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Welcome to EY Tech Connect podcast, where we have candid conversations about the most pressing priorities facing tech, media and telecommunication companies, and provide strategic insights on the key issues that matter to them. As industry ecosystems evolve in new directions, we use these discussions to reflect on how companies can not only take advantage of new opportunities but also tackle emerging challenges.

Adrian Baschnonga  

Hi, everybody. Let’s introduce you to our stellar lineup for today’s conversation. My name’s Adrian Baschnonga. I’m Lead Analyst for Telecommunications in EY. And I’ll be hosting the discussion alongside my colleague Christina.

Christina Winquist

Hey, Adrian. And I lead EY’s Go to Market Strategy that helps address TMT companies with critical business priorities. Today we’re going to talk about the future of connectivity. For the last 19 months with the pandemic and many of us working at home, connectivity is the lifeblood of how we live, work, play, eat and shop. So this is really important for all of us, and it’s really going to determine how the world works moving forward. So do we want to introduce our guests?

Baschnonga             

Yes, absolutely. So we’re joined today by a great collection of esteemed commentators from EY. So we’ve got Anastasia Ribbing Kristoffers. She’s Director of Technology, major in telecommunications. We have Tom Loozen, who’s global telecommunications and EMEIA TMT leader. And Peik Schulman, whose global business development leads the 5G and IoT. Fantastic. Thank you very much for joining us. We’re talking about the future of connectivity and we’re going to zero in to one crucial topic as part of that, consists of one number and one letter. That’s right. it’s time to talk about 5G. We often talk about next generation of mobile technology. We think about it as a consumer technology, but what does 5G actually mean? What’s interesting, unique and different about it?

Anastasia Ribbing Kristoffers

You know, Adrian, every G that has arrived has been believed not to be needed initially. But quickly both operators and the consumers find quite good use for it. 1G was only voice, 2G gave SMS, 3G arrived with data and then 4G with a lot faster data and now 5G with a whole lot more. One of the things, network slicing, is one of the core features in 5G, which allows a mobile operator to create specific virtual networks to handle all types of different use cases.

5G operators can tailor solutions to specific industries and applications, to better support the services. In 5G we can also see the feature enhanced mobile broadband with throughput speeds that could eventually be as much as 20 gigs, making 5G a true alternative to fiber since, you know, most fiber operators deliver around 1 gig. With of course the big drawback that 5G cell sites are quite tiny. One more thing: massive machine-type communication that will be used for IoT devices – a lot more devices can be supported than in 4G networks. So plenty of room for IoT we’ll see.

Now the challenge I would say is just to sell the IoT solutions. And maybe 5G, lastly but not least, will have ultra-reliable and low-latency communication. This is kind of a new service category, 5G, to cater for applications with high demands for latency reliability. For example, for augmented reality, virtual reality and sector recourse, of course, eventually. Building on really low  latencies. So I think 5G will bring us quite a lot.

Tom Loozen

If I could jump on that, Adrian, so I think, you know, the characteristics that Anastasia lays out right there are indeed very unique and offering a huge amount of opportunities. The way I like to think about it is just basically we can start, provide everyone and everything, anywhere on the globe, unlimited compute and storage, on an immediate basis. So you could say any device, anything that you put an intelligent connector on, any human basically gets the superpowers of what today cloud can do and artificial intelligence and all those great applications which allow you to do things that are just mind-boggling. And I think what we see is that 4G basically led to the rise of the Snap, led to Facebook, led to everything which required fast downloading, uploading, watching of videos and pictures.                               

For 5G, gaming for sure. If you take a consumer perspective, it will be interesting. Things like 360-degree video will be popular. But what we believe, and I think already Anastasia alluded to that, is that in the enterprise phase, that’s the place where you want to get everything connected, where you want to sort of provide these superpowers in the factory, in your logistics, and that’s the place where we would expect also industry suites to be working in a very different way powered by 5G in a couple of years than today.

Peik Schulman                

If I may add, 5G is an enabling technology. By itself it’s kind of a pipe that when you actually combine it with other technologies, that’s when you get the benefits, as customers and users. And then the enterprises are going to see the benefits, too.

Baschnonga             

Really interesting. What you’re all saying, and what I’m hearing, is that it’s a much broader opportunity than we’ve seen with 3G and 4G and it takes us into a much bigger addressable market and a real game changer compared to previous generations. We know it’s this huge opportunity, and that it’s a global phenomenon. There are network deployments underway everywhere across the planet. But what does investment and adoption look like when we start to double click a little bit? Are some regions ahead of others? And if so, why?

Ribbing Kristoffers

Well, 5G as you know is becoming mainstream quite fast. The was a report coming out this summer indicating that about 60 countries have 5G networks. And the current prognosis is that 5G will reach 1 billion users in three and a half years. Quite a lot faster than 4G and 3G; 3G took 12 years to reach 1 billion. On the country level, I would say that South Korea is the country in the world that deployed it first, 5G network. They’re expected to stay in lead. But also one important player coming up is China. In China they have the highest number of cities with 5G. US and South Korea, of course, has quite a few cities covered.

Then if we look at 5G penetration rates, today the consumers in South Korea are definitely the most mature when it comes to 5G. South Korea as a country has about 18% adoption rate of 5G. And that’s a lot higher than the global average of 4% to 5%. Other countries that area quite well ahead, Switzerland, China, also the Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE. But in total, I would say today, the region with the highest number of 5G would be Southeast Asia. Europe and North America have really high ambitions to catch up, hopefully in the coming five years, we will see the catch-up here.

Loozen  

I think what is interesting to watch is what is driving this, right? So Europe has the ambition to catch up. The question of what’s the point of catching up? Why not go first, right? And what I think is striking us is that indeed there seems to be an appetite in Southeast Asia to really look at technology to progress society to deal with the big issues. I think, the whole scene around the corona pandemic is an interesting one. But very actively in countries like China people looked at technology to say can we quickly stand up a connected hospital in a place where previously there wasn’t a hospital? Can we use 5G technology to do remote robotic testing of COVID-19 instead of endangering (humans) by doing that.

So I think looking at technology to help society move forward. I would say a place where the conversation is less about the potentially dangerous 5G emission or radiation, but the conversation is about hey, how does that look if we’re going to put an antenna some place into the city. I think sort of the benefits of putting technology to work for you score much higher in those places and as a consequence they go much faster, which I honestly think is a little bit worrying for us here in many countries in Europe.

Schulman                

So there is actually an interactive 5G tracking map that I’ve been tracking since 2019. It’s been very interesting to follow it on a monthly basis. How the rollouts are going on. And what strikes me really is how US is catching up on both East and the West coast. And obviously there in the middle, there’s a lot of dark spots. Similar things you see in Europe. Certain countries are not tagging along as quickly as the others. There’s a lack of tracking of these private 5G networks that are in test modes. We should bring that up because a lot of enterprises are very, very hungry, keen on understanding what 5G means. So there are a lot of tests going on, and also early production networks that are being used for enterprises.

Baschnonga

That’s really interesting, Peik. And that actually is a neat segue onto the next topic. We’ve got all this appetite around private 5G. Lots of enterprises want to get their hands onto this new technology as soon as possible, not necessarily waiting for national network rollouts. So when we think about the industry opportunity here, and even picking up on some of Tom’s examples in China, what kind of industries do we see really leading the charge? We read a lot about the industrial IoT and how 5G can act as a catalyst. What’s your perspective around the per sector opportunity?

Schulman                

Well, it really depends on where you have large areas you need to cover. Let’s say places where you need mobility, like mines and in large factory areas, where current technology is not really up to par, what they would need to go for industry (inaudible) or smart factory opportunities. So that’s when 5G steps in. And they need mobility for let’s say tracking materials, tracking their hoists, and whatever, on their yards. And then really going into factories and empowering the shop floor. That’s now the next stage what we are seeing that they are really focusing on: what can 5G bring? Could 5G be one of the key enablers when I’m trying to become sustainable in my operations? Provide health and safety with the workforce? What about cutting labor OPEX. And then obviously going for OAE. So overall equipment efficiency across the plant. That’s kind of now really on this manufacturing side where you have large facilities, where you’re looking into 5G.

Ribbing Kristoffers

And if I may add, 5G is a quite interesting concept in smart cities. When it comes to security features, both the general public, and also companies’ personnel. I think use of richer priority networks will definitely be used in this corporate context, to both work in the interface between machine and humans, and also for protecting humans.

Loozen  

And maybe, Adrian, a bit of a segue, Peik alluded to, health and safety also inside of factories. I spoke about how 5G as being used to set up connected hospitals and do testing. And I think there’s actually quite a lot of those things. When we think about remote robotics, sending robots in to do maybe hazardous maintenance initiatives, into factories. Or using 5G to do small agriculture. Right? Having basically getting real-time pictures of the crops and understanding what water they would need, what nutrition, what pesticides and be very precise in those. And I think there’s a huge opportunity to actually say hey, how can 5G sort of become a force for good and help us on all the important topics that we’re now discussing, also in a broader context of how can we create a more sustainable planet?       

I’m honestly not sure if telcos today already emphasize enough the benefits which they could provide to all those other industries to help build them better. But I think there are definitely opportunities to do so.

Winquist                   

Yes. Absolutely. And to Anastasia’s point, there’s plenty of interest by governments and why is 5G so important to policymakers in our politically charged environment across the globe? So what do you think some of the key issues are for governments and regulators who are grappling with 5G?

Ribbing Kristoffers

Well, I think some governments, they really focus on their ecosystem for digital services that arrive with 5G. And they really see the importance of innovation for business and also the public sector. Most governments focus on the open and transparent market to create this ecosystem for 5G generation. Where successful companies and, of course, also top talents can thrive. To connect back to the health sector that Tom was talking about, I think it’s quite an interesting case we see in the US, the first example of a complete virtual hospital. We actually have one hospital with Medicare people, that the patients are located at home.

So all the care and supervision is done remotely, which is quite an interesting government health care example, I think. But following onto that, public sector also has quite an important role to be a buyer in this and to drive the digital development forward. The investments made by the public sector in new technologies can not only create direct benefits, I think, but also have quite nice ripple effects in the market, and can help to really drive the innovation in the country. And the 5G digital tools can facilitate quite informative  welfare solutions and in that sense the public sector can really live up to the expectations from the citizens.

Schulman                

So really kind of making sure that the digital divide will not become too big and there is definitely a race to the well between countries here in terms of we all want to provide people and enterprises a kind of platform to build on that we then will strive in the digital economy. And that’s what they see 5G being so important, and that you hear from different regions, different countries, that everybody’s waking up to this. That we need to do something. We need to make a better environment to actually nurture these ideas and make sure that our economy gets the benefits here.

Loozen  

A slightly different lens, maybe or a related lens, which is also that with 5G and the examples we gave, I’d said previously in network technology 4G, 3G, was mostly used to make phone calls and to send emails, which is interesting, and which is important to a company. But well, it’s maybe not super, super, super critical. Now if we speak about 5G as essential to a manufacturing process, or essential for running a hospital, you go to a very different level of the importance of making sure that that works, that functions, and also that not everybody has access to all that information.

And so also here, for government, now there is an additional, let’s say necessity, to sort of look at how is this being used, and I would say increased conversation about who do we actually allow to provide the technology. Because we’re not sure, you know, if the provider of the technology will then maybe also not allow the country from which they come to see or be able to deal with that data, in a way which was less of a topic, you know, when all this data was about emails and voice calls.           

But also another thing is just if you keep it within the country, 5G allows you, coupled with artificial intelligence, for example, to do crowd management, right? Check on the video who is walking towards a certain place, or what times of the day is it very busy, whatnot. But it basically also can recognize everybody who is on that video. So suddenly you get into a space also where you feel like hey, you know, how do we deal with privacy and who is actually responsible for making sure that we deal with that? Well, so there are many, many angles to it. I think as this technology, this network technology becomes much more pervasive into our companies, work, perform.

Ribbing Kristoffers

I fully agree to that. In addition to this, I think the 5G networks are also expected to really become the backbone of quite many critical IT applications. And this is, of course, also one of the reasons for increased governmental and regulatory focus in the 5G world.

Schulman                

And it’s national security, basically.

Winquist

Absolutely.

Baschnonga             

Yes, that’s really interesting. The whole topic of security, privacy, is side-by-side with 5G. Mentioned in the same breath. And when we think about cyber, obviously there’s a government perspective around that that’s informing some of these supply diversification initiatives on one level. There’s this broader issue around privacy, security, online safety, 5G plays into that, too. It’s clearly a white-hot issue. What do operators specifically need to think about as they embark on their 5G upgrades with resilience in mind?

Schulman                

So it’s obviously quite a broad thing, but as you mentioned, it all starts with you have supply chain, you need to take care of the privacy signaling cloud, and especially the cloudification brings a new world here. So the CSPs. Because obviously before you’ve been controlling both parts of your network. But now since most of the services, it’s going to the cloud, it’s more open and more combined. And then you’re introducing IoT, more devices and new applications and so forth, which then brings a new landscape. And then in addition to that, to enterprise business, you suddenly empower so-called OT operational technology.          

Let’s say you have something, some parts of a power grid, you actually could have there some business. Then the whole thinking and the whole cybersecurity, the landscape, it’s a new play for them. So they definitely need to understand the overall requirements. What do you need to do to actually manage this? From learning, then managing, to taking care of things in the right way, and making sure that you also cope from challenges outside the world, basically. If you think of the resilience piece, and the supply chain right now, with chip shortages. So it’s not only about from where the equipment comes, but also do you have your supply parts if something happens? Or do you have to wait too long for them? So there are so many things that are now interlocking. It might not only be cyber, but as Tom said, it’s also the resilience piece. Tom is there anything you’d like to add here?

Loozen  

I think you covered it pretty well. I think in the resilience, maybe the broader conversation is also to say that well, in today’s world of 5G equipment, there is really two dominant providers. That’s not a lot. And so your dependency on one of the two is really higher. So what you see happening now is an increased push not just from the telco companies, but also from governments, to say is there another play where there would be actually more choices. And so this is related to moving towards a place wherein software would be decoupled in the telco equipment, and you would go to a phenomenon like Open RAN, and that would be sort of an additional resilience measure that companies could take.

Ribbing Kristoffers

It’s interesting because 5G, quite in the focus point when it comes to cybersecurity issues, and also the European agency for cybersecurity has taken quite some interest in the security of 5G networks for a number of reasons. Maybe the primary one is that in 5G there’s many more potential entry points in the network due to the network architecture. And certain pieces are becoming more sensitive in the network, such as the base stations or the key management functions of the network. But this context also of 5G, the increased exposure to attacks, then the risk profile of the supplier will actually become slightly more important than in our previous networks.

Baschnonga

Just hearing the answers to the last two questions, there’s a sense that 5G is all encompassing, all pervasive, it’s coming out really clearly. The upside opportunity, more affordable connectivity for all, supercharging industrial growth worldwide. That’s really clear. But so are some of these downside risks, when it comes to cyber resilience, operator/vendor relationships, etc. Even just stepping back from that. Because 5G is so all encompassing, is there actually a bit of a danger that everybody just thinks about 5G and maybe doesn’t think about some of the other big tech trends that are happening alongside? So if we think about use cases, Tom, you’ve already mentioned Open RAN. Is there a need for the industry to think, OK, 5G is important, but how do I contextualize it with all the other tech trends that are taking place at the minute?

Loozen  

Let me give you a quick answer, which is definitely a yes. Right? There is a need to do that. We did our research in the enterprise space with over 1,000 enterprises. And one of their concerns or things that they would like their partner to address is how does AI, IoT, edge-cloud and 5G, how does it come together and work really well for me? So yes it’s super important. I spoke about the fact that 5G will give superpowers to anyone, anything, anywhere in the world. But it sits in that giving the superpowers, just being connected, doesn’t do much. It’s only when you actually are able to then either send data, manipulate, steer certain objects, or allow for people who are using 5G to get access to certain applications, do calculations or get insights that they couldn’t get before at that speed. It’s then when things come to life. And so AI has a very natural role in this 5G play. Because suddenly you can take a lot of data, process a lot of data, and then edge-cloud comes in. Because suddenly you have the benefit also of the fact that 5G has a very low latency, so has a very immediate response to your request. So all these things indeed hang together. It’s really critical also to help clients who are looking to take 5G, how they could make the most out of it and how they should invest in those different technologies in a mutually reinforcing kind of mode.

Schulman                

That’s a really valid point. That’s basically what I do with several clients who are looking at how do I get the benefits out of it? Do I need 5G? What would be the underlying technology? Because you have a use case, eventually to link to a business need, you need to optimize something. Let’s say you wanted to predict a maintenance on a production line to get off some streaming data from PLCs that are connected to an electric motor, so you need to understand if it’s vibrating too much, or when it’s happening, when will it fail, which will then stop production. So then 5G might be only small link here in the play, but the ultimate business need is predicting maintenance to actually keep production running. It might be 5G, it might be something else. It’s going to be important, but there are other technologies out there as well.

Ribbing Kristoffers

Absolutely. And I was thinking to connect to you Peik, the situation we’re in at the moment, is the telco purchasers do have a lot to play with in their toolbox at the moment. Some 5G operators have taken steps towards more open hardware, such as Open RAN, that might reduce capex for operators. But it’s a lot harder to optimize than a single vendor entrance system. And the business model of Open RAN leads also to quite a large number of small suppliers that would likely be a bit of a challenge for operators to manage. We have, also, software-defined networks. That’s another possibility that allows operators to use software and hardware from multiple vendors. IT administrators can really change network paths and create network services without really touching the physical infrastructure.

This has a number of advantages, like lowering operator costs. In the toolbox, we also have edge computing. This is such a modern buzzword. In short, the need really for edge computing is when  loud computing can’t meet latencies that are required for some critical applications. And we see now that global digitalization trend is really driving the demand for these applications that require peak performance, low latency and also reliability. This makes them a great candidate for edge computing. So I would say the challenge now for the operators is really to find the best mix here for all the possibilities we have at hand.

Schulman                

And really to understand, now we’ve invested in these new technologies, so the consumer comes first in many cases, naturally. That’s the biggest play from their history. But now how do I go to the enterprises? How do I tailor this for enterprise? What would be my offering here? And wait a minute. Then suddenly there are private networks. OK. So there is the new commerce, smaller, nimble CSPs, running private network for enterprises. So really depending on countries and legislation, depending on the frequencies, you know, if there’s spectrum available. There is already an interesting new market emerging with smaller CSPs competing for the enterprise game.

Winquist

Yes. A lot happening. I’d like to shift to sustainability. This is such a huge topic for society at large. Does 5G provide new opportunities to improve energy efficiency? Are the tech and telco industries doing enough to accommodate ESG principles as all this new infrastructure is deployed?

Schulman                

That’s a very valid question. And I’d like to raise the bar and ask, does the consumer understand what it means when I have a 5G-enabled phone, and I have more high-def content coming through, and I’m flipping through my TikTok and whatnot, and streaming Netflix, that I actually am leaving a CO2 footprint? I think that also there is the educational thing that once 5G has a … it’s more efficient in providing with less energy, more bandwidth, but at the same time 5G is consuming a lot of energy globally.

Winquist

Absolutely.

Loozen  

Very practically on that one, if you’d want to have your videos in 4K, high definition, that’s going to demand more. If you’re going to want to have it in 8K, it’s even more. So it’s indeed as Peik was saying, at a bit level there is less energy per bit being used in the 5G world than in the 4G world. But if the consumer continues to want to see videos vs. pictures, and then wants to get the high definition, and even if we go to 360-degree virtual reality kind of videos, those require a lot more data. With that have an effect on the total carbon dioxide emission, which is well, required to do that. So I think telcos are very aware of that. If you look at how they’ve brought down the amount of energy required to transmit a bit or a megabyte, they’ve done a tremendous job. I spoke earlier a little bit on this broadcast about all the other things that 5G would actually allow you to do, right? The smart agriculture, maybe making factories safer and smarter. So I think there’s a lot of opportunity here to go even further than the typical sustainability topic of carbon dioxide emission reduction.

Schulman                

To this, Tom, enterprise use cases, what I see a lot is that companies are looking for 5G is one part of the equation when they look at we need to meet our sustainability targets, we need to reduce commuting and traveling. We need to reduce waste in our operations. We need to control more how much water we use and so on. And right now we’re maybe not measuring everything. People can do more remotely. So the new technology will help enterprises to actually reach their sustainability targets from that point of view.

Ribbing Kristoffers

I think this growing energy challenge is the result of the exponential growth in traffic, that the new 5G services are likely to deliver. Although the new 5G radio standard is more energy efficient for gigabytes than 4G. The 5G use cases and also the new spectrum bands will require quite a lot more mobile sites. And this will affect the energy needs. So each 5G site will need two to three times more power than the similar 4G sites, according to some fairly recent industry estimates. The cost is not really the only concern here, because telco operators already account for 2%-3% of the total global energy demand, and so current energy consumption that will expand.

So will their carbon footprint, hurting both environment and also possibly their reputation. But I think all operators have also great possibilities to cap that energy cost and consumption and today’s mobile networks, for example, the data only concerns about 50% of energy. So the rest, meaning 85%, is quite wasted because of heat loss and power amplifiers, cooling systems, and battery units. And here I think we can do a lot with AI IoT sensors.                        

Potentially operators could reduce energy costs with say at least 15%, 20%, but this of course requires resources, both personnel and capital. At the time now when operators are quite focusing on investing in network capacity. But I think not to forget that this sustainability wave also opens up quite interesting new business opportunities. We have a great case in Spain when some operators have started to sell solar energy, actually packages to put on their warehouse roofs for self-installation. And this is really beneficial to the telco operators because this renewable energy business is higher margin and growing faster actually than the telco market in general. I think operators could do a whole lot more when it comes to energy efficiency. And I believe at least that they will do a whole lot more either by choice or by regulation.

Baschnonga

It’s very interesting, isn’t it, as we dig into some of these issues. Now there are clearly opportunities in that department. We talked about the supply chain from a cyber and a resilience perspective. But equally sustainability considerations now also inform that view. What are operators directly responsible for? Indirectly responsible for? Whether it’s their suppliers or providing a solution to an industry customer to become more resource efficient. So just moving back from sustainability and probably our final topic is clearly 5G is a long-term technology shift. It’s going to be the dominant mobile technology for the 2020s. But do we need to start thinking further out? In fact, as we talk about sustainability, and we see 2040, 2050 targets, do we now need to start thinking about 6G? Do we in fact need a 20- or 30-year view about what mobile technology can deliver?

Ribbing Kristoffers

There is some EU research going on with 6G. And it’s super exciting and this is going to be the internet of senses, where communication will be much more touch and feel and smell and sounds. I think the first pilots that I have heard of from South Korea will take place in 2028. So I think we won’t be seeing the first commercial network until 2030 sometime. We still have quite a few years to play around with 5G, I would say. Not to worry about 6G yet. Even though it will be a super cool future. (laughter) We have to wait.

Schulman                

I’d like to add that basically the service providers are laying out the groundwork for the next generation because 5G requires a lot of new fiber to be laid out, and that’s happening right now. That the fiber to the home is booming, part of COVID-19. Fiber is the key here also going to the next generation from five to six and so forth.

Loozen  

Adrian, you were asking should we be thinking about 6G, and I think they’re already thinking about it. This is just how we evolve. They’re looking for more speed, even more granular, lower-latency internet of senses. I think the digital world is becoming more and more like a place in which you actually are and which you act instead of maybe a world that you watch on your screen. I think a lot of exciting opportunities, like Anastasia were saying, for the next 10 years, probably we’re going to have enough excitement from 5G. It will evolve and we will see even bigger, better and faster in the future.

Schulman                

To add, so honestly, the killer applications and use cases for 5G, we haven’t seen that yet. They’re still to come. We’re in the early phases still.

Baschnonga

I think we’ve got a lot of consensus there that actually we have more than enough to focus on for the next 10 years. Just by way of summary, I think we’ve covered a huge amount of ground. Service portfolio, evolution, shifted market structure, a changing policy environment, shifting supply chains. A huge thanks to you guys for sharing your thoughts and perspectives on this. And Christina, over to you to round things off for us.

Winquist

Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much to Peik, Anastasia and Tom for your time and incredible insights. As 5G and these other technologies will continue to be discussed in our upcoming EY Tech Connect podcasts. So for more thought leading perspectives, please visit ey.com/TMT. And you can also follow us on Twitter @EY_TMT. So don’t forget to review and subscribe. And we look forward to speaking with you at a later date.

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