The communicators is on location. This week well look at some of the new technologies coming out from ces international and talk to policymakers as well. This is the communicators on cspan from las vegas. Well now we want to introduce you to Ulf Ewaldsson with the Erickson CorporationSenior Vice President group chief Technology Officer. Mr. E waldson, before we get into what you do, just want to make the statement that erickson is not the Consumer Product corporation that it was a few years ago is that a fair statement . Guest absolutely. We are not in consumer at all. But being here at the Consumer Electronics show in las vegas you can really see how relevant networks, which we are doing, are becoming to just basically, every Consumer Product out here. Host for a while people owned erickson phones. Do you even manufacture them anymore . Guest no, we dont. Host so a more of a business to business type . Guest we are the Global Leader in infrastructure for networks where we provide both infrastructure and item come services and services for operators, so thats basically the business that were in. Host what is ericsson demonstrating here at ces . What are they putting on the floor . Guest first of all, the main message for us here is to make sure everyone who is out here is really showing their different products their Consumer Devices which can be connected over very good networks. Of course, we are showing lt products the latest and greatest within the wireless systems for carriers, but also to make sure we can be relevant in terms of providing and talking about where these technologies will go for the future. One of the key topics here is going to be 5g. It is something that the whole industry is talking about. And we just concluded a panel here actually on 5g where there was great interest particularly from many, many aspects of government which were very excited about. Host why is government interested . Guest of course, its very important to regulate this in a good way and to be able to facilitate innovation for other industries. As 5g is different from 4g and the earlier generations of mobile networks which were more built for if you will the operator community. Already in 4g now we see that many, many other industries are starting to want to use these networks. In other words, they want to use mobility, and over just the last years the name of the street is really to tray to build in mobility try to build in mobility in many devices, applications and so forth and that in itself is going to accelerate and become even more important in 5g. Host and so is that where 5g differentiates itself from fourth generation . Mobility . Guest partly. Thats a bit of complex answer, so let me try to, plain that to you. 5g is more than just another network, its an evolution of 4g into a network that is much more responsive, much faster a network really built for machinetype communication as its being named. In ericsson we talk a lot about something we call a Network Society, and the Network Society is a society where everything that can benefit from having a connection would actually have one. We put a Vision Forward in 2009 in barcelona in the trade show that was for devices in 2020 which has caught on very well in the world. And that i think opened peoples mind that the mobile industry is not limited to the smartphones and devices that we carry around personally. It also is a Great Technology to be able to build a Better Society based on those kinds of technologies. Host well, on ericssons home page there was a recent blog post about a connected world is just the beginning. What does that mean . Guest well if i should interpret it, i think that the world of connections is something that weve been talking about for years. But the beginning means that that were building a platform. Were building a foundation for other industries to innovate on top of. Thats why the networks that were building now is becoming so much more an innovation platform for the whole society. I sometimes say that if you look at regulation in Different Countries, for instance you come from a situation where voice was regulated by tariffs and competition was regulated on voice and how that could play out in different kinds of remarks. Now were moving into a regulator role being more of an enabler of innovation. Because you want to make sure that those networks are being built with the kind of technologies that makes other industries able to use them. And then they can grow their opportunity, transform their products. I think already here at ces we can see so many connected cars. Ive just walked here in the preshow it hasnt opened yet, itll open tomorrow and you can see cars tomorrow. Most likely theyre all being connected. And you can see a car becoming a software product. And if a car becomes a software product, it has to be connected because so many things that youll be able to do with that software in the car its relying on that connect it. And, therefore, the networks need to be connectivity. And, therefore, the networks need to be extremely reliable safe, and compute and do storage of different applications thats being run in that automobile. In that sense thats an example of what i mean of innovation outside on top of the network. Host so what weve been calling the internet of things. Guest the internet of things, i think thats really what its about. And we will see the internet change dramatically with this evolution. It wasnt from the beginning built to do this, but we will see an internet where computing, storage, security imaging, those kind of functions will move to the edge of the network, much closer to where the generation of data is being done and where the data is being consumed. In other words we dont need to send all the bits from a consumption point new the entire network up to through the entire network up to a country and wait for a result to come back. Were going to see a network thats going to be transformed to do that computing storing at the edge of the network. We need to make that as an industry simple enough for others to build application on it. I think thats going to be the big challenge. Host Ulf Ewaldsson weve been talking about the cloud now for several years. Has it been a Successful Transition . Guest the Cloud Technology is such as now many, many years on its turfs and how long its been in the market and the i. T. Industry, for the i. T. Industry its been a tremendous transformation. Basically, you removed a lot of the hardware and software from enterprises out into central locations. At the same time, that has led to a Big Technology change. So technologies like stm and virtualization, the split between hardware and software in these Big Data Centers is the technology that has made these data centers very, very efficient. And that kind of technology we can now incorporate also into networks. So we will use Cloud Technology and we are already starting to use Cloud Technology to transform big networks into being much much more efficient than in the past. If you just look at stm technology, its one of those very very disruptive factors to networks that really will are transform the way you introduce new services the way you test things, the way you roll out new software which is a very big change for many of our customers, for operators. Host is 5g being used anywhere yet in the world . Guest no, no no. Host how far are we . Guest i think were about five years ahead if you look at the way that this industry operates. If we go back to the 1g, 2g when we paraded 1g, we didnt know it was 1g, it was just the first one. But after that it takes us a number of years to be able to collaborate t in the industry to work at the innovation, to jointly define what the vision is for the next generation. And thats the beauty of the telecom industry. We have an innovation regime that is creating a corporation if you will, between many, many competitors to be able to put in innovation proposals. And were basing that on an ip origin that we call france which is helping us cross license between the Different Countries and to be able to not build it on a proprietary technology which will make it much less scaleable and also lead to a much slower uptake of the technology. I think thats one of the reasons why gsm, for instance, has had this enormous uptake as well as 3g and 4g now where were reached more than seven billion subscriptions in the world passing between 14 and 15. Host as group chief Technology Officer for ericsson, are you thinking about 6g already . Guest one should never say that there will not be next generation. I think the ambition level that weve put forward now for 5g is certainly going to last us a very long time. And the ambition is this will lead and well be able to evolve it for a long time. Were not going to build a network on top of the older network. Were actually going to make it an evolution of the existing networks. If you look at lt technology, it will serve us very well in the lower frequencies for quite a while. And we will be able to evolve that forward and forward into reaching something that will eventually be approved as 5g. I dont know if you know, but the itu is the ultimate approval thats the International Telecommunication union which is part of united nations, are the ones that set the final standard and say this is now 5g. So i think we will see an evolution into getting that stamp on the paper. Host from your participation at ericsson, what are some of the trends that youre. Watching for, and what are some of the changes that you see coming in five to ten years in telecommunications . Guest well, i think the most important trend if you look at it is really the mobility trend overall. I think we are amazed that ericsson being the leader in the mobile space, how Many Companies that have never thought mobility would be realm havent to their products relevant to their products are now saying this is at the core of their strategy. Thats one very important trend and were measuring and following that very clearly. Were publishing a mobility report where every quarter we publish all of our mobility. The level it reaches, all the numbers, how many smartphones that were sold in the last quarter and so forth. Thats a very, very important trend that we follow. Apart from that were, of course following consumer trends. Being here in las vegas at the Consumer Electronics show we can see that many of the gadgets that are being launched are early prototypes of things that become normal things wearables was very big here a couple of years ago at the initial stage, and today i think many people all over the United States, all over the world are using wearables on a daily basis. Its not being strange at all. And its connected through their mobile phone into the network providing all kinds of data about themselves. Host advantage or disadvantage to be in sweden . Guest well, im very seldom in sweden, so how would i know . [laughter] basically youre in so many countries all over the world. I spend a lot of time in the u. S. , of course. I think were excited at ericsson to see also the Important Role that the u. S. Market is playing for us. First of all, we have done very well over here. We have great traction with the operators over here. Weve seen spot leadership in many of the operators who are really using our technology to the fullest and were also very excited that the u. S. , of course, is the home of many of leading internet companies. And we can see that collaboration between the internet companies, the overthetop play, the if you will, the operators and the computer industry as well as the Media Industry which is very, very u. S. Focused all over the world, actually, and being exported. One of the big export products of the u. S. And that Technology Mix from a Technology Point of view is very important now as were moving into 5g. So were hoping and were promoting and were working hard to make sure that the u. S. Can take a leading position in the way of guiding the rest of the world into 5g as well. Host but when it comes to telecommunications, arent a hot t of the protocols and icann as an example arent they becoming more and more international and less u. S. Centric . Guest they absolutely are. They absolutely are. But its important to always have leading customers, to have leading visionaries, if you will, who are able to guyed the industry and so forth guide the industry and so forth. And i think here many of the operators here in the u. S. Have an Important Role to play. And i think that then other countries will pick up on that. Im glad to see also that naturally ideas about the future evolution of networks in terms of providing Better Services more secure services, Faster Services is happening here. Host ulf e waldson, one of the issues weve been hearing about recently is security privacy, hacking, etc. Is this going to get an International Response rather than a kind of a piecebypiece response . Guest i think both. First of all, were really seeing now a change from just hobby hacking, being able to create damage into National Security issues between nations and whatever it might be. I think the security issue is of utmost concern because it can limit the innovation that were hoping to see from so Many Industries here at ces in las vegas. It can really damage innovation. It can really damage the opportunities of so many things that we wanted to happen if we cant make it safe if we cant make it secure. Then on the private side, its the same issue. I think many people say we have recently done research by something called Ericsson Consumer Lab where we have seen in reports that more than 60 are concerned about privacy issues and surveillance issues on the internet. At the same time, the usage just increases. And i think its a dualedged sword. We have to educate people, we need to make sure that people understand their behaviors, but as well as operators and industry payers taking a responsible role in making sure that the networks are safe, making sure that people should feel safe by using these applications on the networks and be able to gradually and back to your comment its going to be a gradual approach as it is in z any security matters. Each on safety of buildings and so forth. You increase the alarm levels as the press levels goes out. Host now, has the government of sweden taken a different approach to security and privacy issues than the u. S. Government . Guest i wouldnt say that. I think there is a very strong global debate going on on Security Issues, and now we have a World Economic forum in davos coming up, for instance where i think Internet Security and the ability to do business globally is going to be one very important topic. I think there is this debate is very global today, and i hope that it can continue to be so the response can be global. Because, after all, the Security Issues that are on the internet and so forth are not limited to nations in any way. They are certainly global. Host give us a snapshot of ericsson. Size headquarters . Guest right. Were about 114,000 employees and we spend 5 billion u. S. In r d every year so its a heavy portion of our turnover. We turn over around 30 billion u. S. We are the Global Leader in mobile networks but also in services. We are also doing heavy investment in media, and we have become the Global Leader in i. T. Systems, for instance, which is very connected to our Strong Network position. And were a company who continues to try to make sure to provide our customers with the very best solutions for the future. Host whats the importance of a show like this . Guest for us its an increasing importance. We can see that what used to be an industry that was a bit more unwardlooking inwardlooking where we were sitting down and standardizing the future of networks and thinking that we would innovate something great and people would use them typically the telephone services, if you will, of the past is moving to something where every industry in the world wants to use these networks to be able to provide their services to be able to benefit and build their new business on. And if they do that, they put the requirements of the future of the networks. So ces for us is becoming the most important show. Its here that we can understand what the innovation power is on top of these networks that we want to provide for the future. Host so many Telecommunications Companies work with other companies dont they . Its not just ericsson doing its own thing like you just said. Guest no, we do. One watermark of our industry if you will is the good Innovation Cooperation that there is. And then we compete as much as we possibly can on building this equipment. And the reason why we have to do that is a certain level of standardization is needed to be able to reach the global success. After all, a phone that comes from australia or that come from china or comes from any other korea, whatever, works on any network totally. And i think that is very important. And we will continue to defend that io ipo regim