How mobile is unlocking the next wave in tech innovation
- Businesses, industries, and countries must unleash the potential of mobile networks to drive digitalization and sustainable growth worldwide.
- Ericsson is paving the way for mobile innovation across sectors to improve productivity and collaboration through programmable networks and network APIs.
We are on the verge of a seismic shift as enterprises and the public sector embrace full digital transformation. And with that shift comes a simple truth: no high-performing mobile connectivity, no advanced digitalization.
We see three major, interdependent cross-industry trends accelerating over the next 5 to 10 years: electrification, automation, and digitalization. Realizing the potential of these trends depends on three connected technologies: mobile, cloud, and AI. Working together, these technologies will boost efficiency and productivity while enabling digital, user-friendly services, immersive experiences, and more sustainable solutions.
Without mobile, neither cloud nor AI can truly scale. This is why it’s so important to fully scale this next wave of advanced connectivity—specifically the superior capabilities of 5G. Similar to the previous technology shifts that digitalized consumers and drove a rapid expansion of the app economy, the next wave of mobile will reshape enterprises, unlock new network value, and unleash innovation across sectors.
Making the next wave of mobile connectivity a reality
In recent years, there has been a fundamental shift in how we build mobile networks. At Ericsson, we now design and build open programmable networks. These networks are resilient and energy-efficient, ensuring a superior user experience in terms of availability, reliability, and speed.
At the same time, a programmable network can be managed through software, which allows quick changes and flexible control over how the network acts and what services can be launched. This enables faster, more secure, and differentiated connectivity, creating priority-based service levels that provide tailored solutions for each enterprise and government customer.
We are also changing how innovators, entrepreneurs, and enterprises can take advantage of unique network features. While the mobile network is the biggest platform the world has ever seen, it has only been operating in one direction—from the network to the user. We want to make it bidirectional, allowing developers to interact with the network and use its unique capabilities to innovate.
We drive this fundamental shift through network application programming interfaces (APIs). These are standardized interfaces that enable mobile networks and applications to talk to each other and empower developers to call up specific network resources, such as quality of service, speed, latency, and location, with a simple command.
Our ambition is to see millions of developers using 5G technologies to experiment, innovate, and build game-changing apps.
Last year, we announced a new partnership with some of the world’s largest communications service providers. They will open their networks to make advanced capabilities easily accessible through a global platform for aggregated network APIs. This will result in new use cases for banking, logistics, manufacturing, and other areas we can’t even imagine yet.
Real-life impacts of advanced connectivity
Today, many industry sectors use proprietary solutions and lack a single connectivity technology base, which limits scale benefits, such as greater efficiency and lower costs. Some areas where our standardized networks can transform an industry include private networks, networks for first responders, and connections to satellites called non-terrestrial networks.
Together with network APIs and other innovations, these new types of networks will enable manufacturers to redesign production processes, allow retailers to use cellular as the primary access technology across all locations, and ensure that emergency services and messaging are available in every corner of the globe. We see these productivity gains firsthand in our 5G-connected factory in Texas, where innovations such as digital twins have helped to double labor productivity.
Let’s look more closely at three examples of the next wave of mobile innovation:
- Mission-critical broadband enables seamless cooperation between first responder agencies. Medical systems can report real-time patient data, complemented by video for added insights. At the same time, medical staff in the field can receive prompt instructions from doctors and utilize a wide range of new applications, including AI-based voice analytics to monitor a caller’s status for accurate pre-diagnosis of conditions such as heart attacks.
- Ports are fundamental to the global economy, transferring up to 90 percent of the world's goods, and mostly seeking operational efficiency and decarbonization. In Singapore, we are deploying 5G advanced connectivity with Singtel at Tuas Port to connect 5G-enabled automated guided vehicles (AGVs). This will improve real-time shipment tracking and further optimize crane operations, allowing for smooth cargo transportation between the dock and ships and vice versa.
- Network APIs will enable enhanced fraud protection online. Amazon Web Services is working with Vonage and Ericsson to leverage APIs to enhance mobile security through features like SIM swap detection and secure authentication, all boosted by generative AI.
The next wave of mobile will determine the winners of tomorrow
The companies, countries, and regions that lead with 5G today will reap the lion’s share of innovation and become the economic and political powerhouses of tomorrow. Just as railroads catalyzed industrialization, next-level mobile networks will reshape the economic and political landscape, driving sustainable growth.
The US and China have thrived in the consumer platform economy because they were the first countries to build out nationwide 4G networks. India, the US, and China, along with parts of the Middle East, are already racing ahead in the 5G era. For example, China has deployed more than 10,000 private networks to digitalize enterprises and realize massive productivity gains while India has doubled down on its 5G efforts to deploy more than 1 million 5G cells within a year.
Europe, on the other hand, has fallen behind. Collectively, it now faces a choice that will have a far-reaching impact—either continue leading the world in regulation or start competing in innovation and technologies such as 5G, as my colleague Jenny Lindqvist writes in a new blog post.
Innovating to foster tomorrow’s growth
I am an optimist by nature and have always believed that you shape your own future. Digitalization is only going to accelerate, and the telecom industry has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create transformational change in societies across the globe. Countries have an important choice to make. Are they going to commit to technological leadership or will they stand on the sideline?
It may be challenging to collectively unstick ourselves from how we worked in the past, whether on a business- or government-level or within the telecom industry itself. As my dad used to say: “When is the best time to plant a tree? 40 years ago. When is the second-best time? Today. Just get started.”
Now is the time to get started. Are you ready to join us?
Delve deeper into how Ericsson helps developers leverage advanced 5G capabilities to foster mobile innovation:
- Explore the potential of network APIs
- Read the latest Ericsson Mobility Report
- Discover our plans for MWC 2025
This post also appears on the World Economic Forum Agenda site.
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