Addressing attendees in the digital Imagine Live Broadcast from Ericsson’s Hall 2 event space at the Fira Gran Via exhibition venue in Barcelona, Ekholm reflected on how the transformative impacts of the app economy breakthroughs of the past decade would not have happened without mobile connectivity.
Turning to 5G, Ekholm said the world could expect the technology to drive digitalization and the app economy even further.
Describing connectivity as a basic human need and the most democratic and inclusive technology that the world has seen, Ekholm pointed out that there are currently some 8.5 billion subscriptions globally.
“There is no more affordable and cost-efficient technology. It connects and empowers everyone,” he said.
Intel Partnership
Ekholm was joined by Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger to talk about how the companies are partnering on Open RAN through the Ericsson-Intel Technology Lab.
Ekholm said Ericsson’s Cloud RAN portfolio provides flexible deployment options for customers – a key step towards more open architecture to leverage Cloud and AI for automation.
“We, as an industry, have a key asset with unique global scale and 8.5 billion subscriptions,” he said. “We, as an industry, need to work together and continue to harmonize network specifications as part of one global set of standards. This will deliver the best performance and enable innovation, while maintaining our unique global scale.”
Ekholm said Intel is one of the key players that Ericsson is working with to drive the evolution to industry-scale Open RAN.
Gelsinger highlighted what he called the “five superpowers” that are enabling the “digitization of everything”, including Computing, Infrastructure, AI and Sensing.
“But the most important is Connectivity,” he said. “Everyone and everything is becoming connected. To make that connectivity truly pervasive, we have to change the network. We have to cloudify and turn to software that network so that we can truly deliver that scale. As 5G deployments are now happening – and we look forward to Private 5G and 6G – this cloudification is becoming so critical to our future and that requires the deep collaboration of industry players like you and I.”
Gelsinger showed a next-generation Intel processor, explaining how it now comes withs V RAN technology.
Both CEOs stressed the importance of collaboration across the ecosystem, with Ekholm highlighting Ericsson’s work in the Open RAN Alliance.
Themes and Demos
Thousands of MWC attendees are expected to visit Ericsson’s hall during the February 27-March 2 conference.
Other elements of Ericsson’s Imagine Live broadcast focus on major company themes for MWC 2023: Ericsson’s transition to a network platform company, 5G monetization opportunities, the company’s leadership in Networks, and Ericsson’s determination to lead in climate action product and solutions.
Ericsson Climate Action Program Manager, Emilie Ohlander, discusses what the company is doing across products and solutions, and how the ICT industry can help to reduce carbon emissions.
As 5G subscriber numbers continue to grow around the world – having recently topped the one billion milestone globally across 235 commercial 5G networks – so too will demands for consumer and enterprise applications.
Sibel Tombaz, Head of Product Line 5G RAN within Ericsson’s Business Area Networks, talks about 5G monetization opportunities and the related importance of leadership in networks.
Vonage CTO, Savinay Berry, addresses new network monetization opportunities that will result from Ericsson’s transition to becoming a global network platform company following the acquisition of Vonage. He highlights how Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and network capabilities such as speed, latency and network slicing will create innovation opportunities.