Intelligent SME.tech Issue 20 | Page 38

// INDUSTRY UNLOCKED

5G IS NO
LONGER A CONCEPT WE ARE WAITING
FOR BUT A REALITY MANY COUNTRIES ARE
LIVING IN .
The proof of the importance of mobile operators / data is in the numbers . According to GSMA Intelligence , US $ 155 billion of economic value will be added to the Sub-Saharan Africa market by 2022 due to mobile technologies . In 2020 , transactions on mobile money platforms reached US $ 490 billion .
The Intelligent Edge
Another critical driver moving the needle for telcos operators is Industry 4.0 or IoT . The promise of an interwoven fabric of intelligent Edge devices that provide insight and data from everything from a Smart City to an autonomous vehicle and robots in a factory – fuels extensive demand for networks that can support the speed at which these devices can deliver information to their parent systems .
Enter 5G . The one thing about the intelligent Edge is that it needs a speedy network to be intelligent . If we are to rely on the data from an IoT device to make up to the second decisions that impact the productivity of a business , we can ' t afford to have a high-latency network . 5G promises to reduce the speed and time it takes to transport information across these networks . And its practical use all but delivers on the promise of the intelligent Edge .
While 5G is no longer a concept we are waiting for but a reality many countries are living in , there is still much to be done by telcos companies to unlock its full value and scale their 5G services .
A security risk
Security is a threat and an opportunity to telco operators in the digital world and as telcos look to expand their services into digital ones , including adding cloud services to the mix , the security risk increases . The same can be said for the addition of 5G services . Why ? Because as networks become built on software , operators can decentralise them , which means that the attack surface expands .
38 intelligent
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Intelligent SME . tech