愛立信CEO：我們將迎來新的移動數據革命

????據通訊網絡巨頭愛立信首席執行官衛翰思預測，在未來的5年內，無線通訊行業會經歷翻天覆地的變化。

????在歷經數十年改善互聯網和語音服務之后，移動產業將把觸角伸向汽車、醫療、教育等新領域。衛翰思表示，通訊公司如今不再沉迷于設法提高數據傳輸速度，而是開始設計網絡來解決其他的迫切問題，如可靠性、能源效率和價格承受力等。

????衛翰思表示：“在過去，移動產業一直專注于消費者層面，試圖讓他們的設備擁有更好的性能和吞吐量。而如今，我們看到了消費者對這個產業的其他需求，比如安全、定位，尤其是延遲問題?！?/p>

????總部位于斯德哥爾摩的愛立信在上周五公布了第二季度財報。公司利潤下滑至20.9億瑞士克朗（合2.45億美元），而收入從549億克朗上升至607億克朗。在愛立信的收入電話會議結束后接受《財富》專訪時，衛翰思展望了愛立信和移動產業在未來5年中的發展情況。

????這位首席執行官預計稱，直至2020年之前，3G和4G都會是全球主要的移動網絡。這一預測也許會讓美國讀者感到驚訝。在美國，消費者對4G手機已經習以為常，不過價格因素導致大多數發展中國家都無法享受移動數據革命。愛立信的數據顯示，在全球70億移動用戶中，有40億人主要使用2G手機進行語音通話和發短信。2G手機支持互聯網接入，但其網速往往比撥號上網還慢。

????衛翰思表示，隨著手機廠商推出更多低價位的智能手機，全球的智能手機總數將會激增。他引用愛立信自身調查的數據，補充道：“智能手機價格每降低10美元，就會增加1億的購買者。到2020年底，可能只有非洲仍然擁有大量2G網絡?！?/p>

????隨著3G和4G在全球普及開來，移動產業也將推出下一代蜂窩通信網絡：5G。然而，5G比起前幾代會有很大不同。3G和4G僅僅只是注重了傳輸速度，而5G將會是一系列不同的技術，其中每項技術分別針對不同的應用、設備和應用場合。

????帶寬顯然是5G網絡的特色之一——在測試中，我們發現其峰值速度可以達到每秒幾G。不過在某些場合，5G網絡也可以設計得比2G網絡更慢。為什么？因為如果你犧牲了速度，就能讓耗電量變得極低，或是讓網絡的覆蓋范圍變得更廣。他解釋道，如果你開了一家農業公司，建立了覆蓋大片農場的土壤質量和濕度感應器網絡，你就不需要很大的帶寬。你需要的是網絡足夠可靠，只要一節電池就能讓埋在地下的感應器工作好幾年。

????另一種5G網絡可能會注重解決延遲問題，即一個數據請求在網絡中來回所需的時間（想象一下你點擊鏈接到網頁彈出之間的延遲）。隨著自動駕駛汽車開始上路，它們需要在毫秒級別的時間內聯系到其他汽車并接上網絡，通知各車輛自己的目的地，以及路上可能會遇到的障礙。衛翰思表示，你的聯網汽車也許需要很大的帶寬，以便讓你在后座上看電影，不過想要在路上行駛，只有低延遲的網絡才能讓汽車迅速做出反應。

????5G并不需要移動運營商建立多重網絡。實際上，目前的網絡就足以在任何時候滿足任何類型的連接。衛翰思表示：“一部分網絡可以向某些設備提供高速連接，而另一部分則可以向自動駕駛汽車提供低延遲網絡?！彼a充說，盡管感應器之類的設備需要通過優化才能接受某一種5G網絡，但汽車之類的產品則可以接受任何種類的5G網絡。

????愛立信已經同競爭對手，如華為、三星、諾基亞和紐約大學等學術研究機構合作，實地測驗這些技術。不過5G將涵蓋的內容和范圍目前尚未確定?，F在仍然沒有公認的5G標準，在接下來幾年內也不會有。不過有一件事情可以肯定：移動產業和全球監管部門都希望5G能成為一項重要性遠超3G和4G的技術。已經有人建議5G網絡利用廉價的移動寬帶覆蓋整個國家甚至整個大洲，或是讓它成為物聯網的骨干網絡。

????衛翰思毫不掩飾對行業新前景的遠大抱負。他表示：“我相信移動技術將發揮更廣泛的作用。它可以解決地球上一些最大的問題?！保ㄘ敻恢形木W）

????譯者：嚴匡正

????審校：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.”