure. Data driven marketing and data centric innovation are key industry trends where mobile network operators (MNOs) are uniquely positioned regionally as custodian of DIS data that can enable a diversity of smart solutions and services to address varying and evolving needs, particularly in regional highly dense areas such as stadiums, airports and transportation hubs."