By Kjell Johansson, Ericsson Inc
Almost 20 years after the first communication service providers began talking about “all IP” as a vision for network evolution, we have reached a stage were a vast majority of services are being delivered according to an architecture where IP is truly used end-to-end, including in the end-user devices, and at scale.
About 10 years ago, Android was introduced, helping to reduce the number of mainstream platforms in popular devices – most notably smart phones, tablets and TVs. Android quickly became an application development ecosystem, and a very open one, easy to integrate into various types of networks.
About 5 years ago, the industry took a few first vital steps towards communication services delivered from private clouds, which can be defined as using Network Function Virtualization, to deliver software only applications onto an independently provided cloud platform. These are just the first steps on a journey that will bring greatly enhanced automation, elasticity and flexibility in deployment, based on improved analytics and agility, as well as a much-needed performance improvement.
The upcoming introduction of 5G for wireless, will bring enterprises and consumers onto a common and shared all-IP network, providing both an internet and communication service experience that is much enhanced. This will be possible because of a highly distributed cloud, orchestrated to provide both enterprises and consumer segments and use cases, with the look and feel of running on their own(dedicated) network.
In this paper, we will be examining a set of communication use cases and trends which all can enhance and differentiate the end user experience, improve revenues, and reduce churn. Each of these have dependencies on one or more enablers from the four technology waves above, in order to be able to scale and multiply. Our objective is to drill down on these technical dependencies, with the objective to “show the path” to realizing them.
We have elected not to cover regulatory opportunities in this document, mainly because user experience is at the center of the theme, and user experience for mission critical and government services such as Wireless Priority Service (WPS), are driven by different factors than for consumers and non-government enterprises. It is understood that the regulatory opportunities right now are indeed very exciting and are certainly an increasingly important part of what the communication services industry needs to address moving forward. Perhaps, deserving of its own document.
It should be noted that this document is a technology inventory of trends, use cases, and dependencies.
Not all of them apply to any one reader. Each vendor and each service provider will need to decide which enablers are relevant, and should also consider additional trends, use cases and enablers, applied to their specific situation