爱立信CEO：我们将迎来新的移动数据革命

    据通讯网络巨头爱立信首席执行官卫翰思预测，在未来的5年内，无线通讯行业会经历翻天覆地的变化。

    在历经数十年改善互联网和语音服务之后，移动产业将把触角伸向汽车、医疗、教育等新领域。卫翰思表示，通讯公司如今不再沉迷于设法提高数据传输速度，而是开始设计网络来解决其他的迫切问题，如可靠性、能源效率和价格承受力等。

    卫翰思表示：“在过去，移动产业一直专注于消费者层面，试图让他们的设备拥有更好的性能和吞吐量。而如今，我们看到了消费者对这个产业的其他需求，比如安全、定位，尤其是延迟问题。”

    总部位于斯德哥尔摩的爱立信在上周五公布了第二季度财报。公司利润下滑至20.9亿瑞士克朗（合2.45亿美元），而收入从549亿克朗上升至607亿克朗。在爱立信的收入电话会议结束后接受《财富》专访时，卫翰思展望了爱立信和移动产业在未来5年中的发展情况。

    这位首席执行官预计称，直至2020年之前，3G和4G都会是全球主要的移动网络。这一预测也许会让美国读者感到惊讶。在美国，消费者对4G手机已经习以为常，不过价格因素导致大多数发展中国家都无法享受移动数据革命。爱立信的数据显示，在全球70亿移动用户中，有40亿人主要使用2G手机进行语音通话和发短信。2G手机支持互联网接入，但其网速往往比拨号上网还慢。

    卫翰思表示，随着手机厂商推出更多低价位的智能手机，全球的智能手机总数将会激增。他引用爱立信自身调查的数据，补充道：“智能手机价格每降低10美元，就会增加1亿的购买者。到2020年底，可能只有非洲仍然拥有大量2G网络。”

    随着3G和4G在全球普及开来，移动产业也将推出下一代蜂窝通信网络：5G。然而，5G比起前几代会有很大不同。3G和4G仅仅只是注重了传输速度，而5G将会是一系列不同的技术，其中每项技术分别针对不同的应用、设备和应用场合。

    带宽显然是5G网络的特色之一——在测试中，我们发现其峰值速度可以达到每秒几G。不过在某些场合，5G网络也可以设计得比2G网络更慢。为什么？因为如果你牺牲了速度，就能让耗电量变得极低，或是让网络的覆盖范围变得更广。他解释道，如果你开了一家农业公司，建立了覆盖大片农场的土壤质量和湿度感应器网络，你就不需要很大的带宽。你需要的是网络足够可靠，只要一节电池就能让埋在地下的感应器工作好几年。

    另一种5G网络可能会注重解决延迟问题，即一个数据请求在网络中来回所需的时间（想象一下你点击链接到网页弹出之间的延迟）。随着自动驾驶汽车开始上路，它们需要在毫秒级别的时间内联系到其他汽车并接上网络，通知各车辆自己的目的地，以及路上可能会遇到的障碍。卫翰思表示，你的联网汽车也许需要很大的带宽，以便让你在后座上看电影，不过想要在路上行驶，只有低延迟的网络才能让汽车迅速做出反应。

    5G并不需要移动运营商建立多重网络。实际上，目前的网络就足以在任何时候满足任何类型的连接。卫翰思表示：“一部分网络可以向某些设备提供高速连接，而另一部分则可以向自动驾驶汽车提供低延迟网络。”他补充说，尽管感应器之类的设备需要通过优化才能接受某一种5G网络，但汽车之类的产品则可以接受任何种类的5G网络。

    爱立信已经同竞争对手，如华为、三星、诺基亚和纽约大学等学术研究机构合作，实地测验这些技术。不过5G将涵盖的内容和范围目前尚未确定。现在仍然没有公认的5G标准，在接下来几年内也不会有。不过有一件事情可以肯定：移动产业和全球监管部门都希望5G能成为一项重要性远超3G和4G的技术。已经有人建议5G网络利用廉价的移动宽带覆盖整个国家甚至整个大洲，或是让它成为物联网的骨干网络。

    卫翰思毫不掩饰对行业新前景的远大抱负。他表示：“我相信移动技术将发挥更广泛的作用。它可以解决地球上一些最大的问题。”（财富中文网）

    译者：严匡正

    审校：任文科

    The wireless industry will undergo a radical shift over the next five years, according to Hans Vestberg, CEO of telecom networking giant Ericsson.

    After spending decades improving Internet and voice services, the mobile industry will branch into new markets that range from automotive and healthcare to education. Instead of obsessing over ways to boost data speeds, companies are now designing networks that solve other pressing problems from reliability, to power efficiency and affordability, Vestberg said.

    “Historically the mobile industry has been focused on the consumer, getting better performance and throughput to their devices,” Vestberg said. “Now we’re seeing demands from the industry that are different from those of consumers—things like security, location and especially latency.”

    Ericsson, based in Stockholm, reported 2nd quarter earnings on Friday that showed net profits fell 2.09 billion Swedish kroner ($245 million), while revenue increased to 60.7 billion kronor from 54.9 billion kronor. After Ericsson’s ERICCSON 0.00% earnings call, Vestberg sat down with Fortune to discuss Ericsson and the mobile industry’s future prospects over the next five years.

    One of Vestberg’s main predictions may come as a surprise to readers in the U.S., the CEO believes 3G and 4G will dominate the world’s mobile connections by 2020. In the U.S. consumers take 4G phones for granted, but much of the developing world has been priced out of the mobile data revolution. According to Ericsson’s figures, 4 billion of the world’s 7 billion mobile subscribers have a 2G phone used primarily for voice calls and text messages. Phones with 2G are often slower than dial-up speeds and support Internet access.

    As device makers launch more inexpensive smartphones they’ll proliferate around the globe, Vestberg said. “For every $10 you reduce the price of the smartphone, 100 million more people will buy them,” he added, citing data from Ericsson’s own research. “By the end of 2020, the only region of the world that will still have a lot of 2G connections may be Africa.”

    As 3G and 4G takes hold globally, the mobile industry is also set to introduce the next generation of cellular networking, 5G. However, 5G will be much different from its predecessors. While 3G and 4G narrowly focused on delivering speed, 5G will be a bunch of different technologies, each focused on different types of applications, devices and use cases.

    5G will definitely have a bandwidth component—in tests, we’re seeing multi-gigabit peak speeds—but in some cases, 5G networks will be designed to be slower than 2G networks. Why? Well, that’s because if you sacrifice speed, you can create extremely low power or far-ranging networks. If you’re an agricultural company building a vast grid of soil quality and moisture sensors across huge tracts of farmland, you don’t need much bandwidth. You need a highly reliable network with sensors that can stay buried underground for years on a single battery charge, he explained.

    Another type of 5G would focus on latency, which is the time it takes for a data request to make it through the network and back (think of the delay between the time you click on a link and the time it takes for the webpage to pop up). As autonomous cars hit the road, they’ll need to communicate with one another and the network at split-millisecond speeds, alerting each other to their intentions and potential obstacles on the road. Your connected car may need a high-bandwidth connection to stream a movie to a display in the backseat, but in order to drive on the road it will need to have the instant reflexes only a low-latency network can bring, Vestberg said.

    5G won’t necessarily require mobile operators to build multiple networks. Instead, current networks should be capable of configuring itself for any type of connection or application at any given time. “One slice of the network could provide a high-speed connection to some devices, while another slice could provide a very low-latency connection to autonomous cars,” Vestberg said. While some devices would be optimized—for instance a sensor—to receive one type of 5G link, Vestberg added, others, such as cars, could receive any type of 5G connection.

    Ericsson is already testing these technologies out in the field alongside competitors like Huawei, Samsung, Nokia and academic research institutions like NYU. The full extent and scope of what will become 5G, though, hasn’t yet been determined. There’s still no agreed-upon 5G standard, and there won’t be for several years. One thing is certain, though, the mobile industry and global regulators want 5G to become a far more significant technology than 3G or 4G ever was. There are proposals to use 5G to blanket whole countries or even continents with cheap mobile broadband coverage or make it the backbone of the Internet of things.

    For his part, Vestberg isn’t apologizing for his industry’s newfound ambition. “I believe mobile technology has a much broader role to play,” he said. “It could solve some of the biggest problems on earth.”