Ericsson Technology Review 2020 issue 2
The key role that connectivity plays in our daily lives has never been more obvious – not only for each of us as individuals but also for countless enterprises around the globe. Thankfully, despite the sudden, dramatic changes in our behavior in early 2020, networks all around the world have proven to be highly resilient.
Ericsson CTO Erik Ekudden’s view on the key role of connectivity
The key role that connectivity plays in our daily lives has never been more obvious – not only for each of us as individuals but also for countless enterprises around the globe. Thankfully, despite the sudden, dramatic changes in our behavior in early 2020, networks all around the world have proven to be highly resilient.
At Ericsson, we’re committed to ensuring that the network platform continues to improve its ability to meet the full range of societal needs as well as supporting enterprises to stay competitive in the long term. The ability to bridge distances and make it easier to efficiently meet needs in terms of resource utilization, collaboration, competence transfer, status verification, privacy protection, security and safety is of utmost importance. Greater agility and speed will be essential.
My 2020 technology trends article, in this issue of the magazine, explains my view of the ongoing evolution of the network platform in terms of the key needs that are driving its evolution and the emerging capabilities that will meet both those and other needs.
The first three trends all relate to bridging the gap between physical reality and the digital realm – that is, delivering sensory experiences and utilizing digital representations to make the physical world fully programmable. The emerging capabilities that I have highlighted this year are non-limiting connectivity, pervasive network compute fabric, trustworthy infrastructure and cognitive networks. All seven of these trends serve as a cornerstone in the development of a common Ericsson vision of what future networks will provide, and what sort of technology evolution will be required to get there.
This issue of the magazine also includes five additional articles highlighting some of our latest research in the areas of cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G advancements. The cloud computing article is particularly noteworthy, as it explains how we think network operators can best manage the complexity of future cloud deployments and overcome technical challenges.
The first IoT article in this issue explains how critical IoT connectivity can be used to address time-critical needs in areas such as industrial control, mobility automation, remote control and real-time media, while the second one tackles the challenge that today’s universal integrated circuit cards (UICC) present to IoT growth.
With regard to 5G advancements, our BSS article explores how 5G-evolved BSS can help CSPs transform themselves from traditional network developers to service enablers and ultimately service creators.
Another exciting 5G advancement that we present in this issue is integrated access and backhaul (IAB), an innovative concept that shows significant promise in addressing the challenge of wireless backhaul of street sites.
We hope you enjoy this issue of our magazine and we’d be delighted if you share it with your colleagues and business partners.
