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TELECOM

Tectonic shift, globally

AHMED ALI, back from Sweden
Carl-Henric Svanberg, the outgoing CEO of Ericsson, made a rather stylish exit, with the closing of two-day Ericsson Business Innovation Forum 2009 just on the eve of the news conference on June 25, where lie declared he is moving on to BP as the world's fourth largest company's chairman.
Speakers at die forum that was held at the global telecom giant’s headquarters in Kista, the IT capital of Sweden, about half an hour drive from central Stockholm, included senior executives of global business behemoths like Turner Broadcasting Company, Intel, and of course Ericsson.
There were also university researchers, government officials including telecom regulators, and crusaders for Open IPTV, who spoke.
At a gallery full of journalists from almost all continents, all speakers in an unequivocal unanimity said a tectonic shift in the global telecom industry is in the offing, which will be a historic phenomenon of a magnitude no less than the invention of TV or telephony itself. The change will almost certainly affect people's behavioural pattern through modifying their methods of communication, and access to entertainment and information, sparking changes in the business of media, telecom and advertisement as well, as the world makes a permanent leap into the wireless mobile age.
The speakers predicted that the number of subscribers to telecommunication services in the world would hit 50 billion next decade from the current 4 billion, with an overwhelming majority of new subscribers opting for wireless mobile services.
Senior Vice-president and Senior Technology Adviser to the CEO of Ericsson Dr Jan Uddenfeldt said at the forum, ‘‘Internet changed telecom, mobility changed internet,’’ declaring that the new era of communication technology will bundle wireless mobile, broadband and internet protocol (IP) -- delivering a variety of services to end users on their cell phone screens.
The need for converging technologies has ushered in collaborative efforts among companies like Ericsson, Intel, CNN, Google, Sony, ST, Nokia, Microsoft and many more.
Uddenfeldt said an 'open mobile ecosystem' will be able to accommodate multiple communication systems offering an open array of choices to users. But that will require a host of innovations including new kinds of chipsets, improvement of wireless and Ethernet technologies, and invention of new mobile phone applications and hand sets. Moreover, there needs to be readjustment of bandwidth allocation for wireless communication necessitating policy regulation readjustments as well.
Intel's Global Director for the Telecom Sector John Woodget said the visceral possibility of mobile broadcast media, ushered in by wireless internet and IPTV, has put chip makers in front of a challenge of inventing new kinds of chips that will enable operators to bundle multiple services, often in cross-sector collaboration.
He said the number of devices connected to internet is about to grow 6 times by 2020, while network traffic is expected to grow by 300 times. In the near future almost all communication and media devices are likely to possess embedded internet accessibility, he added. Ericsson is collaborating with Intel and also is in a joint venture with ST for inventing the new chips.
Dr Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for Digital Future at Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Southern California, also the director of World Internet Project, said as TV is about to become mobile, cell phones are going to be more powerful in terms of influencing society than TV sets are now, and with the advent of social networking websites and mobile internet cell phones are going to be human’s constant companion. The possibility is forcing broadcasting and advertisement companies rethink their approach to business, and innovate new programmes and applications catering to the changing market expectations.
Senior Vice-president of CNN International of Turner Broadcasting Europe Cassey Harwood said mobile broadband internet is the 'big bang' for the media, and non-participation is no more an option for broadcasting and advertisement companies, adding that the new name of the game in broadcasting industry will be 'collaboration'.
He said CNN is already investing more in client expectation research and in programme innovation.
According to Ericsson Business Review, a telecom business journal, AdMob, a mobile advertising company, already took initiatives with iPhone in churning out some mobile ads with participation of companies
like Audi, Volkswagen, BMW, Carling, Heineken, Charmin, Kraft, Nike, Gap, and Coca-Cola.
Against such a backdrop, Ericsson, almost a 133 years old company, with a net sales figure of 209 billion Swedish kronor in 2008 through its operations in more than 150 countries, seems to be hell-bent on staying at the cutting edge of competition for the emerging expanded mobile telecom market.
It is venturing into a plethora of innovations, some of which are in collaboration with rivals like Nokia and others, and were on display at the forum venue, although many are still at research levels.
Under a project titled Labs.Ericsson, it is opening up its telecom capabilities to researchers and developers for open innovation on internet with instant feedback from end users.
It is also delving into mobile telemedicine research through which it would be possible to deliver healthcare and education to patients and health practitioners in remote areas.
Under a project titled AiDeBao it is researching how a small company could market its services and products using mobile internet.
Media Fabric is a project researching how it is possible for media companies and service providers to deliver internet media content to multiple home devices such as TV and gaming consoles through a new technology called Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA).
Personal Area Mediators (PAM) is a research project which is trying to come up with a way to even communicate scent over mobile phones.
IPTV is a big subject of research for
Ericsson in an effort to gain the capacity to ensure seamless high resolution audiovisual real time wireless data transfer, combining wireless, internet and television broadcasting technologies.
Social Media Portal and PixL8r are projects researching ways to allow users to remotely access their home devices through mobile phones for Converged Multimedia Services that would enable seamless multiple applications over multiple accesses^ providing seamless communication for voice, video and chaL
It is also in vigorous research on technologies such as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) and Long Term Evolution (ITE), which would allow services like interactive TV, video blogging, and advanced gaming over mobile phones.
One of the latest inventions of Ericsson is its new tower tube, made of concrete instead of steel, with a footprint of only 5 metres on the ground and a height of 40 metres, encapsulating all radio base station equipment including the antenna at the top of the tower, cutting the distance between _ the antenna and the base station. The entire tower and its equipment are cooled by natural air and it produces the required power through solar or wind energy.
Moreover, Ericsson is a part of a consortium of companies funding a multi-million dollar ten-year research project titled Mobile Life, on a campus of Stockholm University situated right in Kista next to the Ericsson headquarters. The project researches mobile phone application innovations for the mobile life of tomorrow.
Ericsson has been in full-fledged operation in Bangladesh since 1997 and is a partner to all major operators in the country. >