5G era prompts new solutions for communication service providers

Ericsson has announced the launch four new solutions to support communication  service providers in capturing the business opportunities created as the
5G era moves closer.  The solutions will be showcased during Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2016, held February 22-25, 2016 in Barcelona, Spain.

Fueled by the Internet of Things, 5G and the cloud, service providers will see a growing number of diverse network uses, which will bring new value  chains, financial models and business opportunities. To capture the  opportunities ahead, service providers will have to continuously  transform and adopt new ways to create value for consumers.

Along with this development, network performance is becoming increasingly important and an increasingly challenging task.
A new study, which Ericsson say will be published in the MWC edition of  its Mobility Report, reveals that a poor video streaming experience can  actually have a “double whammy” effect, since it not only leads to lower service provider brand equity, but actually helps competing brands to  gain brand equity.

Launch 1: Mobile Broadband for Everyone

The latest Ericsson Mobility Report forecasts that 90 percent of the  world´s population will be covered by WCDMA/HSPA mobile broadband  networks by 2021. At the same time, more than 50 percent of the world’s  population today still lacks internet access, especially in developing  countries. This provides a great opportunity for mobile operators.

In support of the vision of making mobile Internet access available to  everyone, Ericsson is addressing three different challenges: enhancing  network performance, improving operations efficiency and lowering cost  for mobile broadband coverage.

According to Ericsson, mobile broadband for everyone will be fully available in Q2 2016.

Launch 2: Delivering Extreme App Coverage

As part of the evolution toward 5G, and to improve the performance and  efficiency of today’s LTE technology while meeting the network demands  created by growing data traffic, Ericsson is launching new Ericsson  Radio System software and hardware. The launches support the world’s  first commercial offering of LTE 1Gbps peak data rates, in addition to  hyper-scalable radio access network architecture for Cloud RAN.

The Ericsson Radio System is also being complemented with three new radio  access products supporting 4×4 MIMO, and new spectrum bands. Efficiently addressing user demands for extreme app coverage will also drive  requirements for multi-gigabit capacities and multi-band solutions in  the backhaul, which Ericsson is addressing with new microwave additions  to the Ericsson Radio System.

Delivering Extreme App Coverage will be available beginning in Q2 2016.

Launch 3: Experience Centric Managed Services

For subscribers, network performance and user experience are increasingly  important. To support operators in becoming experience-centric, Ericsson is launching the Service Operations Center (SOC) and the Experience  Management Center (EMC) functions of our Experience Centric Managed  Services offering.

The SOC monitors the performance of services such as video streaming and web browsing in real time, which is  translated and correlated into network performance requirements. The EMC
monitors consumers’ experiences and perception through, for example,  customer surveys, social media analytics, Net Performance Score studies  and churn analysis, which is translated and correlated into service  performance requirements.

Operators that have a better  understanding of both service quality and their consumers’ perception of their experience are better able to improve by both measures.

This new features of Experience Centric Managed Services are available immediately.

Launch 4: Revenue Manager

Revenue Manager is a convergent, real-time charging and billing product for  digital service providers. It leverages a breakthrough, cloud-based  highly configurable architecture to deliver new levels of automation,  flexibility and operational efficiency. It is the first – business  support system (BSS) designed for the opportunities and challenges of  the Networked Society.

The product enables service providers to  launch new products and services in days, capture new revenue streams  with real-time revenue sharing and drive customer experience through
personalized omni-channel interactions, embedded analytics and unified  policy control.

The company says Revenue Manager 16 will be generally available in June 2016.

Jumoke Akiyode