What is a metaprise?
Head of Account Solutions, Americas
Head of Account Solutions, Americas
Head of Account Solutions, Americas
By now we’ve all heard about the Metaverse, the futuristic virtual world where our avatars hang out. A place where we’re interacting with people from places that may or may not exist in the real world. Our metaselves are creating metathings, and we’re buying, selling, using, and wearing them in our metaverse. As such, new markets will be created, commerce will happen. And, we’ll be introduced to metastars – a new group of entrepreneurs and individuals who will bring their creativity and talents to bear in the metaverse. Clearly a bold, new future we can all explore and enjoy.
As I was thinking about the Metaverse, and how I might fit in, I couldn’t help but consider how I might apply some metaconcepts to my daily work. Questions came to me like:
how might my avatar deliver a metacast? Would my customers be interested in buying a metaservice? How would they use a metaproduct? What value might this add to my customers’ business?
As I thought about these questions and started to ideate some ways to apply metatools in a business environment, the term “metaprise” formed in my head. This created even more questions…what might a metaprise look like? What services and/or products might a metaprise use or offer to their metacustomers?
Metacases for enterprises
All metajoking aside, Industry 4.0 has been a hot topic for some time now. Businesses in many different industries are leveraging AI/ML, analytics, big data, automation, and robotics to re-engineer processes – replacing labor-intensive manual work with more accurate and cost-effective systems. It’s also creating new business models based on consumption. Uber is a great example: transforming the business model for consumer automotive and car ownership as a whole.
So, why not add all things XR into the mix as well? Some areas where XR might help businesses are:
- Try before buy with digital twin avatars
- Customer engagement and employee training with gamification
- New payment options with NFTs
- Increased security and safety with advanced location-based services
I’m sure there will be many more. But before I can realize any of these potential benefits, I must have reliable, secure, high-performance wireless connectivity where and when I need it…and we’re just not there today.
Connecting the metaprise – #bring5Ginside
We’ve made significant progress as an industry with wireless connectivity over the last 30 years, but there is much more to do. All the latest 5G goodness is a great foundation for the metaprise. We have access to excellent mid-band licensed spectrum and CBRS – enabling coverage and high performance. We also have a growing ecosystem of devices, sensors, and machines that can use it. And, since the vast majority of metaprise use cases like those above will be experienced indoors, we need to figure out a cost-effective and efficient way to bring all this 5G goodness inside buildings.
Ericsson’s Radio Dot System
Realizing the latent demand for a better-than-WiFi experience indoors, Ericsson has been working on this for years. Ericsson brought the very first indoor distributed radio system to market in 2012, giving mobile subscribers more bars indoors, and we’ve been innovating ever since. Today, the Radio Dot System supports 5G, including CBRS spectrum, and is backward compatible with 4G LTE. Advancements in multi-operator, neutral host functionality provide improved mobile network coverage and performance for an enterprise’s employees, customers, suppliers and partners. In addition, the same Radio Dot System that provides more bars can also deliver a private wireless network = two solutions in one.
No enterprise IT department wants to manage three separate wireless networks: a WiFi network, a private cellular network, and an indoor RAN for service provider coverage extension. The Radio Dot System gives you a better-than-WiFi private wireless network and more bars all with a single system. For businesses, this means lower costs, simplified operation and management, and a platform to create their metaprise.
Further reading
XR and 5G: Extended reality at scale with time-critical communication
Report: accelerating 5G indoors
Ericsson indoor 5G small cells
Proptivity and Ericsson unleash the power of indoor 5G with Europe’s first Neutral Host 5G network