FEATURE MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS
network before gains are to be made.
They may be willing to optimise the
networks for a high paying client who
has a factory somewhere, but it is not
going to help the average business in
2019.”
GET READY FOR IT
Despite the scepticism facing the
potential use cases, operators are
continuing to spend and invest into its
networks. Last Autumn Vodafone UK
CEO Nick Jeffery revealed £2 billion had
been spent since 2016 at Vodafone and
pledged a futher £2 billion for another
two years.
Such pledges have been matched
by competition and, according to A10
director of product marketing Paul
Nicholson, are necessary before use
cases come about.
Nicholson warns that networks need
to “modernise their networks now in
order to be ready for 5G” in particular
warning against distributed denial
of service (DDoS) attacks on the new
networks that are touted to have 422
million connections by 2022.
“Looking at 5G, there is going to
be a lot more devices on the network
that need to be protected and service
providers need to secure their
infrastructure at all of the weakest
points now to make sure that, when all
the 5G devices do get turned on, they are
ready for it.”
DarkMatter senior vice president
of sales, marketing and business
development Rabih Dabboussi also said
that security should become a focus for
consumers and businesses.
“With all the vulnerabilities out there
and the fact that hackers are targeting
mobile devices and communications,
a lot of discussions are taking place
around how to secure, both the
consumer market as well as enterprise.
So, it was quite topical during MWC
this year but not as prevalent as 5G or
the latest trends in mobile devices and
accessories. But the more we do on our
mobile devices the more the need to
secure that mobile device and the data
on that mobile device.”
“It’s one of those things where you
can’t fall into a sense of complacency
that you are going to get extra security
built in with 5G” continued Nicholson.
“The service provider will give you
general protection to fit their entire
network. But you can’t just rely on the
service providers, you have got to put in
your own defences that is more specific
to what you want to protect.”
INTELLIGENT CONNECTIVITY
As we look ahead to the next year 5G
will undoubtably dominate, not just the
mobile, but technology landscape too.
Seward said 5G offers an “opportunity”
in enterprise because “cities, power
stations and broadcasting and the
internet of things, big data and Azure”
are affected by 5G adding “all of these
are sales opportunity for resellers and
distributors.”
However, the success of the
technology is still dependant on how it
is sold, used and priced. Manning Smith
touted a $100 to $300 price increase
for the 5G mobile device to enter into
the market which will undoubtably be
reflected in pricing from networks.
According to Tutela VP Tom Luke, in
the UK market “consumers are yet to be
convinced of the life-changing magic
of the IoT, or driverless cars, or remotecontrolled
robots.
Instead, to win consumers over
to the idea of the new technology,
organisations now need to prove that
they can offer users a consistent, reliable
service suitable for their day-to-day
smartphone activity to justify the huge
investment into spectrum auctions,
research and 5G trials.
What is becoming abundantly clear is
that speed alone isn’t enough to ensure
quality. Customers won’t remember
when they hit gigabit speeds but failed
Google searches or dropped VOIP calls
will stick in their minds.”
In the enterprise world, Ruckus vice
president of wireless products Greg
Beach said that the industry is in danger
of fixating on 5G.
“I think the intelligence is applying
the right technology to the right use
case. 5G is the longer-term mobile
technology but Wi-Fi is not going away.
IoT has a number of different
connectivity protocols that are really
good at delivering specific use cases so
if you fast forward 3, 4, 5, 10 years you
are going to have multiple technologies
that are good at what they are doing.”
No matter what the technology of the
future, A10 Networks and DarkMatter
both agree that security will continue
to be something on the minds of the
enterprise.
Dabboussi said: “Smart alone is not
good enough anymore unfortunately.
Smart and safe is the way forward for
providing intelligent solutions.”
“With all the vulnerabilities out there a
lot of discussions are taking place around
how to secure the consumer market,
device security, as well as for enterprise.”
RABIH DABBOUSSI, DARKMATTER
www.technologybusinesstoday.28 com April 2019
/www.technologybusinesstoday.28