The future is somewhere wedged between 5G and digital

This month, we hear from Antonella Faniuolo, Vodafone UK Head of Network Strategy and Digital Transformation, and member of our Advisory Board.

Change has always been on the horizon for the telecom industry, but now comes the time when we have to change. With the deployment of 5G underway, and digital fundamentals such as cloud becoming mainstream, attention must shift to how we do business in these new dynamics. For telecoms operators, this involves changing our mind-set and growing our skill-set; the evolution of the network is not just about faster download speeds, but opening up our assets to create something new.

The future is not about 5G alone, as many seem to believe, neither it is driven solely by digital, as others would champion. It is the intersection between the two: the marriage of telecoms and technology, which creates a new type of dynamics.

This is Vodafone’s long-term ambition – to evolve with the expectations of the market, bringing new skills and operating models into our business. Connectivity will remain at the core of Vodafone, but we want to co-create with hyperscalers, empower the developer community to innovate, and build bridges to encourage collaboration. This new dynamic is evident with the number of Mobile Private Networks we’ve announced in recent months; the vision of partnership with the verticals is coming to life and it won’t be long before this intersection of 5G and digital is commonplace.

We know this will not be straightforward and it will be a learning process, but as our commitment to the OpenRAN ecosystem demonstrates, we are not afraid to challenge ourselves to walk a different path from the status quo. 

UK5G is an important aspect of this story. The organisation brings us into new conversations with new people to discuss new ideas. If Vodafone is going to grow to become a different company, we have to do things differently and be open to original ideas, from alternative partners.

We are excited about the prospect of change and we hope others are inspired by our challenge!

Thanks for reading,
Antonella

Picture: OpenRAN: Why Vodafone is taking the lead (read article)

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Events listed on UK5G

18th - 19th November: Cenex Low Carbon Vehicle (www.cenex-lcv.co.uk) and Cenex Connected Automated Mobility (www.cenex-cam.co.uk) 

19th November: Innovation for Food Resilience (view here)

19th November: How to improve customer experience with continuous network intelligence (view here)

23rd November: 5PRING - Explore - 5G in Mobility and the Green Agenda (view here)

24th November: 5G for content acquisition and distribution – Session 1 (view here)

1st December: 5PRING - Engage Workshop - 5G in Manufacturing (view here)

2nd and 9th December: 5G in Digital Healthcare (LEPS & SMES Working Group webinar) 

3rd December: Digital Manufacturing Conference 2020 (view here)

7th December: IEEE Global Communications Conference 2020 (view here)

Recently added event: Matchmaking for 5G Transport & Logistics on Monday 30th November 10:00 - 11:30 GMT

DCMS and UKSA are running a matchmaking event for the Space and 5G convergence: Transport & Logistics competition to help facilitate bids.

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You can read an update from Vassilis Seferidis (Founder and CEO at Zeetta Networks) on behalf of 5G-ENCODE here (pdf). If you'd like to subscribe to future newsletters, you can do so here. 

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