550mn users to be connected to 5G networks by 2022: Ericsson Mobility Report

By tech2 News Staff /  25 Nov 2016 , 18:06

Ericsson has released a new Ericsson Mobility Report forecasting the trends in telecom sector across the world. According to the report, there are two major trends that the networking giant can foresee. The first, obvious trend is the rise of 5G networks and consumers subscribing to the network. The second one being rise in mobile broadband to 6.1 bn unique subscribers by 2022.

The report points out that approximately half billion users will be connected to 5G networks by 2022 with almost quarter of all the mobile subscriptions opting for 5G connectivity.

Nearly 25 percent of all the 5G subscriptions in 2022 will come from North America, with the exact figure reaching 550 million. Asia Pacific will closely follow North America regarding the fastest growth of 5G subscribers with about 10 percent of the share. The Middle East and Africa will shift from predominantly GSM/EDGE only to approximately 80 percent of users being connected to WCDMA/HSPA and LTE. The report further points out that the mobile subscriber base is estimated to scale 6.8 billion with over 95 percent people being connected to 4G or 5G networks.

Ulf Ewaldsson, chief strategy and technology officer, Ericsson added, “Almost 90 percent of smartphone subscriptions are on 3G and 4G networks today and standardised 5G networks are expected to be available in 2020.” He further added that 5G would help Automation, IoT and big data.

The second major point discussed in the report was the rise of mobile broadband with approximately 6.1 billion unique subscribers by 2022. To set the context, the world added 84 million new mobile subscriptions during the third quarter of 2016 with India leading regarding net additions with 15 million, with China closely following with 14 million new mobile subscribers.

Ericsson also points out that the mobile video traffic will grow 50 percent every year through 2022, accounting for about 75 percent of all the mobile data traffic. Social Media traffic will be the second type of traffic that will dominate the mobile traffic growing 39 percent each year.

Currently, consumers are focusing on the live streaming aspect along with social networks to interact with friends, family and customers. Two in every five smartphone users are interested in live streaming apps in India and other high-growth countries like Brazil, Indonesia and Oman with the figure dropping to one in every five smartphone users in the United States of America.

Along with 5G and Mobile Broadband, IoT will also see significant growth, with approximately 29 billion devices connected to the internet, out of which 18 billion of the devices relating to IoT.

Ericsson keen to grow partnership with Cisco to combat weaker growth over next two years

Image Credits: REUTERS

  11 Nov 2016 , 09:21

Struggling telecoms equipment maker Ericsson is looking to expand the scope of its partnership with Cisco as it hunts for ways to offset weaker growth for the industry over the next two years. Ericsson shares, which have slumped 44 percent this year, rose 3.7 percent on Thursday after the Swedish firm gave a new outlook that was less bearish than some analysts had expected and said its Cisco partnership was gaining momentum.

Nonetheless, Ericsson’s acting CEO told investors in New York he was not satisfied with the company’s performance. “We have a tough market situation out there,” Jan Frykhammar said, pointing to weakness in emerging markets where its best hopes for more 4G mobile network upgrade contracts are located, as well as slower mobile network demand in Europe.

“We understand that we need to perform better but you also as investors need to give us some time,” Frykhammar said. The company is wrestling with a drop in spending by telecoms firms, with volume demand for next-generation, 5G technology still years away and amid stiff competition from China’s Huawei and Finland’s Nokia.

Ericsson said negative industry trends from the first half of 2016, when demand weakened for mobile broadband equipment across the industry, were expected to prevail for at least the next two or three quarters. It expects average annual growth of 1 percent to 3 percent from 2016 to 2018 for areas of the market where its provides products and services. In its previous market forecast, issued a year ago, Ericsson predicted 2 percent to 4 percent total market growth each year from 2014 to 2018.

“Ericsson is perhaps a bit more optimistic about 2017 and 2018 than the market,” Redeye analyst Greger Johansson said. Ericsson said its Cisco partnership, which was announced a year ago, got off to a slow start but was gaining traction with more than 60 joint customers and scope to collaborate in areas such as data centres, WiFi, security and the Internet of Things.

“The opportunities go beyond where we originally had been focusing, which is the core and IP networks,” said Rima Qureshi, Ericsson’s chief in North America. “As a consequence, we’re looking at expanding the scope.”

Hard Times

Ericsson has had a brutal year. Former CEO Hans Vestberg was ousted in July and the company shocked investors last month when it warned of a 93 percent plunge in operating profit for the third quarter and tumbling sales. The firm has been slashing jobs and last month appointed veteran board member Borje Ekholm to take over as CEO in January and steer the firm through its worst crisis in a decade.

It said on Thursday that its results would be weighed down by a 10 percent to 15 percent fall in the global mobile infrastructure market this year and a 2 percent to 6 percent decline in 2017.

That puts Ericsson roughly in line with Nokia, which warned last month its addressable market for mobile network equipment would likely decline by low single digits in 2017, after it announced a drop third-quarter sales.

Shares in Nokia rose 2 percent on Thursday and network equipment makers were among the top performers on the STOXX European tech index, which was down 0.9 percent overall. Still, Ericsson is more dependent on mobile broadband demand than its main rivals, as the Alcatel-Lucent merger gave Nokia a larger fixed-line networks business while Huawei has a broader telecom offering than Ericsson.

For its mainstay networks business which generates 75 percent of group sales, Ericsson cut its growth outlook, forecasting its market would be flat or shrink by as much as 2 percent between 2016 and 2018. Its new IT & Cloud division is expected to grow 5 percent to 7 percent in the same period and generate 20 percent of net sales.

Reuters

Nokia posts a sharp drop in earnings as downturn hits telecom equipment business

Image Credit: REUTERS

  27 Oct 2016 , 17:24

Nokia has succumbed to a downturn in the telecoms equipment business, posting a sharp drop in quarterly earnings and warning that demand for the kit which drives global network traffic would shrink further in the coming year. Its shares fell more than 7 percent to their lowest in three years.

The network gear market is in decline after demand for 4G equipment peaked last year and a new cycle of 5G network upgrades is not expected to begin until around 2020, a trend which earlier this month pummeled rival Ericsson. So far Nokia is seeing scant benefit from the purchase of Franco-American Alcatel Lucent, bought in a 15.6 billion euro ($17 billion) all-share deal earlier this year, though the company said integration efforts were on track.

“Although their underlying profitability is solid, it does not compensate for reported figures being weak… It’s a bit better than Ericsson’s, but it is not a good report,” said Swedbank analyst Mathias Lundberg, who rates the stock “neutral”. “In the near term, Nokia will have tough time ahead … But given time, and with the successful integration of Alcatel Lucent, Nokia could be a very forceful company,” Lundberg added.

Nokia’s third-quarter network sales fell 12 percent from a year ago to 5.32 billion euros against an average expectation of 5.39 billion. Operating profit for the unit fell 36 percent to 432 million. The company said network sales were set to decline at a similar rate in the fourth quarter as in the third, and the market would continue to shrink next year.

“As we look forward, we expect (market) conditions to stabilize somewhat in 2017, with the primary addressable market in which Nokia competes likely to decline in the low single- digits for that year,” Chief Executive Rajeev Suri told a conference call.

Synergy Programmes

Sweden’s Ericsson earlier this month reported a more than 90 percent plunge in third-quarter profit and replaced its chief executive. Yet Nokia is less dependent than Ericsson on mobile broadband demand, as the Alcatel-Lucent merger gave it a larger fixed-line network business. Nokia’s Suri said the company, which is cutting thousands of jobs worldwide, was on track with its Alcatel synergy programme which targets savings of 1.2 billion euros in 2018.

“Challenging networks markets are nothing new to Nokia and I believe we remain well positioned … with our disciplinced operating model, focus on efficiences and costs and our broad portfolio,” Suri said. Nokia’s total third-quarter operating profit fell 18 percent to 556 million euros, but that figure was buoyed by a one-off patent licensing payment.

The company also said Chief Financial Officer Timo Ihamuotila, hailed for Nokia’s succesful recent M&A moves, would quit to join Swiss engineering group ABB, to be replaced by insider Kristian Pullola. Once known for its mobile phones, Nokia sold the handset business to Microsoft in 2014, leaving it with the networks business and a portfolio of technology patents.

Reuters

What is 5G and what does it mean for me?

By Anirudh Regidi /  19 Oct 2016 , 08:43

The Qualcomm 4G/5G summit held in Hong Kong covered a lot of ground on mobile networks and the technology that enables them. By far the most important question the summit answered however, was: “What is 5G?”

To the average consumer and the layman, each generation of mobile network only means speed. 1G was analogue communication, 2G was GPRS and EDGE, 3G was 3Mbps speeds and 4G/LTE meant 20-60Mbps speeds.

To the engineers at Qualcomm, however, 5G is not just about speed. Yes, 5G promises ludicrous speeds that directly compete with wired “broadband” services, but 5G also means a vastly more efficient network and a more cohesive one.

We spoke to Peter Carson, Senior Director, marketing, Qualcomm, and Serge Willenegger, Senior Vice President, Qualcomm, who took the trouble to explain 5G to us.

What follows is a summation of the conversation we had with the two executives.

So what is 5G?

To put it simply, the use cases for 4G networks has expanded well beyond the initial scope of the standard. 5G is what you get when you reset the standard/design to cope with the increase in scope.

4G networks don’t just support mobile devices anymore. IoT (Internet of Things) devices are everywhere and the number of them is only going to increase. We’re seeing 4G modems in smart watches, in CCTVs and even in doorbells.

The complexity of 4G.

The problem is that 4G was never designed to support such a varied set of devices and as a result, the 4G ecosystem is fragmented and also congested.

5G, as happened when the transition to 4G happened, will consolidate all these standards under one roof and accommodate for

3 ways state and local governments can ensure the future of 5G mobile networks in the US

Ahead of the White House Frontiers Conference, Richard Adler, of the Institute for the Future, explained how state and local governments can help pave the way for 5G in 2020.

By Conner Forrest | October 11, 2016, 9:25 AM PST



The future of many technologies hinges on the deployment of 5G networks, but there are still a few potential roadblocks to their development Richard Adler, a distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future, said in a press call on Tuesday.

The call came a few days before the White House Frontiers Conference kicks off in Pittsburgh. The conference will focus on advances in science and technology, and Adler hosted a call to discuss the importance of 5G networks in supporting innovation and the role they will play in some of the technologies that the conference will focus on.

Mobile data traffic has experienced a 4,000x increase in the past 10 years, Adler said, and the next-generation 5G networks will help increase communication times, and improve speed and bandwidth as traffic continues to grow. The standard for 5G won't be completed until 2020, Adler said, but actions have been taken around the US to lay the foundation for the network.


One of the biggest differences with 5G is that it uses what is known as millimeter wave band, which has a shorter range, but is key to increasing capacity. Because of that, though, providers will