Ericsson CTO acclaims APAC’s pace-setting role in the Networked Society

Monday 20 October 2014 12:07
- Asia-Pacific sets pace of change towards the Networked Society with half of world's mobile subscriptions

- Digitalization of traditional industries brings new demands and value to future networks

- One network for multiple industries accelerates innovation

Ericsson Chief Technology Officer Ulf Ewaldsson has hailed the leading role played by the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region as more and more people and devices get connected in the Networked Society.

Speaking to an audience of analysts and journalists, Ewaldsson used numbers from the latest Ericsson Mobility Report to illustrate the APAC region’s dominance in subscription growth, as well as its lead in LTE technology adoption.

“With half of the world’s total mobile subscriptions, APAC sets the pace of the change that our industry is facing,” said Ewaldsson. “It is obvious why the top five LTE markets belong to this region.”

According to the report, 65% of world’s population will be covered by LTE by 2019, and almost half of all mobile traffic in the networks will be video.

Ewaldsson told the audience that the results of the mobility report highlighted the rapid pace of change in the industry.

“We are now talking exabytes, which is a unit of information equal to 1000 petabytes or 1000 x 1000 terabytes. By 2019, we expect that consumers in mobile networks will generate about 1 exabyte of voice traffic and almost 20 exabytes of data. In addition, the M2M or machine type communications will add a whole new dimension to data consumption and information exchange in our networks.”

In the Networked Society, consumer behavior and business practices will be digitalized and many industries will transform, delivering services in an interconnected and interoperable way.

“Cars will be connected and constantly exchange live data to increase safety. Remote healthcare with a real-time information flow will make it easier for both doctors and patients. This industry transformation will place new demands on the network, but also create more value to the network. The network will become even more relevant,” said Ewaldsson.

With mobility, broadband and the cloud as key technology components, the Ericsson CTO predicted that future networks will be one common platform for multiple industries.

“With all data hosted in cloud, security, governance and real-time access will be missioncritical in many situations, while cross-domain orchestration and integrated network control will be fundamental for future networks," Ewaldsson explained.

"This is why we invest heavily in technologies like Cloud, Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV), as well as security, automation and governance of data in the cloud.

“We transform networks in order to transform many industries beyond smartphones together with our customers, leading service providers in the world. Together we expand the community, embrace open source and open innovation as well as global standards and accelerate the service innovation in the Networked Society,” concluded Ewaldsson.