Skip navigation
Connectivity background image

The impact of connectivity on digital and real-world experiences

 

 

June 2022

 

Eric Blomquist, Strategy Execution Director at Ericsson, talks about digital life beyond the screen.

What?


Just as the Internet democratized access to technology and information, limitless connectivity and extended reality will democratize access to experiences, opening new horizons, providing more options, and revolutionizing our freedom of choice.

Why?


Innovations that bring technology and creativity closer together will soon enable more immersive and personalized experiences, transforming real-world and virtual experiences alike, while delivering ever greater inclusion, collaboration, sharing, and co-creation.

How?


Networks will become ever more capable, global, and dynamic, with the capacity to handle trillions of inputs, from small embedded sensors to larger devices that enable multi-sensory, immersive communication.

The takeaway

Next-gen networks will enable new experiences whose unprecedented levels of immersion, interaction, and personalization will attract new and more diverse audiences and communities


Networks will also act as catalysts for sharing, collaboration, and co-creation and in doing so accelerate the exploration of the full potential of connectivity regardless of location


To meet ever more demanding user and spectator expectations, digital experiences, solutions and services will become increasingly intuitive


At Ericsson, we’re developing both enhanced experiences and the networks that power them, to facilitate cross-industry collaboration


Hybrid experiences will significantly increase audience size and be a key enabler of increased monetization

Experiences foster a sense of community, incite emotions, and create memories.

Experiences foster a sense of community
connectivity background image

The power of experiences should not be underestimated. Often, we forget the details of what happened at an event, but still remember how we felt. The way experiences are shared has evolved, too. As the pace of innovation accelerates and geographic boundaries crumble, the possible impacts of connectivity on digital and real-world experiences are huge.

While the internet democratized knowledge and information, extended reality will democratize experiences, by introducing alternative dimensions, regardless of location, using innovative, immersive devices. To function, these devices require new and improved network connectivity that will help data to flow around the world, allowing us to receive it in the form of sights, sounds, and touch (and perhaps, in the not-too-distant future, smells and tastes as well).

These innovations will introduce immersive and personalized elements to experiences, giving everyone the freedom of choice. At Ericsson, we’re excited by the opportunity to develop both the experiences themselves and the networks that power them. As such, we’re encouraging and facilitating co-creation between an increasingly diverse set of contributors. And there are already signs of magic happening.

 

The US sports industry will reach $83.1 billion by 2023

 

 

Experience Type

Event

Location and partners

Music Remote collaboration Reina Sofia Music School, Madrid, (Orange, Ericsson)
Sport Immersive Soccer Fan Experience Germany (VF and SKY) and Qatar (Ooredoo)
Live performance Dream global remote experience Royal Shakespeare Company, UK Research & Innovation
Augumented Journey Green Planet London, EE/BT
Live Show via Hologram Holographic show (musician at a distant locations) Claro Brazil, Allianz Parque
Remote Jamming Collaboration of performers UCBoulder, USA
Best Seat experience at Sports (360 stream) Stockcar car race in Sao Paulo Claro Brazil, Interlagos racetrack

Inclusion, immersion, and differentiation in traditional experiences.

Whether it’s for spectators, sports fans, athletes, learners or colleagues (the list goes on), experiences can be enhanced by greater connectivity.

With Ericsson and Orange Spain’s support, the Reina Sofia Music School in Madrid have jointly explored how connectivity can be applied to classical music.

Julia Sanchez, CEO of the school, says: “More and more, we will see people from different areas working together, with a common understanding of how to get the most from each rehearsal and a willingness to adapt and collaborate.”

For Julia, it was important to show others what could be made possible by combining music and connectivity. She knew the sky was the limit in that moment when a simple look exchanged between the remote and local singers clearly demonstrated their astonishment at what they had achieved and the realization of what could be possible.

It is forecast that in the US alone, the sports business will be worth USD 83.1 billion by 2023. Connectivity is a significant factor in this growth, so attracting a younger fan base is critical—but this requires franchises and rights owners to provide new ways to participate that are more compelling than gaming and social media (and that justify the cost of subscriptions and tickets).

From an athlete’s perspective, improved connectivity means more data can be analyzed and devices can be smaller, more compact, and last longer (as the data-processing burden is taken on by the network, rather than the device and its battery). Coaches can also increasingly see the previously unseen: analyzing every move a player makes, in real-time and from multiple perspectives, to enhance player development and rehabilitation after injury.

It’s not just professional athletes who can benefit. Virtual cycle tours offer one example of collaborative exercise, offering the same sense of community and teamwork as a real-world peloton when a wide range of data—from location to performance—is shared in almost real-time.

After one experience, the hunger for the next comes quickly. Transforming experiences into games that can be shared with others is increasingly supporting this demand.

For example, fans have been introduced to a fully immersive virtual experience around their favorite movies. Powered by high-bandwidth and low-latency 5G connectivity, using state-of-the-art, wearable VR technology (including headsets, backpacks, hand and foot trackers, and peripheral gadgets to allow interaction with others in a virtual realm), the illusion of being a part of a key location and scene from a film is now possible. The feeling that you are part of a blockbuster movie will create long-lasting memories.

Dream, the name of a virtual immersive and interactive performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), offered access and personalization on a scale that had not been attempted before in theatre. The ability to choose different viewpoints of the production and to move a virtual firefly during the performance gave a taste of how the amalgamation of technology and creative minds can lead to something special for a broad audience.

In just one week, an audience of 65,000 people from more than 151 countries accessed the performance. Sarah Ellis, Digital Director at the RSC, believes this is only the start, and that much more can be achieved with connectivity, due to its mobility, reliability, and the flexibility to accommodate a massive range of devices across different locations.

Fast forward to a 2030 experience

As immersive communication becomes mainstream and innovation continues at a high pace, the ability to transform all of our senses digitally means distance may no longer be a barrier to human interactions.

Julia Sanchez, CEO of the Reina Sofia Music School, explores how limitlessly connected technology is transforming music.

Music

By 2030, performers will no longer need to physically move themselves, their teams, or their gear around the world. Collaboration will increase, as will the quality and quantity of content, because performers will be released from busy travel schedules and better able to focus on their art.

Music fans will no longer need to travel to experience their favourite acts, either. Many suggest that a full virtual experience may be the norm for some concerts, where fans enter a virtual space and move and interact with digital objects and other fans exactly as if exploring a real-world venue.

For students, increased access to the best performers in the world will both inspire and motivate them to hone their skills, facilitating greater collaboration between international peers. Can you imagine a string quartet of the best students from around the world, practicing and performing remotely together?

Matt Stagg discusses ways that limitless connectivity will transform the sports experience.

Sport

Meta has shared its ambition on the future of how we may interact in virtual spaces. It’s a future in which you will be able to teleport instantly as a hologram to any location. Matt Stagg, Mobile Strategy Director, BT Sport, believes this also provides an opportunity for the evolution of immersive sport.

Matt suggests that immersive, mixed reality experiences will allow fans to bridge the gap between the stadium and the sofa. With technology that allows the full transfer of your senses from one location to another, a much more intense feeling of being virtually at the location would be possible.

Steve Plunkett, Chief Product Officer at media company Supponor, says that the ambience of the stadium could also be adapted to each specific digital spectator community, to account for different cultures or demographics. Someone may be presented with one brand advertisement, while someone else may be served with another (or different content entirely, such as player stats).

Eventually, for remote viewers, the experience could become more immersive than being actually within the stadium. With the advent of a seamless transition from a screen to a broad range of devices, holographic projections of star players and TV pundits could be shown at home. One minute you are watching a nail-biting event, and the next you have life-size holograms in your living room analysing it.

AR gaming

Gaming

Arguably the strongest candidate that will benefit from the merging of physical and virtual realities will be gaming. Cross-platform technologies will allow individuals to move seamlessly between two realities.

For augmented-reality team games that attract large audiences, such as HADO (an AR team game that allows both local and remote tournaments), immediacy is critical—that sense of collaborating with others, where every reaction to an action makes it feel as if you are together. High-definition video and spatial awareness will blur the edges of what is real and what is virtual no matter how many stadia or players are involved; the experience will be no different from a local event.

Spectators will feel that they are a part of a global experience, able to interact with the action and event without needing to travel. There could even be a situation where the strength of the supporters could tip the balance of a competition. For example, digitally transforming the level of support of one team compared to another could affect the next phase of the game, giving the team with the highest level an advantage.

The next generation of games will also be increasingly directed at gamers, using User Generated Content (UGC). Magnus Björkman, founder and CEO of graphics and UI 5G start-up, Tension, believes that new virtual worlds will be of movie quality in extended reality, viewed through a digitally connected lens, hand-held device, or new console. He says: “Next up, the merging of movies and games will be here. Viewing your experience in 4-8K, real time rendered, at your choice of angle with you placed in the ‘best’ seat, will happen.”

Bringing the experiences to life

As the full potential of improved connectivity is realized, creative and technical teams will go beyond the current limitations.

For instance, 5G will evolve to 6G, and as it does, devices will become lighter, more comfortable, and more stylish. To achieve this transition, networks will evolve to:

  • Transfer the processing from the device to the network
  • Increase the available capacity and coverage to allow for more high-fidelity services
  • Reduce the power consumption of the devices
  • Be more intelligent, so that they better utilize the application and service information to optimize network performance and quality
  • Accommodate the different demands of the services, and ensure an optimal, reliable, and resilient experience

With 6G, the next level of services will be realized, including:

Improved transmission technology: 5G and 6G will conquer new spectrum bands, probably as high as 100 GHz and beyond, to support higher data rates in the range of hundreds of Gbps. These data rates will enable true interactive services. To mitigate any issues around this, neighboring base stations will better coordinate their transmissions, either to avoid interference or to jointly serve a user in an optimum way.

Spatial awareness, positioning, and sensing enhancements: As the networks move toward 6G, they will be able to sense their surroundings using radar-like capabilities. By sharing highly detailed 3D maps through the communication network, virtual and physical worlds can combine seamlessly. This requires the gathering, processing, and sharing of huge amounts of data, in real time, that only 6G can handle, alongside the extremely low latency required to allow the feeling that there is no recognizable difference between one’s actions in the two worlds.

Intelligent, adaptive, and configurable network and compute platforms: The performance of the applications that make an experience come to life will also be optimized with end-to-end (E2E) guarantees by building on existing capabilities integrated with deterministic compute capabilities that host and manage the critical tasks of real-time applications.

Fluid computing allows applications to be deployed seamlessly and dynamically across the network platform with integrated pervasive compute resources. Applications can thus have access to compute and data services that always appear to be local, despite dynamic network changes or user/data mobility events. It will also be possible to maximize the use of the available resources.

Wearables working together: Rather than being a screen interface, devices should capture and deliver sensory data about how you move, what you see, what you touch, and more. Local clusters of wearable devices that share data with each other, such as smart gloves, haptic suits, a watch, a pair of smart glasses or contact lenses, will all be coordinated by the main acting immersive device.

Context-aware communication services (applications that rely on current and previous user profiles and context) will allow more personal and adaptive capabilities so that a group can collectively feel part of a combined experience.

Secure, private, and trustworthy systems: When users interact digitally with other users but also with pure virtual environments, it is important that the experience is safe to use, reliable, and does not compromise privacy.

The ability to withstand, detect, respond to, and recover from attacks and unintentional disturbances is fundamental in designing and building mobile networks to provide this confidence and will be even more critical by 2030.

To stretch this discussion a little further, there are many that think eSports could become a standard feature of the Olympic games and will be the biggest sports attraction, bypassing global giants like the Super Bowl and the football World Cup. When this happens, it will become critical to be able to assure fair competition and prevent cheating.

 In these fully digital settings, the opportunities for cheating could be deemed to be more attractive and/or accessible, with others offering shortcuts or modifications. To achieve this there will be a fine balance of privacy and conspicuous surveillance. Magnus Björkman from Tension believes that these types of dilemmas will grow, especially while eSports become a hobby for the masses.

Fundamental technologies to achieve these required properties are confidential computing, authentication and identity management, cryptographic algorithms and security protocols, security software, the use of AI for security (and security for AI), and security assurance.

Connectivity background image

Working together to invite people to be a part of new experiences

When it comes to revolutionizing experiences, you might have assumed that the primary barrier was always technical. In reality, people need to be taken on a journey too. Users need support to embrace the change that’s coming and to adopt new habits, while creators need to imagine beyond their lived experiences.

STEAM—the practice of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics—has recognized the importance of combined expertise to encourage creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. This collaborative approach is essential to continue to enhance our everyday experiences using technology.

A vision of 2030

Contributors

Jose Luis Pradas

Master Researcher

Du Ho Kang

Senior Specialist

Wolfgang John

Principal Researcher

Robert Baldemair

Principal Researcher

Gustav Wikström

Research Leader

Eric Blomquist

Strategy Execution Director