5G, IoT and cloud will disrupt every industry in 2016: Ericsson CEO

Digital disruption will come to every industry in 2016, Ericsson president and CEO Hans Vestberg said at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) here on Monday and made announcements regarding 5G, Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing.

"Digital disruption will come to every industry in 2016. Today's announcements -- together with the hundreds of demonstrations we will show at MWC -- clearly demonstrate the strength of our portfolio and our capabilities as an Information And Communications Technology (ICT) transformation partner," Vestberg said in a statement.

"Our portfolio is constantly evolving to keep pace with customer demands. Now, with industries and even whole societies being disrupted by mobility, broadband and cloud, we are accelerating our own transformation," he added.

At the event, Vestberg identified 5G, IoT and cloud as the hottest topics in the ICT industry -- and made major announcements in each area.

He said that Ericsson, being a leading researcher for 5G pre-standardisation, has agreements with 20 major operators around the world to work together on 5G -- more than any other vendor.

5G radio test-bed field trials will start in 2016 and Ericsson is active in aligning industry time plans to assure the commercial launch of 5G in 2020.

Vestberg announced that Ericsson is collaborating with AT&T to bring the operator's Digital Life solution -- which uses IoT technology to transform home security and automation -- to service providers outside the US.

IoT, for a laymen, is a futuristic system where you can control almost everything -- from TV to refrigerator, from air-cooling to coffee machine -- with your smartphone.

Ericsson also announced plans to form a global business, technology and services alliance with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to accelerate cloud transformation for telecom service providers.