The head of Samsung Electronics’ network business has declared that software capabilities will revolutionise the telecommunications landscape, compared it to the leap between 2G and Wi-Fi.
Kim Woojune made the prediction during Nikkei’s Future of Asia forum over the weekend.
“Software has become a key driver of innovation, and this transition to software is also a natural shift in the networks industry,” Kim said.
“Software brings more flexibility, more creativity and more intelligence.”
Kim likened the transition away from the physical networks used in telecommunications for more than a century to the shift from second generation phones that allowed only phone calls and text messaging, to the current smartphones, which increase communications through a myriad of software–based advancements.
Samsung has been tasked with providing its cloud-native 5G Standalone Core for Japanese telco KDDI’s commercial network across the country. Among with KDDI, Japanese telco Rakuten, and Verizon in the US, have already started building virtualised networks.
Kim said this will allow smart factories, automated vehicles, cloud-based online gaming, and multi-camera live streaming of sports events to be available through a lightning-fast software network. He called for global governments, to “maximise the benefit of this extra use.”
