As consumers in the ICT market are expecting artificial intelligence (AI) to move from assistants to managers; virtual reality becoming indistinguishable from physical reality in only three years, Ericsson ConsumerLab also found ‘ 'Big Tech for All' phenomenon as one of the IT trends among consumers in year 2017 and beyond.‎
‎
According to the report, more than two out of five advanced internet users would like to get all their products from the biggest five IT companies.

Of those, three in four believe this will happen only five years from now.
‎
Reflecting on the rise of virtual reality, Michael Björn, head of Research, Ericsson ConsumerLab, said: "Beyond real time, I believe we should be talking about reality time. In fact, what we call reality becomes ever more personal and subjective. Consumers not only surround themselves with the like-minded on social networks, but also are also starting to customize the way they experience the world with augmented and virtual reality technologies.

“Consumers also want the future to remain fully mobile, implying that demand for battery-friendly, instant and fast connectivity is set to grow rapidly. In that sense, reality time means it is time for 5G networks.”

The insights in the 10 Hot Consumer Trends for 2017 report (www.nigeriacommunicationsweek.com.ng/e-business/smart-device-safety-para...), are based on Ericsson ConsumerLab’s global research activities over more than 20 years, as well as data points from an online survey of advanced internet users in 14 major cities across the world, performed in October 2016.

5G systems
A Whitepaper released by Ericsson on January 4, 2017 '5G Systems – enabling the transformation of industry and society', it stated the 5G architecture will be cost-efficient to operate and have agile and flexible mechanisms in place for swift introduction of services.

These properties, Ericsson said, are required to enable new business models; as‎ adigital transformation is taking place in almost every industry.

"5G will not only expand the broadband capability of mobile networks but will also help consumers and enterprises boost the efficiency of their lives and their business.

"New business models using distributed cloud services and programmable networks will allow an unprecedented level of information sharing and enable collaboration among all kinds of industries.

The Ericsson 5G Systems white paper examined the main domains of a 5G system and how they must evolve to create a full-fledged 5G system.

These domains comprise wireless access, transport, cloud, application and management (including orchestration and automation).

Using use cases reflecting diverse needs for latency and coverage it examines how a 5G deployment can support multiple business needs using network slicing and virtual network functions.

The use cases described are:
Massive machine type communication (also known as Massive IoT): this requires ubiquitous connectivity for hundreds of thousands of low software and hardware complexity devices.

This covers for example building automation, smart agriculture and fleet management.
Critical IoT (cMTC or URLLC): this covers the requirement for low latency monitoring and control in real time. This covers situations such as control systems in a factory environment.

Extreme mobile broadband: Servicing subscribers and businesses where high data-rate and low latency communications are needed. 5G promises to go far beyond 4G to provide more uniform connectivity and bandwidth over a wide area.

Using these examples, the white paper shows how the 5G system using flexibleradio access nodes, distributed and centralized data centers will allow network programmability for all types of services.

The paper discusses the flexibility of the 5G system architecture regarding the access and core networks, and how software-configurable purpose built architecture will be needed to provide overall cost efficiency and help transform the business models of today into the distributed cloud-based future of tomorrow.