At this year's Sweden Day in Taipei, Ericsson also focused on the application of information and communication technology in the development trend of the Internet of Things. In addition to the on-site demonstration of using sensors installed in a basketball to record data changes during dribbling, and transmitting it to a mobile phone via Bluetooth technology, and then connecting to cloud computing resources for analysis, Ericsson also recently partnered with Taiwan's U-Ming Marine Transport to integrate shipping cloud services (Ericsson Maritime ICT Cloud) to analyze maximum speed and direction of travel, and even make temporary adjustments to sudden climate changes.
During the on-site discussion, Ericsson reiterated its vision for 5G networking, which has yet to be standardized. While this vision still involves greater network bandwidth and correspondingly greater instantaneous data throughput, Ericsson believes that not all IoT applications necessarily require 5G network resources. Instead, it believes that backward compatibility and flexibility should be maintained, and that different networking technologies should be selected to transmit IoT data based on actual usage needs.
Regarding its recent collaboration with Taiwan's U-Ming Marine Transport Corporation on a shipping cloud service, Ericsson explained that this service primarily utilizes various sensor components to identify data such as waves, current speed, wind direction, and wind force that a vessel faces during navigation. Through satellite positioning and network connectivity, it accurately calculates the optimal direction and speed of travel, thereby achieving efficient fuel use and cost savings. Furthermore, integration with cloud systems allows for temporary responses to sudden climate change and environmental impacts, ensuring safe navigation of vessels in the vast oceans.
Ericsson also anticipates that similar applications will be further expanded to connected vehicles and broader IoT applications, driving overall IoT market growth through secure information networking technologies. Ericsson also anticipates that the upcoming 5G era will further accelerate IoT application development and bring about further changes to future lifestyles.
While the general market consensus suggests that 5G network technology specifications won't be officially finalized until around 2020 at the earliest, Ericsson believes that the development of 5G network technology ultimately hinges on providing greater network bandwidth, corresponding to greater instantaneous data throughput, and even incorporating data transmission security features. Key factors will depend on whether various technologies and hardware designs can successfully adopt unified standards. Regarding the development of 5G network applications, Ericsson believes that maintaining backward compatibility, allowing various IoT devices to transmit data across different network technologies, is essential to meeting the actual needs of the growing IoT market.
For example, by using various sensors to record changes in the vineyard's growing environment, such as soil moisture, pH ratio, or light intensity, the manpower required in the vineyard can be further streamlined. At the same time, the amount of data transmitted can be met with only a 2G or 3G network. However, if the vineyard plans to include monitoring for external influences such as birds and thieves that interfere with grape growth, then the transmission of images captured by cameras activated by motion sensors will require the support of 5G network resources with greater network bandwidth. Therefore, in actual applications, Ericsson believes that IoT applications should not blindly pursue the integration of higher-bandwidth network resources, but should be able to select the optimal network resource based on different usage requirements. In this case, real-time switching and compatibility of network systems are even more important.
In addition, regarding whether it is possible to accelerate the completion of 5G network specifications before 2020, Ericsson still seems to believe that there will be no answer in the short term. Therefore, it is expected that all companies participating in the 5G technical specification discussions will continue to maintain their existing pace of development.
