Back in 2010, not long after I started blogging here on Cisco.com, I discussed some of the challenges customers were fearing regarding the feasibility of cloud adoption. In my market research work, the survey I ran back in 2010 came up with some interesting concerns: that lack of bandwidth and internet reliability was an impediment to cloud adoption. I discussed this later when I wrote about Cisco's "Network on Wheels": "...one of the things we learned that in certain parts of the world, the access bandwidth to the cloud was a significant concern -in terms of reliability, cost and bandwidth available".

Having lived my life in urban areas with reasonable network services (although it's only a year ago we managed to get fibre-based broadband -more precisely Fibre-To-The-Cabinet), this survey result was a bit of a surprise to me. Yes, I rationalised, looking at the countries which reported this issue, I can see that is an issue in some parts of the world that would impede adoption of cloud services.  But not here in the UK, Europe or North America. How naive and arrogant was I!

Fast forward to 2016 -I can't believe I'm writing this about my own country!-in my very own back yard in Scotland, my local mountain ski centre, Glencoe Mountain, is experiencing real pain from customer dissatisfaction -they can't process credit card payments fast enough, which is resulting in long 30 minute+ queues at their ticket office on busy days, preventing enthusiastic yet impatient skiers from getting up the mountain to enjoy the snow.And all because of the lack of reliability and bandwidth in their so-called "high speed" internet access to credit card payment services.

The Bigger Picture: Connected Transport Internet of Things (IoT) Services that Service Providers Can Drive (Source: http://www.supplychaindigital.com/)

I'll structure my discussion into 3 areas. First, mountains are inaccessible, provision of high speed internet is a challenge. Right? Wrong! So I start with a discussion on the digital transformation of ski resorts as proof of that. Then I'll discuss the economic impact on the broader community in internet-poor locations, and finally I'll cover the bigger picture -the Internet of Things (IoT) opportunity available to innovative and forward-thinking service providers who seek to transform their business models from data pipe providers to "connected experience" IoT solution providers.

Digital Transformation for Ski Resorts Has Arrived!

The term "Digital Transformation" is undoubtedly one of the key IT trends -or buzzwords, depending upon your perspective -of 2016.

State of the Practice -Ski Resort Mobile Applications -IoT has arrived at major ski resorts worldwide, supported in many cases by ski slope Wi-Fi and 3G/4G services.

There is no question in my mind that digital transformation has arrived in the snow sports industry ski resorts. 3G is widespread and it's not uncommon to find Wi-Fi in the leading European resorts (yes on the ski slopes themselves -Saalbach in Austria, for example, I understand has a Cisco access point on every lift), supporting resort and holiday company mobile apps.  Whistler-Blackcomb in Canada, as another example, has partnered with Telus to deliver digital mountain experiences (more on this in part 2 of this blog next week).

I personally am a huge fan of the Ski Tracks smart phone app -which essentially lets you "connect" your skis to the Internet, reporting speed, distance travelled, slope including and photos you take on your travels, and more, and allows you to upload your adventure to social media to share with friends. Network-based applications, enabled by in-resort 3G/4G/Wi-Fi include "Find my friend" (on the ski slope!), resort ticketing and hotel booking features. Social media is a now huge part of snow sports -a glance at the Glencoe Mountain Facebook page will illustrate this. Many people share photos and videos as an integral part of their skiing experience. Such media sharing is an incredibly important parts of the ski centre marketing capability.

Unfortunately, such digital transformation opportunities in Scotland are gated by poor internet provision.

The Economic Impact

 Scotland is not particularly well known as a ski location. Many people I speak to from outside Scotland are surprised we have ski facilities. Sure, we're not of the scale of Breckenridge in the U.S. or the Three Valleys in the French Alps, however each of the five (or 6 if you include our Lowther Hill "club field") ski centres is a major UK tourist attraction in their own right, and we have some fabulous skiing, as the video shows, despite Scotland's incredibly unpredictable climate!

Notably, each winter, the ski centres bring hundreds of thousands of people into the remote and stunning Scottish Highlands. Consequently, they generate major spin-off income -typically