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Fast pace of tech change increasingly a balancing act

Fast pace of tech change increasingly a balancing act

Photo by Duane Daws

7th November 2014

By: Natasha Odendaal

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

  

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Technology is moving at a rapid pace and companies are now faced with balancing the pace of change to avoid damaging disruptions.

Ericsson CEO and president Hans Vestberg this week highlighted that it took 100 years to connect one-billion places, 25 years to connect five-billion people and just five years to attract 7.1-billion mobile subscriptions.

With the fifth technological revolution having gotten under way in the past decade, it was expected that it would take only another five years to see the connection of 50-billion “things”, he told analysts and media at the Ericsson Business Innovation Forum, in Sweden.

Ericsson chief strategist Rima Qureshi noted that the next five years would also see a ten-fold increase in data traffic, a rise in mobile subscriptions from 7.1-billion to 9.1-billion and an increase to 7.5-billion mobile broadband subscriptions, up from the 2.9-billion recorded in 2014.

There would also be an increase in the number of mobile computers and tablets from 300-million this year to 580-million in 2019.

This meant that two-and-a-half-million more people would have access to the Internet, Vestberg said, adding that this emerged as the world reached the technological revolution’s “inflection point” from the first phase installation to the second phase deployment.

Operators were changing, industries were adapting and even Ericsson had reached the halfway mark of its own ten-year transformation journey to stay relevant.

“The speed of transformation has [now] become important – [there is a need to ensure the pace is] not too fast [but] not too slow [either],” Vestberg noted.

Qureshi added that “the pace of change will continue, it will create more and more opportunities for companies in transforming tomorrow”.

However, Vestberg warned that it was not the time to deploy new technology, citing examples of base station “balloons” and drones to combat the gaps in connectivity.

Standardised technology, which was the main reason for the ever-decreasing cost of infrastructure and devices, should be used throughout the journey in connecting the world’s population.

The cost of devices, which was not subsidised owing to the low average revenue per user, had been the main inhibitor of connectivity in Africa.

Vestberg pointed out that every $10 reduction in the cost of smartphones would provide up to 100-million more people access to devices.

Most of Africa’s citizens’ first contact with the Internet would be through a smartphone and its attached applications, explained Ericsson CTO Ulf Ewaldsson.

The social impact would be dramatic, as those not already connected would leapfrog the traditional technological passage of developed countries, and kick off their transformation at the end of the innovation cycle.

This was expected to spur a “totally different way” of innovation on the back of differing demands between developed and developing economies.

While developed States may be more advanced in the use of information and communication technology in manufacturing and general industry, such as incorporating connections and software-centric enhancements into vehicles, Africa was more focused on financial services and similar products to service its own specific needs.

For the hundreds of millions of unbanked people on a continent that lacked significant financial infrastructure, mobile phones were enabling access to credit and banking services, enabling small transactions at low cost and providing financial inclusion for the poor.

All operators in Africa were starting to realise that they had an opportunity to “do more [and] be more” than just suppliers of connectivity, as operators focused on settling the basics, such as devices and infrastructure, in the African market.

Edited by Chanel de Bruyn
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor Online

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