These days we take ubiquitous connectivity so much for granted that it’s easy to forget how far we’ve come in recent years. In March 2003 — less than 15 years ago — the first 3G mobile network launched in the UK, at a time when the majority of households relied on dial-up modems to access the Internet.
In the same year, an undergraduate at Harvard named Mark Zuckerberg was working on the first versions of what would go on to become Facebook. Apple’s iconic iPhone was still four years away. CCS Insight helps businesses plan for the future by spotting future trends and shifts in the connected world. Each year, its team of analysts makes a series of predictions about technology markets and how changes will affect our future lives.
Here we present our first set of 7 CCS Insight’s predictions for 2018 and beyond. They’re drawn from a set of 90 predictions covering connectivity advances, security, regulation, technology developments, shifts in the supplier landscape, new business models and changing strategies.
5G Networks
In the past 15 years we’ve gone from 3G mobile networks to 4G, and work is underway to deploy the first 5G infrastructure. The fifth generation of wireless networks promises huge advances in capacity and latency, and it opens up the possibility of new types of service and new ways of working.
Network operators and phone manufacturers will be keen to get 5G technology into the hands of consumers and business users, even though there’s no clear evidence that they’ll recoup the initial costs very quickly.
CCS Insight forcasts that, thanks to the efforts of networks and device makers, 5G will reach 1 billion subscriptions faster than 4G. Rapid integration of the technology in mobile phones, coupled with quick take-up in China will mean that adoption of 5G in 2023, five years after launch, will be greater than 4G was five years after its launch.
1 - 5G will reach 1 billion subscriptions faster than 4G
However, the advent of 5G won’t be without its hitches. CCS Insight predicts that network deployment will emerge as 5G’s biggest challenge. Despite understandable concerns about industry fragmentation and uncertain returns on the investment needed for 5G, the scale of deployment of infrastructure poses the biggest barrier to success.
In particular, tough planning laws will restrict vital access to new sites, and many urban areas will struggle to support the millions of small cells needed to enable commercial services. In addition, 5G networks need widespread access to fibre backhaul; patchy availability of fibre infrastructure will only exacerbate the problem.
2 - Network deployment will emerge as 5G’s biggest challenge
There’s no doubt that 5G technology will eventually bring amazing changes to our lives, but in the short term customer retention will be the main incentive for operators to deploy 5G networks. Operators realise that new 5G services are unlikely to drive substantial revenue growth in the short term, but they will press on with network rollouts as a defensive mechanism to retain customers.
3 - customer retention will be the main incentive for operators to deploy 5G
As in 4G, initial premiums will be short-lived and providers will struggle to profit from the huge rise in mobile data traffic. Fierce competition and improved connectivity will undoubtedly benefit consumers, but operators are unlikely to see much change in their top lines.
Future Working
Alongside advances in connectivity, CCS Insight’s analysts predict changes in the way we work.
Traditional methods of inputting and receiving data — keyboards and text — are being augmented by new technologies. For example, the current popularity of smart speakers from Amazon, Google, Apple and other brands illustrates the speed at which voice input has become an accepted and useful way to interact with online services.
Toward the end of 2017 Amazon announced Alexa for Business, a version of its voice control service for corporate use. It can perform mundane but useful tasks like organising meetings, ordering supplies and providing directions.
CCS Insight thinks that voice commands will grow in popularity so that by 2022, voice will overtake typing as the main search input method. The trend will be driven by greater use of all types of device with voice-input capabilities, and rapid advances in voice-recognition technology. Emerging markets will be another major source of growth, where poor literacy means that voice recognition will give people a new way to access the Internet
4 - by 2022, voice will overtake typing as the main search input method.
Another development that will affect work and home life is augmented reality. Last year’s Pokemon Go craze is perhaps the best-known example, of the technology, but it has uses beyond games. CCS Insight believes that augmented reality will be a normal part of buying some items by 2021. Thanks to Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore software for developers, augmented reality will be a regularly used feature of the purchase process. Retailers will offer apps that let buyers preview virtual versions of products such as furniture, clothing and fashion accessories in realworld settings.
5 - Augmented reality will be a normal part of buying some items by 2021
In business, augmented reality will enhance several fields, including equipment maintenance, training activities, warehousing, and product design.
Social networks have already a huge impact on the way we work. Facebook, Twitter and other networks are now essential to many businesses. According to CCS Insight’s research, the Facebook app is among the top three mobile applications used for work. In 2016 Facebook launched Workplace, which has been deployed globally by Walmart, as way for employers to take advantage of Facebook’s expertise in connecting people.
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Facebook will become a leader in enterprise artificial intelligence services by 2020, says CCS Insight. Facebook has been quietly stepping up its enterprise activities. The company will use the skills it has developed in artificial intelligence to enhance its standing as provider of business services. It will build on its social graph strengths and launch business-focussed artificial intelligence tools for developers.
6 - Facebook will become a leader in enterprise artificial intelligence services by 2020
These tools will help companies mine the huge amounts of unstructured data they hold on corporate networks, enabling them to build a better picture of the interactions between and among employees and customers.
Internet of Things
New 5G networks aren’t the only ones on the horizon. We’re also seeing deployments of networks to support the Internet of things. Many of the connected devices that will make up the Internet of things are small, moveable or remote objects that will rely on wireless connections to relay data back to gateways and servers. Dedicated — and competing — technologies are vying to become the prevalent network technology for such connections. These include NB-IoT, LoRa and Sigfox.
NB-IoT, also known as LTE Category NB1, has the backing of several network operators and infrastructure providers, including Vodafone and Huawei, which have set up a testing lab at Vodafone’s Newbury headquarters.
Despite such commitments, CCS Insight predicts that NB-IoT will fail to live up to the hype by 2020. Current market projections of 1 billion devices in use soon after 2020 are unrealistic. Operators will focus too much on competing standards and “acronym soup” in this area. The potential of the technology is limited by operators’ failure to make it easy to buy access and their lack of attention on business cases to boost adoption.
7 - NB-IoT will fail to live up to the hype by 2020
Check back next week when we take a look at 7 more insight predictions for 2018. In the meantime if you have any questions about future-proofing your own IT networks, get in touch with Intercity on 0330 332 7933
