President and CEO of Ericsson, Börje Ekholm
Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company Ericsson, is looking forward to a 5G-enabled World Cup experience in Qatar next year, a company spokesperson has told The Peninsula yesterday.
A long-standing strategic partner of Qatari communications service providers (CSPs), Ericsson has also recently entered into a five-year strategic 5G global frame agreement with Qatar-based multinational telecommunications company Ooredoo Group. Ooredoo has also previously announced Ericsson as the company’s 2020 Internet of Things (IoT) Platform Partner of the Year.
“As a long standing strategic partner of Qatari communications service providers and institutions, we are proud to be enabling the communications infrastructure of Qatar for many years and we are looking forward to a 5G-enabled sports experience in Qatar in 2022 as part of our continuous journey to supporting the country’s national ambitions of digitalisation. We are honoured to be supporting our customers to deliver a best-in-class end-user experience during the mega sporting events in Qatar.
“Ericsson has an extensive experience in supporting the connectivity during mega sports events by offering our latest 5G technologies in that area. We are already assisting operators at major events all over the world, allowing us to build up deep insights into user behaviours, sentiments and expectations. Ericsson has developed key competencies to address what it takes to ensure high quality end-user services at big events, which is a combination for success,” a spokesperson for Ericsson has told The Peninsula yesterday.
Addressing the Ericsson UnBoxed Office 2021 virtual summit earlier yesterday, President and CEO of Ericsson, Börje Ekholm (pictured), said 5G adoption is accelerating around the world, and added that there will be half a billion 5G subscribers by the year-end.
“That actually shows that 5G is the generation that rolls out the fastest of all Gs. And what we already see is that the consumption of data in the 5G subscriber is two to three times compared to 4G subscribers,” Ekholm said.
He added that the COVID-19 pandemic has proven that the mobile networks are a real critical piece of infrastructure.
“I believe the mobile service providers here are really in a sweet spot to capture this enterprise opportunity. That can mean a significant expansion of revenues compared to the current business,” he added.
During the event, it was also highlighted that by 2030, the 5G platform will unlock $30 trillion in cumulative revenues for the whole ICT sector. This will enable innovation in e-commere, advertising, entertainment, gaming, consumer IoT, music, as well as augmented and virtual reality. And service providers have the opportunity to clinch 10 to 12 percent of this revenue by innovating their service portfolio and fast ensuring that their consumer business revenues keep up with the pace of market development. While up to $700bn of 5G enabled business-to-business value can also be addressed by the service providers by 2030.
Meanwhile, Ekholm, who also addressed the pressing global climate concerns, reiterated the company’s goal to be carbon neutral in its operations by 2030. “The biggest crisis we as humanity are facing right now is the climate crisis. And we at Ericsson, we’re putting sustainability at the centre of all we do. This includes our goal to be carbon neutral in our own operations by 2030, but we’re also going to continue to work to reduce emissions within our supply chain, as well as supporting our customers to break the energy curve, and improve energy efficiency in our own products,” he added.
An Ericsson study has found that by 2030, about 15 percent of the global emissions can be reduced through the use of advanced data field technologies, including 5G.
“As difficult as 2020 has been, I’m very excited about the future. The pace of innovation has never been higher than it is now. And we can’t overstate the importance of our industry to the world today,” said Ekholm.
