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The Network Effect

Spurring innovation and collaboration

Our view on a shared vision

Looking at the future of the ICT industry in the next 5 to 10 years we imagine a stronger, more vibrant, and more innovative business landscape.

Within our industry vision we address business and consumer needs, technology enablers, and viable business solutions to spur innovation, collaboration, competition and investments.

It seizes the potential of digitalization, fulfilling evolving networking needs, collaborating with communications service providers (CSPs) and a diverse set of industry partners, and empowering a world where limitless connectivity will improve lives, redefine business and pioneer a sustainable future.

"When we started to talk about network APIs a few years ago, most of the industry didn’t know what we were talking about. Now APIs are front and center in most industry discussions."

Börje Ekholm,
President & CEO of Ericsson

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Building for a digital future

Major trends like digitalization, electrification, sustainability, supply chain resilience, and automation are accelerating at speed. Society and businesses will capitalize on the mobile, AI and cloud technology evolution to produce digital and easy-to-use tailored services, immersive experiences, and more sustainable solutions.

 

Our industry vision integrates connectivity, security, and network management, paving the way for virtual private 5G enterprises to facilitate reliable and cost-efficient wireless networks that securely interconnect people, places, and devices, within and beyond their premises. As we harness the potential of high-performance mobile networks, we anticipate a transformative shift toward the widespread adoption of mobile multi-user extended reality (XR) experiences with lightweight glasses. This evolution has the potential to define the future of industry and become the next paradigm shift following smartphones, promising to profoundly impact our society.

Ericsson’s industry vision addresses current and emerging consumer, business and developer needs. It redefines how the telecom industry delivers and captures value, to spur innovation, collaboration, competition, and investment

Cutting enterprise complexity

A convergence between connectivity, security and network management will enable virtual private 5G enterprises to support enterprise needs for reliable, easy-to-use, cost-efficient, and secure wireless networks that connect people, places, and things securely and easily both inside and outside their facilities.

Business transformation by endless connectivity – Ericsson

Enterprise Virtual Cellular Network (EVCN) – Ericsson

Where are we with XR?

High-performance mobile networks enable the evolution towards digital representations and immersive experiences  powering what could be the next paradigm shift after the smartphone with a transformative impact on our society.

Immersive technology: The future of entertainment – Ericsson

Technology Review Magazine 2023 – Spotlight on extended reality - Ericsson

The 1,2,3 of the API economy

The global network platform (GNP) and network APIs will create a network effect of exponential growth and innovation by exposing network capabilities to developers.

What are network APIs and how to monetize them - Ericsson

Differentiated connectivity

Performance-based business models allow communication service providers (CSPs) to find a sweet spot for meeting customer needs by delivering the right level of network performance at the right cost and price. Best effort network performance will not be good enough for many services, while not every service needs high network performance. Therefore, differentiation and segmentation of network offerings are needed.

Capture the value of differentiated 5G connectivity - Ericsson

5G Network Slicing - Make Network Slicing easy to deploy - Ericsson

5G standalone (5G SA) experience 5G without limits - Ericsson

The big change, mobile networks to get customized - Ericsson

Network blueprint

Hear from Erik Ekudden, CTO Ericsson on how leading operators are showing that service readiness, trustworthiness and enrichment are major focus areas in a 5G network blueprint increasingly underpinning digitalization.

Mobile networks are highly regarded as the foundation for digital nations – building on 30+ years of exponential capability growth – 5G networks are paving the way for the digital transformation of enterprises, transport systems, and entire cities.  Discover how leading operators are showing that service readiness, trustworthiness and enrichment are major focus areas in a 5G network blueprint increasingly underpinning digitalization.

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High performance, differentiated networks

As digitalization continues, it becomes evident that the one size fits all, best efforts mobile broadband, falls short of the requirements for the next phase of our industry vision for many applications.

We are committed to maximizing the potential of high-performing differentiated networks, offering faster speeds, reduced latency, and improved quality of service to meet the growing needs of our industry and society.

 Differentiated connectivity is at the cornerstone of our industry vision, allowing CSPs to meet the increasing demand for tailored network services that can meet the diverse and dynamic needs of users, applications, and devices, by delivering the right level of network performance at the right cost and price point.

Network Evolution

By 2030, limitless connectivity will be anywhere—and the global mobile network will be the critical infrastructure of the digital society.

5G Advanced

5G Advanced unleashes new powerful network features and capabilities that makes it possible to automate, innovate, and monetize with 5G in entirely new ways.

6G

6G is the name for the sixth generation of cellular networks, which will deliver truly omnipresent wireless intelligence. Expected to become available early in the 2030s, the 6G research journey is already well underway.

Hear our CTO Erik Ekudden talk about technology leadership and high performing differentiated networks

Shaping the industry and enabling a global ecosystem

Ericsson recognizes that to achieve this industry vision will  need an open network ecosystem with leading industry players from devices and chipsets to the cloud and application developers.”

Through jointly realized proof points, Ericsson aims to co-create this vision through partnerships to industrialize open architectures, deep optimization between network, devices, chipsets, and cloud, as well as enabling a broad ecosystem of application developers and enterprises, that leverage the mobile network capabilities for their applications and service.

At the core of our company and industry vision lies the belief that technology and innovation can be a force for positive change. We are committed to improving lives by empowering limitless connectivity. Our vision extends to reshaping businesses, enabling enterprises to become agile and responsive to new opportunities, and changing customer preferences. Moreover, we recognize the potential of technology to address critical global challenges, including the climate crisis, and we are committed to leveraging improved mobile connectivity to create a more sustainable world.

Sustainability

It has become increasingly relevant to execute on energy cost reductions and Net Zero ambitions. Ericsson works relentlessly to achieve higher network capacity with reduced energy consumption and carbon footprint - in essence, doing more with less.

Partners

We are actively working closely with partners to enhance customer value. Enabling the full value of connectivity. We make game changing technology easy to use, adopt and scale to make our customers and partners successful in a fully connected world.

Public policy and government affairs

Ericsson engages and collaborates with governments, regulators, legislators, businesses and industry associations to achieve positive and sustainable long term conditions for the ICT sector.

Featured read

CTO Focus sessions

Join the fast lane with the CTO Focus Sessions hosted by Erik Ekudden, Ericsson’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO), discussing the transformative power of 5G and beyond with key industry players.

XR report

Ericsson ConsumerLab conducted extensive research across 10 global markets with current and prospective extended reality (XR) users, revealing four pivotal insights shaping consumer expectations for augmented reality (AR) experiences over the next five years.

10 HCT report

When OpenAI’s ChatGPT reached a 100 million monthly active users only two months after launch, it became the fastest growing service ever. 

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