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Get set for the open network (r)evolution

Get set for the open network (r)evolution

Evolve to a high-performing, programmable network

It is time to move beyond the era of traditional mobile broadband. The breakthrough of high-performing and programmable network capabilities is unleashing a new era of business innovation built around differentiated connectivity and network APIs, opening up new revenue streams. This is not just a network evolution, it’s an industry-wide revolution that will transform what mobile services can enable and how they are monetized. Are you ready for the open network (r)evolution?

Four innovation journeys of the open network (r)evolution

The convergence of AI, cloud and open interfaces continues to spur major advances across today’s mobile networks. This evolution underpins four key inter-connected evolutionary journeys that will lay the groundwork for tomorrow’s business- and operational models.

A network evolution that will transform business model innovation

A network evolution that will transform business model innovation

1. High-performing networks

High-performing networks provide superior performance and energy efficiency, at the lowest total cost of ownership whilst ensuring network security and resilience. Today, 5G deployments are far from complete. The transition to 5G standalone and further densification of 5G mid-band sites is needed to fully scale for new revenue opportunities and new business models. Achieving high performance also means developing and dimensioning networks to deliver the right coverage, capacity, speed, latency, precise positioning, security and resilience that tomorrow’s consumers, enterprises and industries demand. As part of ongoing modernization strategies, the deployment of AI-powered network solutions will play a key role in enhancing and improving network performance, energy efficiency and security posture – while maintaining a lower cost of ownership.

Jump to high-performing networks

2. Programmable networks

Adding programmability to high-performing is a game changer for networks. Programmable networks underpin the evolution towards new business and operational paradigms, enabling new innovative ways to orchestrate, manage and automate service delivery across all network domains. This includes new possibilities to fully program the RAN through rApps to optimize and allocate network resources, as well as enabling AI-powered intent-driven and service-centric networks capable of truly scaling differentiated service models and achieving autonomous operations. Programmable networks will influence the network behavior to achieve a desired business outcome: enabling differentiated connectivity at scale and laying a foundation to meet your goals on the journey to autonomous networks.

Jump to programmable networks

3. Autonomous networks

Autonomous networks are the new operations paradigm, it is a journey that will leverage the capabilities of the programmable network to create zero-touch network life cycle management. Further, the business support systems and the end-to-end orchestration and assurance use the capabilities to facilitate efficient operations, business agility and new monetization opportunities such as network APIs.

Jump to autonomous networks

4. Differentiated connectivity and Network APIs

Differentiated connectivity, enabling the new business paradigm, refers to the ability for service providers to offer multiple levels of connectivity services with deterministic performance, designed to meet distinct and varied needs of emerging consumer and enterprise applications. Network APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) allow developers to easily access valuable 5G network capabilities such as differentiated connectivity, location, security/authentication and network insights to enhance existing applications and develop new ones. As a result, our industry is moving deeper into dynamic pricing models, where the value of network capabilities can be monetized to bring network investment back in line with revenue growth. Engagement and continued collaboration across technology ecosystems will be key to realizing the potential of this emerging platform.

Jump to the network as a platform

The new business paradigm: get set for an entirely different go-to-market

As networks evolve in coming years, traditional best effort service models will no longer keep pace with the increasingly dynamic connectivity demands of future consumer, enterprise and industry markets.

For service providers, this will require a shift in go to market strategy – taking the industry deeper into advanced performance-based and platform business models. Existing mobile broadband (MBB) business models will remain but be joined by new revenue streams that cater to enhanced applications and entirely new markets in entirely new ways. Leading CSPs are already exploring new business models and go-to-market strategies. Today at Ericsson, we’re actively collaborating across innovation ecosystems to make that happen. In doing so, we’re laying the groundwork for your future business.

Traditional mobile revenues

Traditional mobile revenues

Traditional best-effort business models alone will not be capable of stimulating or sustaining the long-term growth potential of new, advanced mobile use cases. While best-effort business models will remain a source of valuable income for the industry, the ongoing shift to differentiated connectivity is driving a new business paradigm based on performance-based service differentiation. This will provide a valuable complement to today’s traditional revenue streams.

Performance-based revenues

Performance-based revenues

Differentiated connectivity, enabling the new business paradigm, refers to the ability for service providers to offer multiple levels of connectivity services with deterministic performance, designed to meet distinct and varied needs of emerging consumer and enterprise applications. It will also open new ways to enhance today’s best-effort offerings, such as enhanced fixed wireless access services as a premium service and location-based performance-assured offerings that can enable further innovation of event experiences.

Platform revenues

Platform revenues

Based on standardized network APIs, platform business models enable more dynamic pricing models based on when, where and how much a network capability is used, including differentiated connectivity, location, security/authentication and network insights. Such models will grow in coming years leveraging new possibilities to monetize network investments across global developer markets.

Learn more about emerging business paradigms

CTO Focus Sessions: Explore a discussion on AI and network APIs innovation transforming the telecom industry

Set your strategy for total disruption

Today’s network evolution takes us into the final and most disruptive phase of 5G.

5G standalone is the starting point for high-performing, programmable networks and a steppingstone into a new technology age driven by cloudification, AI and open network architectures.

From this foundation, new capabilities will be added incrementally through an always-on network evolution that supports more consistent investment paces for new technologies across these disruptive areas.

The first step towards the digital future starts now

The decisions you make today will impact your long-term results. With us as a partner, you are guaranteed accurate guidance—no matter the strategy you choose. Today, and all the days ahead.

We help you:

Grow with incremental investments and low risk
Our modular and scalable network solutions empower us to optimize your network with precision. This will ensure you address any short-term concerns effectively—while establishing a robust future-ready foundation.

Expand into new business areas with confidence
Together—with you and partners—we explore the emerging opportunities. This assures you deliver on evolving needs of consumers, enterprises, and your business.

Secure your long-term network evolution
Our technology leadership ensures that you can navigate increasing network complexity and add the right capabilities when and wherever they are needed. Today and tomorrow.

High-performing networks

The migration to 5G standalone, coupled with network densification in the mid-band and at targeted indoor deployments at key locations, will prepare networks for the full 5G experience.

While 5G standalone lays the foundation, today’s introduction of 5G Advanced will unleash new powerful network features and capabilities that make it possible to further enhance automation, innovation and monetization in entirely new ways.

High-performing networks

Superior network performance offers service providers greater opportunities to attract and retain subscribers with a better experience, including coverage, capacity, speed, latency, precise positioning, security and resilience.  At the same time, it provides the foundation for differentiated connectivity at scale.

Meeting expected data growth with the lowest energy per delivered bit remains crucial to reducing both network energy consumption and cost. This can only be achieved through the transition towards more renewable energy sources per site, as the swap-out to more energy-efficient and low-carbon network solutions. At Ericsson, we are committed to halving absolute emissions from our portfolio in use by 2030. Modernizing a legacy 4G site today with the industry-leading Ericsson Radio System can not only provide up to ten times more capacity, but also reduce both energy consumption and weight by 30 percent.

Whether it’s streaming large sporting events, supporting enterprise wireless WAN or providing the critical foundation for smart utilities – billions of people rely on our networks every day. To safeguard both the integrity and resilience of our networks, we offer built-in security controls on all levels. By building with a secure foundation from the ground up, from standardization to operation, we build resilient 5G systems that guarantee service availability to support new business- and mission-critical use cases – safeguarding data and communication at every layer, across every industry segment.

Quality-led service providers that deliver both excellent network coverage and performance in their market are 3x more likely to retain customers and have 50 percent more customers who plan to upgrade.

Ericsson ConsumerLab 5G Pacesetter report

Continue your journey to high-performing networks

5G RAN

Peak performance meets optimized efficiency, connecting people with fast, reliable, future-ready networks.

5G Core

5G Core is the cornerstone of building a reliable 5G network and securing end-user connectivity.

Ericsson antenna system

Enhance network performance, coverage and efficiency through cutting-edge antenna systems.

Telecom Security

Safeguarding telecom connectivity in the increasingly open era of 5G

High-performing networks: insights from thought leaders

How can you unleash the power of your 5G network?

Join Erik Ekudden and Joe Russo, EVP & President of Global Networks and Technology, Verizon, as they share their insights on the dynamic partnership between Verizon and Ericsson, aimed at transforming 5G monetization and integrating cutting-edge technologies for robust, reliable networks.

Unleash limitless 5G with 5G standalone

Discover how 5G standalone unlocks new competitive benefits for telecom business, including new revenue streams. T-Mobile US share their insights.

Stay ahead of the curve with energy efficient networks

Find out how it’s possible to balance rising energy costs and environmental concerns with greater network efficiencies.  Vodafone UK and Deutsche Telekom share their insights.

Programmable networks

Programmable networks enable simplified and adaptive configuration with intents and AI, which in turn enables differentiated connectivity that can be scaled more easily and offered as multiple levels of connectivity services to consumers and enterprises. It also helps to improve network performance and user experience and automate operational procedures supporting CSPs in their journey towards autonomous networks.

Today, we are not only building service-centric networks but also introducing a new operations paradigm through a new abstraction layer comprised of ‘performance levels’ and ‘intents’ that make the introduction of differentiated connectivity scalable. By building the connection between business objectives and dynamic network resource allocation, intent-driven networking provides value on many fronts, enabling both high-performing and autonomous networks.

Programmability introduces a new paradigm in network management through rApps that utilize real-time data for network optimization, healing, deployment and evolution. The integration of intelligent and programmable capabilities directly within the RAN layer through smart applications and a service management and orchestration (SMO) framework provides an adaptive platform to enhance both service delivery and service level agreement (SLA) management – making it possible to deliver differentiated connectivity at scale.

The development and evolution in this area is accelerated through open interfaces, supported by standardized software development kits (SDK) that facilitate an ecosystem of rApp innovation. A key next step is to bring open management and orchestration to core networks as well as RAN networks to deliver a unified wireless network management and automation solution, efficiently providing end-to-end visibility across the mobile network.

It is important that the network is service aware, knowing what types of services are flowing through it will enable the network to optimize the performance to meet the different service requirements. Different services have different requirements for example the characteristics required for cloud gaming or real-time video are different from web browsing. Additionally, the RAN will provide observability for the different services making it possible to see how well the service requirements are fulfilled.

Continue your journey to programmable networks

5G Advanced

Leverage current and future 5G capabilities, preparing for future advanced services.

5G standalone

5G standalone (SA) is the gateway to new innovative applications, services and solutions

The future of programmable networks

Industry leaders share their vision at Ericsson D-15

Autonomous networks

Autonomous networks is a journey that will leverage the capabilities exposed by the programmable network to create zero-touch network life cycle management. The network’s business support systems and end-to-end orchestration and assurance use the exposed capabilities to facilitate efficient operations, business agility and new monetization opportunities such as network APIs. The evolution towards autonomous networks will ultimately make new services faster to deploy and scale, and less complex to manage.

The autonomous network is a continued evolution of the intelligent network developed through intent-driven networks and management leveraging autonomous systems, trustworthy and explainable AI, and a data-driven architecture. This will make networks increasingly capable of learning and adapting, making decisions and solving problems autonomously.

In a fully autonomous network, the system has closed-loop automation capabilities across multiple services, multiple domains, and the entire lifecycle via cognitive self-adaption.

Emerging autonomous networks will ensure end-to-end closed loop automation between resource, business and service intents – ensuring business objectives align with resource allocation and assurance.

Emerging autonomous networks will ensure end-to-end closed loop automation between resource, business and service intents – ensuring business objectives align with resource allocation and assurance.

The automation capabilities of autonomous networks are enabled through intent-driven architecture.

In this scenario, service providers can define an intent that can include multiple objectives, such as service level agreements with performance levels for different user groups, energy consumption and resource utilization. The network will autonomously evaluate the most efficient way to achieve the intent. Once an intent has been achieved, the network will also autonomously ensure the fulfilment (assurance) and take additional actions to re-establish the fulfilment of the intent.

The autonomous network is self-optimized and self-healing which enables it to maximize performance and reduce downtime to ensure the best user experience.  Today, our AI-based intelligent RAN automation solutions can reduce manual planning and optimization activities by up to 90 percent. In operations, it can fix potential issues before they arise, resulting in up to 60 percent reduction in network performance issues and up to 35 percent reduction in critical incident handling.

Having fully autonomous networks brings business agility such as enabling zero-touch through provisioning and assurance to fulfilment. This is a key enabler for supporting multiple go-to-market models at scale with assured service delivery with no human intervention.

Applying AI in network operations to enhance the user experience

15.00 %
Energy OPEX reduction through intelligent energy optimization
60.00 %
reduction in network performance issues through AI-based RAN automation
40.00 %
reduction in bad quality cells through AI-based RAN automation

Continue your journey to autonomous networks

Differentiated connectivity and network APIs

Scaling APIs across global developer ecosystems will be key to capturing the value of new platform business models. The focus in coming years will be to further expand CPaaS exposure into areas such as information about location, device and SIM, as well as Quality on Demand (QoD) offerings that use differentiated connectivity with defined performance levels utilizing the network capabilities.

As the network capabilities evolve and are further enhanced with 6G, cognitive networks and the network compute fabric this will increase the capabilities that can be exposed to continue to feed the API economy and drive innovation in different ecosystems.

Network APIs require an API gateway layer that translates network and IT domain APIs into services to be exposed to application service providers (ASPs) and developers, enabling you to seamlessly expose your network and OSS/BSS capabilities.

Network APIs enable service providers and developer platforms to unlock new business models, drive innovation and explore new revenue streams. However, achieving commercial scale will require a clear go-to-market strategy and collaboration with the ecosystem, as API adoption cannot be isolated to a single country and single service provider. API aggregators such as Aduna – a collaboration between Ericsson and leading telecom service providers – will play a key role in connecting networks and making APIs easily accessible to developer platforms and their developer communities.

Differentiated connectivity refers to the capability of service providers to offer multiple levels of connectivity services that meet the distinct and often varied performance requirements of emerging consumer and enterprise applications. By ensuring deterministic performance, these services drive digital transformation, fostering richer consumer applications and advanced enterprise solutions, and fueling revenue growth.

Unlocking such revenues will require continuous evolution of the differentiated connectivity toolbox, ensuring more predictable and reliable connectivity. This could include support for mechanisms such as Quality of Service (QoS), L4S, and user equipment route selection policies (URSP) through solutions such as Ericsson’s Dynamic Network Slice Selection.

Continue your journey to new service models

How to monetize APIs: insights from thought leaders

A new age of innovation: 5G and APIs

In this session Ericsson’s CTO Erik Ekudden and Vinod Lala, Chief Strategy Officer at Vonage, discuss the expanding Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) market and their joint journey in this globally.

Drive new revenues with network APIs

Find out how exposing your network APIs can create new ways to grow your network investments. Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica Vivo Brazil share their insights.

Built on Advanced silicon, cloud, AI and open interfaces

We are not just building networks, we're defining the future towards cloud and automation, enabling an open and growing ecosystem of innovation and APIs for network capabilities exposure.

The network evolution is enabled by four technology shifts changing the way in which networks will be built and operated.  Advanced silicon is a key enabler for advanced capabilities within networks. The cloudification of mobile networks will continue to underpin flexibility and programmability in networks as cloud-native ways of working and life-cycle management are adopted.  AI in telecom networks will continue to fundamentally change network operations through enhanced automation, optimization and reduced complexity. Open architectures in 5G continues to move technology boundaries, with open networks and management systems providing developer eco-systems with all the capabilities needed to build new rApps, bringing more network innovation and choice to today’s service providers. Openness on top of networks will continue to create an innovation platform built upon differentiated connectivity and network APIs, enabling the broader ecosystem to capture the full value of mobile networks.

Advanced Silicon (Ericsson Silicon) is at the heart of Ericsson Radio System. It is purpose-built for our mobile networks, our Ericsson Radio System, and all our 5G products across the radio, transport, and RAN compute. It's modular and reuses the same architecture and the same intellectual property across the Silicon range. What this enables for the service provider, is the very best network performance. It's also an enabler for innovation, for example, Ericsson Uplink Booster and Ericsson Spectrum Sharing. But most importantly, it provides the most optimal energy-efficient solution. Energy efficiency is crucial not only for energy consumption itself but also for reducing the size and weight of a radio or a RAN compute product.

The ongoing cloudification of network domains is replacing purpose-built network hardware with cloud-native software and cloud infrastructure. The evolution to cloud-native 5G core networks lays a foundation that will be further enhanced in coming years through a market-wide migration to cloud RAN.

As service providers move deeper into cloud-native ways of working, the nature of network evolution will also shift – enabling incremental network evolution, rather than huge network-generation growth spurts. This will also enable service providers to embrace more consistent investment paces for new technology in these areas.

There is an ongoing transformational trend of horizontalization in how networks are built, operated and opened for innovation. Instead of dedicated, well defined and vertically integrated nodes connected in a static network setup, today’s networks continue to evolve towards a more horizontal and dynamically adaptable architecture. This enables networks to deploy network functions and applications where and when they are needed to optimize performance and cost, and support business agility.

Open RAN shifts networks away from traditional set-ups with vertically integrated stacks, towards a vendor-agnostic cloud-native horizontal architecture that can be deployed on any site, any cloud, and any server platform. This makes it possible to manage RAN services and functions faster, more flexibly and with greater scalability. It also supports the development of intelligent RAN automation through rApps, ensuring that RAN remains highly efficient, secure and scalable.

Ericsson is driving the industry in all three areas of Open RAN architectures: cloudification, open interfaces and open management. Together with our partners, we can upgrade networks with superior products, industrialize deployment and operations, and unlock new revenue-generating capabilities through open, cloud-native transformation. More than a million Ericsson radios in the field are hardware-ready for the next generation of open fronthaul technology.

A future intelligent network will not just take decision autonomously, it will also provide knowledge representation, reasoning, and explanation facilities making zero-touch paradigm a trustworthy reality. Leveraging extensive domain knowledge and one of the largest data sets in the industry, Ericsson is using industry-leading intelligent solutions and AI to cut through complexity, address the requirements of modern technologies and use cases, increase network performance, lower operating costs, and enable network automation – all with a central focus on achieving concrete business goals and enabling new business models.

Revolutionizing networks wit AI

Join Erik Ekudden, CTO Ericsson, and Enrique Blanco, CTIO of Telefonica Group, as they explore the future of the telecommunications industry. In their discussion, Enrique highlights the recent joint venture aimed at standardizing access to network assets for developers, which he describes as the most relevant industry announcement in the past thirty years. He emphasizes the importance of building networks for customers and the potential of new network APIs to enable innovative use cases such as quality on demand, advanced positioning for security, and fraud prevention. Enrique also discusses the transformative role of AI in automating and optimizing network management, predicting that AI will become a critical tool in planning and controlling networks.

Continue your journey to open networks

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