Ericsson’s vision is to be a force to reckon with in the connected world—a world where anyone, everywhere, can communicate with voice, pictures, film and music whenever and wherever they want.
Ericsson is the world’s leading mobile systems developer controlling nearly half of the world’s mobile radio network within 2G and 3G. And when it comes to 4th generation systems—Long Term Evolution (LTE)—the company dominates more than half of the global market. Network equipment supplied by Ericsson is used by more than 1000 networks in more than 180 countries.
Ericsson is by all means, global. At Mjärdevi Science Park in Linköping, Ericsson’s largest research and development group and one of three company locations for the development of LTE/4G, employs 1500 people.
Gunnar Bark (pictured), R&D Manager at Ericsson Research describes the kind of global thinking that permeates the company: ”My research division comprises nearly 100 people in seven locations the world over. Twenty of them are here at Mjärdevi.”
MR: More than 1 billion broadband users
Jan Hederén, Strategy Manager in Ericsson’s Radio Development Unit, is quick to point out the incredibly fast development of the mobile telephone. “Our phones used to sit on a table in every home’s entryway. Then came the internet and the mobile phone. In the beginning people never expected more than 100 million mobile phone users over the entire world, but now “everybody” is connected. The number of mobile phone subscriptions in the world has increased to 5.5 billion.”
The speed at which new users are subscribing is at an all-time high. This fall, new mobile phone subscriptions have reached approximately 60 million per month.
Mobile broadband was launched only a few years ago. The growth of this sector is faster than anything the telecom industry has ever experienced. By the end of this year, one billion people will have mobile broadband. In five years—five billion.
”This means,” says Hederén, ”that people will connect to the Internet most often via mobile broadband. Today some two billion people have access to the Internet.”
The numbers speak for themselves and point to a technology revolution few can comprehend.
MR: World’s fifth largest software company
Because Ericsson’s mobile and landline telephony is largely driven by computers and programming, it can also be said that Ericsson is the world’s fifth largest software company today. “We specialize in very, very, very big software development projects,” says Hederén. “Very few companies have the competence to realize projects of this proportion. Moreover, our systems are reliable. They don’t freeze or crash.”
Just how large are these projects? One needs only to look in on the latest test labs for 2G, 3G and 4G built at Mjärdevi Science Park in the former manufacturing areas for Ericsson’s mobile phones.
”The labs represent both a financial and strategic investment in the R&D Center Linköping,” says Gunnar Bark. “In this testing environment, we can simulate mobile telephony in a large population center. We are not talking about a large Swedish city. We are talking about simulating telephony environments in an international context that can include 10-20 million users. This means that handset producers and manufacturers can use this environment to test their products before they are released on the market.”
MR: Proximity to competence and expertise
The placement of Ericsson’s next-generation labs in Mjärdevi Science Park represents a geographically strategic investment as well. Situated just a few hundred yards from Linköping University and its associated research institutes, Ericsson takes advantage of the leading research and competence the university’s schools of science and engineering offer. In this rapidly changing world of telephony, having access to competent partners and consultants is critical.
”Like many other companies at Mjärdevi Science Park, we are dependent on really good programmers. And we can rely on those trained via the university’s computer engineering program. Our software systems are extremely complex. The global system of telephone and mobile networks is actually the world’s largest machine—and one of the oldest machines—with which all new developments must function. “
Many of Mjärdevi’s companies are consultants and partners to Ericsson.
MR: Innovative Partnerships – A key component to the Networked Society
“ In our vision of the networked society,” says Hederén, “collaborations and partnerships are key to our success. We are leaders in communication. Others may be good at making cars, for instance. By combining diverse strengths in partnerships we can improve both competitiveness and innovation.”
The trends point to ever-increasing growth in the mobile broadband market, and increasingly requisite high levels of data transfer rates are possible with LTE/4G. In the most recent research tests, speeds of up to 1 GB per second are possible.
“Just as people no longer want to use a landline phone to talk, they don’t want to be connected to a fixed terminal for transferring data. Most people have not yet comprehended how these huge changes in mobile broadband will influence technological and user creativity in the future!”
The transition to LTE/4G will not only allow faster data transfer with less lag time, but it will also support larger amounts of data in an entirely IP-based environment.
“For example, we use more and more moving images. These fill up the networks quickly and can lead to bottlenecks due to capacity shortages. The increased use of smartphones also contributes to the bottlenecks because they have a different traffic patterns than what the mobile phones have had. Smartphones send information continuously, even when the user doesn’t notice it.”
MR: Advanced technology – Easy-to-use
In order to manage the exponential growth in data traffic, mobile operators are turning to companies like Ericsson for increased network capacity and speed. The market is incredibly large, and constantly growing. The amount of data sent over the network is doubling annually. “In China, it is even faster,” says Jan Hederén. “There, the mobile broadband services have increased by 800% in just the last year.”
Still, whilst the technology may be complex, Ericsson’s role is to make it easy to use.
“We have come up with highly advanced technologies that not only work well, but are easy to use, so that people don’t have to think about it,” says Hederén. “They simply assume their mobile phones and broadband will work. Mobile communication in the future will be like air--it’s there and we simply take it for granted. That defines communication success!”
