Ekow Nelson
Communications technology has gone from being a luxury to
becoming a basic human need and for millennials and younger, connectivity is
now nearly as important as the air they breathe.
We know that connectivity improves lives every day, including
the small things many of us now take for granted, like using digital wallets in
communities without traditional banking, smartphones to navigate our way across
town, wearables to track our health and fitness, to big things that might once
have seemed unimaginable, like doctors being able to make an accurate diagnosis
of a patient remotely.
Unfortunately, this reality remains a dream for over one-third
of the world’s population who are unable to leverage the social, economic, and
environmental benefits that accompany broadband connectivity. With the
requisite infrastructure investments, ecosystems, and policies, many more
people can enjoy these benefits and we can transform the planet.
Digital Acceleration
While earlier generations of mobile networks enabled voice
and some basic data connectivity, fourth generation (4G) mobile communications,
along with smartphones and their ecosystem of applications spawned a new App
economy worth over six trillion US Dollars, or seven percent of global output,
and has transformed the way we live, interact, and conduct business.
The trend towards digitalization was accelerated with onset
of the Covid-19 pandemic. During these difficult times, we enabled
two years of digital transformation in a matter of months. And the
pace of acceleration has set the bar for the speed of innovation.
The confluence of the global pandemic and digital
acceleration has increased our comfort with online collaboration and
communication tools – using technology to shrink distance and simulate physical
presence. And while we cannot eliminate the need for human contact, millions of
people are now comfortable replacing physical events with virtual ones, opening
new possibilities for how we work and live.
Simulation of physical presence online will become part of
the new world in what some call the metaverse, and others Web. 3.0. As with the
early digital disruption, the asset light industries of entertainment and media
are poised to lead this transformation.
Industry Transformation
With 5G, however, the transformation of asset heavy
enterprise will usher in a new form of industrialization based on
digitalization.
The convergence of digital-physical world will provide a vast
number of benefits to product development and creation – allowing control of
physical objects in a virtual world. ‘Digital twins’, virtual replicas, will be
used in the automation of industry, helping with predictive maintenance in
smart factories, and optimizing logistics flows.
Future connectivity will allow real-time collaboration
regardless of location and therefore broaden access to expertise and talent
pools, wherever they are in the world, making the brain-drain a relic of the
past.
Mobile drives economic development
The role of mobile technology as a catalyst for innovation
and socio-economic development cannot be overstated. Studies conducted by
Ericsson and Imperial College in London have shown the clear link between
mobile broadband penetration and GDP growth – a 10 percent increase in the
mobile broadband penetration drives 0.8 percent increase in GDP
. This effect is even stronger in lower-income countries and
hence the potential to leapfrog in the economic development by investing in
mobile broadband infrastructure.
A catalyst for tackling the climate crises
Despite these economic benefits, digital transformation is
also a contributor to the urgent climate challenge that confronts humanity,
particularly through the energy consumed by the networks and data centers we
build and operate.
While the ICT industry is responsible for 1.4 percent of
global carbon footprint, research by Ericsson shows that ICT solutions can
enable reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions by up to 15 percent.
Foundational pillars for transformation
We see three foundational pillars for enabling digitalization:
the need for a robust and reliable network infrastructure; a conducive
regulatory environment to encourage investment; and the evolution and growth of
ecosystems.
Digital Transformation requires at its base an infrastructure
that is scalable, reliable, dynamic, resilient, and secure, with reduced energy
consumption.
Resilient, scalable infrastructure
Fast growing countries in the Middle East like the United
Arab Emirates are investing substantially in their infrastructure capabilities
to enable economic diversification and growth. In a bid to diversify their economies, these
nations are now investing in greenfield Industry 4.0 initiatives.
Governments must incentivize pervasive, high quality
infrastructure deployments. Spectrum price in the short-term should not be
prioritized over long term value generated. Advanced countries in the Middle
East have led the way on this and it is beginning to pay off in improved performance
in many of the global infrastructure leadership indices.
A spectrum policy that drives development
From a government and regulatory standpoint, the biggest
lever is the timely availability of ample, cost-effective, and harmonized
spectrum. Spectrum is the lifeblood of mobile
communications. It is a limited national resource and starving the mobile industry
of spectrum will slow down the pace of digital transformation.
It is imperative to maximize spectrum availability and
develop a clear, reliable, and long-term timetable for its assignment. Unused
or underused spectrum does not add value to any country, and long-term clarity
of spectrum licenses is necessary to encourage infrastructure investments.
Furthermore, spectrum license conditions should incentivize
investment with the flexibility to use allocated spectrum for multiple
technologies to reduce cost and increase agility. It is critical to uphold the
principle of technology neutrality, to stimulate investments in infrastructure
and enable innovation.
Ecosystem collaboration
Finally, the ability to work with a broad cross-function of
collaborators towards a common goal will become the norm, ending inherited
ideas of competition, traditional boundaries, by focusing on true
interconnectivity.
Ericsson is committed to open standards that enable mobile
innovation to thrive. We will bring together partners across eco-systems to
collaborate, innovate and kindle new ideas and evolve ways in which we expose
network functions that enable digital innovations to scale. However, a country must
ensure technology neutral policies so they can leverage the innovation brought
by new generations of technology.
An opportunity to leap-frog development
Digital Transformation affords emerging economies a massive opportunity to be major players in the upcoming 4th industrial revolution based on world-class digital infrastructure and platforms for innovation. Governments, regulators, telecom industry and application ecosystems have key roles to play in enabling this step-change in development.
By: Ekow Nelson, Vice President of Ericsson Middle East and Africa.