The top reported business challenge in the last year, according to a study on CEOs’ most important business challenges in 2022 by Forbes, Covid-19 continues to concern business leaders, alongside other worries such as rising inflation, labour shortages, supply chain disruptions and changing consumer behaviours.  
More specifically, companies are struggling to provide a consistent and holistic omnichannel experience for their customers while blending remote and in-person work.  
 
For many organisations, improving the management of customer data is their top customer experience (CX) priority over the next 12 months. This is because they recognise that creating the immersive, personalised, and compelling experiences customers expect comes from integrated customer data systems, improved uses of customer data to generate insights…

The top reported business challenge in the last year, according to a study on CEOs’ most important business challenges in 2022 by Forbes, Covid-19 continues to concern business leaders, alongside other worries such as rising inflation, labour shortages, supply chain disruptions and changing consumer behaviours.  

More specifically, companies are struggling to provide a consistent and holistic omnichannel experience for their customers while blending remote and in-person work.  

For many organisations, improving the management of customer data is their top customer experience (CX) priority over the next 12 months. This is because they recognise that creating the immersive, personalised, and compelling experiences customers expect comes from integrated customer data systems, improved uses of customer data to generate insights, and the combining legacy technology with modern, cloud-based solutions. 

What is the metaverse and who is using it? 

This is where the metaverse comes in. It is largely a virtual world that represents the data that companies collect about their customers – and, of course, customer data is a top CX priority for executives.  

Many notable companies are already venturing into the metaverse, such as Sky, Disney, Meta (formerly known as Facebook) and Nike. However, getting started on the journey is a struggle for many businesses, who are often challenged with getting executive buy-in and with aligning internal leadership teams to support the adoption of what is a more holistic platform and accompanying strategy. 

How can you make the metaverse more immersive? 

Three of the key elements to consider when starting out on your metaverse journey are augmented reality, 3D assets and 360° video file creation and avatars. 

1. Augmented reality  

More and more businesses are capitalising on the increasing popularity of augmented reality (AR). 

However, the technology needs specialised equipment and software to create the illusion of an object added to the real world, such as smart glasses or headsets. And these in turn need cameras and sensors in order to create a smooth and seamless AR experience, not to mention 5G and enough power to process real life images, creating the AR object which will be superimposed by the projector (which is also required, at an expense!) 

2. 3D assets and 360° video file creation 

3. Avatars – 3D digital characters 

Traditionally when a customer interacts with a chat bot online, it’s been through automated messages, an often impersonal and sometimes unempathetic and frustrating experience. 3D avatars instead offer the customer a digital character to engage with, empowering companies to connect more authentically with their audiences. 

Modern avatars can show emotion and empathy through their facial expressions and speech patterns, powered by audio-driven speech animation technology. They can even react to sentiment from the customer, all of which combines to give a more meaningful interaction. 

Will there be major changes to CX in the metaverse? 

Consumers can definitely expect to see familiar services be tailored to suit the metaverse. One defining characteristic of CX in the metaverse is that it will be a more interactive and potentially more complex version of its real-world counterpart. 

Service provider brands have several key points they should consider, including: know your target audience; make sure you have the technology needed to operate optimally in the metaverse; prioritise creating virtual-first experiences that truly are virtual; and conduct studies and testing to learn more about the buyer’s journey, so that you can appropriately modify it to fit into the context of the metaverse. 

However, a word of warning. Companies should avoid adopting virtual CX and then forcing it to become something that it’s not. They should instead focus on building a metaverse channel that can be used to meet individual customer needs efficiently and with empathy in a whole new space. 

Many brands, particularly from the e-commerce and retail industry, have become early adopters of this exciting new technology – and there is no doubt that companies who are able to dive into the metaverse have an opportunity to strengthen relationships with their loyal supporters and to gain new fans. 

Find out more on how you can innovate your customer experience today in preparation for future metaverse environments, by attending Capita’s virtual roundtable Make Way for the Metaverse: Planning for the new CX Universe. 

In recent months, European operators have once again been urging regulators to force big tech companies to help pay for their expensive infrastructure rollouts. In a recent study from the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ETNO), the telcos argued that Meta, Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Netflix should contribute &€…

In recent months, European operators have once again been urging regulators to force big tech companies to help pay for their expensive infrastructure rollouts. In a recent study from the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ETNO), the telcos argued that Meta, Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Netflix should contribute €20 billion annually towards their network costs, since they account for over 56% of annual traffic on telco networks.

European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has said that the EU will consider this proposal, saying that these players have so far “not been contributing” to enabling the traffic that they generate. Detractors, meanwhile, say such plans unfairly punish the tech players, with a group of non-government organisations also recently pointing out that such a tax would arguably run contrary to European rules surrounding net neutrality. 

Now, it seems that Romania is already moving to redress the balance of power, at least when it comes to streaming services, implementing a new tax of 4% on the revenues of video-on-demand providers. The tax will apply on revenues generated from both individual transactions and repeat subscriptions.

The funds raised from this tax will be given to the national film fund, managed by the Romanian Film Centre, to help develop the country’s domestic film industry.

The tax is being implemented to create a more level playing field between streaming services and the broader film industry, with Romania’s domestic cinemas already obligated to dedicate 4% of their revenues to the film fund.

”The contributions to the Cinematographic Fund, as they are provided in art. 13 of Government Ordinance 39/2005 regarding cinematography are 4% for the traditional operators, respectively the cinemas. On-demand audiovisual media services, generically known as VoD platforms, are in fact still operating. Thus, a discrimination in the way in which one operator contributes to the Film Fund in relation to another does not find any objective justification,” said the government in a translated statement.

Services with audience levels below 1% or with revenues of less than €65,000 a year will be exempt from this new tax.

The law will also see streaming platforms required to dedicate at least 30% of their libraries to media produced in Europe.

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When it comes to wireless technologies, it should come a no surprise that environments like mines have presented major challenges for many years. However, as these technologies improve, we are beginning to see mining operations around the world upgrading their infrastructure, thereby enabling the IoT, industrial automation…

When it comes to wireless technologies, it should come a no surprise that environments like mines have presented major challenges for many years. However, as these technologies improve, we are beginning to see mining operations around the world upgrading their infrastructure, thereby enabling the IoT, industrial automation, and autonomous mining vehicles. 

Now, Intracom Telecom has announced that it has deployed its latest FWA and IoT platform at a major mining operation in sub-Saharan Africa. 

The FWA solution, called WiBAS, uses Point-to-Multi-Point (PtMP) technology to deliver high capacity over long distances. In addition, the company is also deploying its uni|MS IoT control and management platform, which includes “a sophisticated alarm flow coupled with key performance indicators, available on reports and graphs…[to] elevate the Operators’ experience and ensure timely optimizations”.

« We have been serving our customers in Africa for their needs to connect remote location in mines since 2011. We are very pleased to extend our cooperation with one of the biggest African mines so to provide modern communications to ground crews and machine operating personnel, while safeguarding and monitoring the perimeter of the mine, » said John Tenidis, Marketing Director of Wireless Network Systems at Intracom Telecom.

Details of the mine and the mining company itself were not revealed. 

Intracom are not alone in their growing interest in mining operations. For example, late last year, Ericsson announced a plan with Russian operator MTS to deploy a 5G-ready private network at an iron ore mine in the Republic of Karelia, pledging to improve automation and site safety. 

Nokia has also announced a similar deal to supply a private network at a gold mine in Finland. 

However, it should be noted that in April Ericsson announced that it is withdrawing from the Russian market as a result of the invasion in Ukraine, so the future of its Russian mining deployment is unclear. 

Want to keep up to date with the latest developments in the world of telecoms? Subscribe to receive Total Telecom’s daily newsletter here

Also in the news: 
ITU’s Partner2Connect project sees $18.5 billion in pledges to connect the unconnected
Telefonica strikes deal with German fibre association to connect 5G sites
Enterprise data opportunities in the 5G era