In this episode of The 5G Factor, our series that focuses on all things 5G, the IoT, and the ecosystem as a whole, I’m joined by my colleague and fellow analyst, Todd R Weiss, for a look at the top 5G developments and what’s going on that caught our eye consisting of new progress across the 5G and IoT ecosystem, including Nokia’s new Global Traffic 2030 report and Technology Strategy 2030 vision, Juniper’s O-RAN SMO and partnership moves, and Cisco’s IoT cybersecurity stand.
Our conversation focused on:
Nokia 2030 Vision. Nokia recently published its Global Network Traffic 2030 detailing why network traffic is projected to grow between fourfold and ninefold in the years leading up to 2030. In tandem, Nokia issued its Technology Strategy 2030 approach, which anticipates that emerging technology will shape networks and society for the next seven years. We explore the key trends driving global traffic growth include AI/ML, extended reality, digital twins, automation, and massive scaling to billions of devices in accord with the expansion of the cloud continuum, metaverse, API economy, Industry 5.0, sustainability, and security. Plus, we look at how Technology Strategy 2030, underpinned by massive growth in network traffic, points to Nokia realizing improved total addressable market and revenue prospects.
Juniper O-RAN SMO Aimed at Solving 5G Complexity. Juniper Networks is prioritizing its portfolio development to solve the complexity of orchestration, automation, and service assurance in 5G and Open RAN environments. Specifically, Juniper O-RAN Service Management and Orchestration (O-RAN SMO), incubated at Juniper Beyond Labs, is designed from the ground up for virtualized, cloud-native modern networks. It’s purpose-built for 5G network slicing, so CSPs can provision, manage, and monetize custom network services on demand. Plus, O-RAN SMO implements the 3GPP-defined RAN Network Slice Subnet Management Function which manages the portion of the network slice that belongs to the RAN domain.
Cisco’s Proactive Stance on Labels for Consumer IoT Devices. Cisco’s Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) focuses on protecting customers from rapidly evolving cybersecurity threats and IoT device security is certainly no exception. The FCC is asking some ongoing intriguing questions about how to improve consumer confidence and understanding of the security of IoT devices as part of its ongoing Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on Cybersecurity Labeling for IoT. The FCC’s program is intended to inform consumers about the cybersecurity qualities of the IoT products in the marketplace. We review why we concur with Cisco’s view on supporting new measures which require that a cybersecurity label must demonstrate to the consumer that meaningful measures are being taken by the manufacturer to protect the consumer and that consumers must be alerted when a device becomes insecure.
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Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Transcript:
Ron Westfall: Hello and welcome everyone to the 5G Factor. I’m Ron Westfall, Research Director here at The Futurum Group, and today I’m joined here by my distinguished colleague, Todd R. Weiss, our Team Analyst, who focuses on major areas such as telecommunications and naturally 5G. And today we will be honing in on the major 5G ecosystem developments that have caught our eye and attention. Todd, welcome back to the 5G Factor. How have you been bearing up between episodes? How have you been getting by?
Todd R. Weiss: I’m doing well. Thanks, Ron. It’s good to be back with you. It’s getting freezing cold here in Pennsylvania, so we’re getting ready for the hibernation for the winter.
Ron Westfall: Well, hey, we’ll try to share some of the Texas heat with you all as the winter progresses.
Todd R. Weiss: That would work fine.
Ron Westfall: Yes. Now with that observation, yes, autumn is definitely with us now and let’s jump right in.
Todd R. Weiss: Sounds great.
Ron Westfall: Amen. I think one thing that is important is Nokia’s reports that have come out recently, that is their tech trend reports. In fact, Nokia CEO, Pekka Lundmark, expressed that the data traffic on the world’s traffic will continue to grow by 20% to 30% each year. And again, that’s based on this research. And this is underpinning really Nokia’s perspective after its recent financials that yes, CapEx spending has been dialed back by major operators in many parts of the world. However, that’s not going to be something persistent over the next few years at least. And part of it’s common sense that we go through ups and downs, peaks and valleys. But as we navigate through this CapEx valley, why will there be a peak on the horizon? Well, quite simply, Nokia has put some of its research and estimates about network growth into its recently released report, Global Network Traffic 2030. And in addition, it issued its technology strategy 2030 report. Clearly, Nokia has an eye on 2030 and I think it serves as an important milestone for better understanding why network traffic growth is going to grow dramatically.
Todd R. Weiss: Yeah. If they’re not paying attention to this, that would be a shock. It makes a lot of sense that they’re detailing the numbers because every company has to know.
Ron Westfall: Yes. And I think what’s important is that this is research that is being conducted across a broad spectrum of the ecosystem. We’re getting, I think, very valuable information. It’s basically valid. And I think it can definitely do what you just pointed, Todd, inform decision making that will be instrumental to how the 5G ecosystem evolves through the next several years.
Todd R. Weiss: Right.
Ron Westfall: If we look specifically at global network traffic 2030, network traffic is projected to grow between fourfold and ninefold in the years leading up to, again, 2030. For-
Todd R. Weiss: Can you just imagine that for a minute? Ninefold from today in 2030, that’s seven years from now, ninefold. It’s an amazingly huge number.
Ron Westfall: Oh, absolutely. In fact, yeah, I think this is something that we’ve gotten somewhat accustomed to, but still important to pinpoint these types of metrics. Again, we can have better planning and decision making about how much the traffic will grow. That’s at the high end, but at the very least, fourfold. But I’m betting that we’ll be toward the high end, ninefold range, because of some of the things we’ll touch on. Plus there are always new applications and so forth that weren’t fully anticipated at this point in time.
Todd R. Weiss: It’s not just people, it’s IOT devices, it’s a million things, cars with all this network stuff built in. I mean airplanes, we’re going to have airplanes soon with network stuff built in. We can’t even imagine in the refrigerators, all that’s network stuff.
Ron Westfall: Well absolutely, and I think another aspect is geopolitics. Here in the US, we have billions allocated to closing the digital divide and other parts of the world, same type of investment that’s being driven just by the governments, let alone the vast private investment out there.
Todd R. Weiss: Speaking of governments, as we build rural broadband, rural networks, I mean as we bring rural network abilities to the rest of the country, to the rest of the world that doesn’t have it, there’s growth right there. I mean that’s going to be huge growth when they figure out economical ways to do that.
Ron Westfall: Right on. And I think it’s important to pinpoint some more data points here because again, we’re a technology industry and this is all very informative. Even in its more moderate scenario, Nokia observes that traffic is expected to grow from 507 exabytes per month in 2022 up to 1,014 exabytes per month in 2026, and then ultimately 2,443 exabytes per month in 2030. Basically we’re living in the exabyte era right now.
Todd R. Weiss: Unbelievable numbers. Basically it’s saying what we’re doing now, which seems a lot, is going to be like nothing compared to seven years from now.
Ron Westfall: Right. And I think a good example specific, and I know Nokia is putting marketing momentum behind it some, is that metaverse traffic alone will expand from less than one exabyte per month from 2022 up to almost 38 exabytes per month in 2026, and then ultimately over 495 exabytes per month in 2030. And then this is to your point, Todd, about the applications that are swelling out there. So far, metaverse has been underwhelming. I think there’s a consensus in that.
Todd R. Weiss: Oh yeah. I was just going to say if the metaverse actually happens, right?
Ron Westfall: Well yeah. I was going to say even if we factor out, say subpar metaverse performance and how it’s defined, there are things that could be broken out that would drive growth regardless. For example, digital twins and so forth, at least from my view. However, I think it’s pointing to the fact that the applications are improving, that the network capabilities are certainly improving. And so these types of applications will become more mainstream and it isn’t necessarily predicated on say the headset, but we already seen quite impressive breakthroughs on the headset side over the last several months ranging from Apple’s announcements to Lenovo’s announcements and so forth. We’ll touch on that in another episode, but let’s stick to this. Yeah, the reports.
Todd R. Weiss: Yeah, yeah.
Ron Westfall: And I think another thing that’s important to add here is that end user traffic will increase at a CAGR, that’s compound annual growth rate of at least 22%, perhaps 25%, again in that 2022 through 2030 timeframe. And so with that, and this is just a sampling. From your view, what are the key takeaways from the Nokia reports, Todd?
Todd R. Weiss: Well, the numbers you just talked about, I mean the numbers are going to be astounding. And it’s remarkable because it wasn’t that long ago we were looking at these things and thinking, gee, how is it possible it’s going to grow four or five or 50% by 2022? But it’s just remarkable demand. And it’s like with every generation of phones, with every generation of new wifi standards, with every generation of new performance that’s capable of giving users higher, higher performance, there’s more demands. Streaming and everything else. I frankly agree that the networks have to be better. The networks have to think for themselves better, they have to be more automated, they have to be able to address all kinds of specialized business and industry demands and users, end users, consumer demands. They’re going to have to provide, even though they can’t imagine how they can do faster throughput, how they can’t possibly imagine lower latency, they’re going to have to come up with it. That’s just the way progress works. And in addition, I looked at Nokia’s technology strategy 2030 report. It anticipates, like you would imagine, emerging technology will shape networks and society for the next seven years. I would say that’s inaccurate. It’s going to shape society and networks for the next whatever, 100 years, it’s going to continue.
Ron Westfall: Right.
Todd R. Weiss: And these key trends driving growth, we’ve got AI and machine learning. They are high performance, high power things. Extended reality again, high demand on low latency, incredible performance. Digital twins, the power that’s needed for these things is unbelievable. Automation, automating factories, software, automating processes, industries, massive scaling to billions of devices that, I mean right now we’re at the Model T of this networking stuff. Seriously. And in five, 10 years, we’re going to be at the McLaren of these networks. And then what’s going to come after that? I use a car analogy, but all this stuff, if the cloud uses so much, if the metaverse is really going to become a factory, it’s going to be a high demand thing. Industry 5.0, sustainability security, nothing says networks can be slower. They are going to have to continue the pace of growth like we need for demand on the internet too. Yeah. This is data that Nokia has that confirms everything we already knew, but really puts into a reality.
Ron Westfall: Yeah. And your thoughts, Todd, triggered I think two observations. One, the Nokia information data is correlating with our own research that is driving our dashboards.
Todd R. Weiss: Sure.
Ron Westfall: That I think is important. And naturally there’s other research out there, but it’s really pointing to this inevitability. A lot of it’s just common sense and logic. Network traffic is going to continue to expand dramatically, even explode in certain segments, certain geographies. And so that’s the other thing that this is important for Nokia’s long-term prospects, but also midterm and let alone near term. That will tie to what we anticipate is improved financial performance for Nokia, but other players in the 5G ecosystem as key operators take a breather, at least on the CapEx side in terms of 5G specific investments.
Todd R. Weiss: Yeah.
Ron Westfall: And with that, let’s turn to I think another important development. And I think you had observations that are pointing to, for example, the 5G ran side of things. And specifically one thing that caught our eyes is that Juniper has dedicated itself to solving the complexity that’s related to orchestration, automation and service assurance and 5G and Open RAN. And ultimately we’d like to see open 5G, but let’s start with the Open RAN. To be specific. We see that Juniper’s ORAN service management and orchestration or ORAN SMO, which has been incubated at Juniper Beyond Labs, is designed for virtualized cloud native modern networks. And that’s important because this is something that’s going to require purpose-built design for supporting 5G network slicing, something we’ve heard plenty about. And one area that, for example, T-Mobile is already making a commercial push. And this is across basically the entire 5G ecosystem, but the fundamental takeaway is that this is essential for CSPs to provision and manage and monetize their custom network services on an on-demand basis. Also, the ORAN SMO implements the three GPP defined RAN network slice subnet management function, and that’s important for managing the portion of the network slice that belongs to the RAN domain itself.
Todd R. Weiss: I want to add something right there. We talked about ORAN a few weeks ago. ORAN is one of those other things that we’re going to hear more and more and more about because it’s bringing incredible new capabilities to these CSPs and to the networks in general. And it’s a newer technology we’re still seeing evolve, but it’s so important to everyone. I think this is really great that Nokia is, or excuse me, Juniper is doing this kind of work, doing these kind of evaluations, diving into this because this is really another really important thing for the future for network performance and everything else.
Ron Westfall: Yeah. I believe the ORAN alliance couldn’t agree more with your observation, Todd. And I think it’s tying into other important aspects and that is Juniper’s RAN intelligent controller, or RIC, is bringing that intelligence and programmability to the radio network, which is going to be vital for enabling network slicing, the other applications we’ve been talking about in terms of on-demand service capability. And what’s, I think, important is that the Juniper RIC includes both non-real time RIC and near real time RIC with their associated R-apps and X-apps to control the network functions. That includes ORAN distributed unit and ORAN central unit. And as such, Juniper’s ORAN SMO supports the standard interfaces including three GPP ORAN and TMF and cross the entire architecture. I know that’s an acronym soup.
Todd R. Weiss: I don’t think there’s enough acronyms there. We should add 5 to 10 more into that.
Ron Westfall: Well yeah, this is the terminology we are working with, but it’s also very important to put together.
Todd R. Weiss: Oh, yeah.
Ron Westfall: Yeah. This is somewhat simplified in itself, but I think it’s conveying the fact that this is the type of technological progress that is going to be critical to enable the CSPs to support clearly an Open RAN implementation across their network, but also within a multi-vendor environment, which is basically all the networks out there, et cetera. And I think what’s also important to know here is that Juniper is working with Capgemini and Telefonica to design and implement a proof of concept for an end-to-end network slicing solution that is entirely provisioned and managed from the cloud itself. Again, the cloud is basically integral to all of these capabilities.
Todd R. Weiss: Sure.
Ron Westfall: And in addition, industry players such as Microsoft, Intel, CNS Blue Planet and Cases Systems are participating in this proof of concept. And for instance, I think what’s very important here is that Microsoft has hosted the orchestration functions in Azure and provided its 5G standalone core network. In addition, Intel has provided the on-prem servers for virtualized baseband and Blue Planet contributed the end-to-end service orchestration built to interact with the orchestrators responsible for each domain, including radio orchestration and control with Juniper’s ORAN SMO and RIC with slice of air admission control across X and R apps. And finally, Cases Systems provided disaggregated 5G radio access network capabilities. Which I think… Go ahead.
Todd R. Weiss: I wanted to say it takes a village to make this happen, and a lot of acronyms.
Ron Westfall: Right on. And I think one thing that is interesting to note is that Blue Planet’s orchestration capability and service orchestration, it’s basically working as the orchestrator of orchestrators, I guess you can say, in this context. And that’s something that’s really been out there in terms of how does this really work? And this is, I think, the capability that is of course contributing a very key role, in addition to all the other capabilities that are being contributed.
Todd R. Weiss: Yeah.
Ron Westfall: This is something we could just keep listing for the rest of the episode, but we’re not going to do that.
Todd R. Weiss: Yeah. Well that’s a great point though that when you’ve got a bunch of vendors, you’ve got what, seven vendors, eight vendors there, somebody’s got to take the central role, somebody’s got to be on the track and everybody else pile on, get on their back and go, because otherwise you’re going to never get it done. It’s good that they found the right partner to be that core and make this happen. I think it makes a lot of sense.
Ron Westfall: Well, hey, Todd, you’re on a roll. What else about Juniper’s ORAN SMO developments stood out for you?
Todd R. Weiss: Well, what I thought was interesting was the proof of concept itself. It demonstrated that CSPs can do these things, create, manage, and ensure 5G network slices in a multi-vendor standards based environment, which is what they’re all doing together. To me, when companies work together to do things like this, to drive things, projects like this, that’s the only way to make it work. You got to gain everybody going all in to make it happen. That’s, to me, one of the biggest parts of this ORAN SMO development effort. Let’s see here. What was the other thing I was thinking? Oh, I wrote down also with this, CMOs can take advantage of open and disaggregated ran architectures and control complex multi-vendor RAN environments at massive scales. Again, this was not easy before there were partners that could work together to do it. What we’re talking about is these companies making it easier for these kinds of possibilities to actually become reality. I think that’s big.
With a SMO designed for multi-tenant network slicing, CSPs will be able to support a range of new use cases, and that includes private 5G, RAN sharing, MVNO, neutral host, and they’ll be able to offer network slicing as a service. Imagine that. That can empower customers and partners to create their own custom network services on demand, which is going to become more useful as customers start seeing how private networks and these network slices can benefit their operations. We just talked last week about that company in Italy, what was it? SNAM? Yeah, that’s what they’re doing. They’re doing the exact same thing. They’re creating private networks for the gas distribution system because in the locations they are, they don’t have great network ability. They’re doing these private things. These are things that are growing in use cases, these are things in growing in the technology capabilities and it’s going to, as we said, become way more popular and way more sought by companies.
Ron Westfall: Yeah. I think it’s key that Juniper is tackling this very complex scenario and providing the POC, basically providing the leadership using Juniper Beyond Labs cultivation of these capabilities. And that’s, I think, going to really light the fire for many CSPs to get onboard, or not even onboard, but to advance really, the network slicing capabilities and other advanced multi-vendor capabilities that will basically take advantage of 5G standalone capabilities. And I know we’re-
Todd R. Weiss: Then there’s a thing I always harp on, which is if your CSP competitors are doing it, you’d better start doing it because you’re going to lose customers as those capabilities are out there. And if you don’t have them, they’ll go somewhere else.
Ron Westfall: Exactly. And that’s the spirit of competition.
Todd R. Weiss: Yeah.
Ron Westfall: Yes, we will definitely keep repeating ourselves when it comes to standalone networks. We know there are other factors.
Todd R. Weiss: We can replay this episode, it’ll just repeat.
Ron Westfall: But yeah, I want my 5G standalone kind of riffing on MTVs, I want my MTV, but you get the fundamental idea. And yes, we know there’re energy efficiency factors to address and so forth, but it’s the bottom line. I mean, any operator that’s invested in 5G has to get the standalone network out there to succeed, quite simply.
Todd R. Weiss: Definitely.
Ron Westfall: And with that, let’s shift gears a bit. As we know, internet of things is very much part of our coverage here. And something came out recently that I thought’s important to address because this is an ongoing issue and it will be all the way through at least 2030, once again, that important year. And to be specific, we’re looking at Cisco’s views on the labels for consumer IOT devices. And back in August of this year, the notice of proposed rulemaking on cybersecurity labeling and IOT, the FCC asked questions about how to improve consumer confidence and understanding the security of their IOT devices. Right away, this is built in why this is so important. I think it’s for all of us, again, all of society. And basically the NPRM seeks input on whether and how the FCC should establish a cybersecurity certification and labeling programs. We’ve seen this for example, with labeling of household appliances for energy savings capabilities, for example. And accordingly, that means more than 25 billion connected IOT devices are predicted to be in operation by 2030. Here we go again. Here’s something that’s fueling that dramatic network growth that we touched on with the Nokia reports. And this is including, for example, everything from home office routers, personal digital assistants, internet connected home security cameras, voice activated shopping devices, again, internet connected appliances, fitness trackers, GPS trackers, the garage door openers, you name it, baby monitors. We’re seeing that all of these devices are in play and that’s why this is so important.
Todd R. Weiss: I got to say something, this is really important. And the reason is because right now people are being told in all kinds of reports all over, you have this IOT device, do you know what security it has? Do you know if it’s locked down? Do you know if hackers are getting in? Bad things happen when things have cheap, badly written software that doesn’t keep track of security, doesn’t maintain security. To have things that are certified, to have things that these will require vendors, manufacturers to make sure that these things are secure when they’re sold and will stay secure as you’re using them is really important. I mean, think about it, all those doorbell devices, the doorbell cameras and cameras here and there, do you want to know when the cameras in your house are recording you because some hacker broke in and now is into your things and can now capture you and whatever? The security of these devices, the certification of these devices being safe, secure, and maybe even updated is I think potentially a hugely important thing for every consumer, every business, every user.
People are buying these things for eight bucks, 10 bucks on the internet, taking them home and using them without knowing are they secure. And they’re probably not always secure. The fact that yeah, people are going to look at this and say, oh, it’s more government telling us what to do, this is one of those cases. Government sometimes can be very helpful and protect you when you don’t realize you need help. Certifying these kinds of devices I think is a really important thing for all of us. Now there are going to be people who say, no, it’s whatever, but I think this program is a really good idea and I hope that people respond, give their input, let the government know, let the NPRM know what their feelings are. But if you really look at this closely, this is a good thing to help protect consumers and businesses. What do you think? Is that true?
Ron Westfall: Well, yes. I think the initiative is warranted. I think it needs to advance. And I think you touched on that fact that IOT has been something of a soft underbelly in terms of hacking and security breaches. And granted some of these IOT devices are older and don’t have some of the more capable security built in with the current IOT devices. But this is something that needs to be, again, certified on an industry-wide basis.
Todd R. Weiss: Yeah.
Ron Westfall: It doesn’t guarantee, but it certainly will, I think, put at the forefront that the security of IOT devices needs to be a top priority. It is already, but it needs to align with meeting certain certification measurements in order to give that extra peace of mind, if you will. Or not just consumers, but certainly businesses out there.
Todd R. Weiss: Sure. Standards here are not a bad thing. Standards are to protect us all. And it could be because you have a camera from a company, that company gets attacked. And now the code, you didn’t personally get attacked, but the code in those devices got attacked, it zooms all over the place virally, and now your device is affected through no fault of your own. You don’t want to read a headline in a newspaper or on a screen of a newspaper telling you something bad about a device you have. It’s just not a good thing. And those companies that build those devices don’t want those headlines either. Again, yeah, this is going to be complicated. It’s going to be hard to track, it’s going to be hard to do all these things, but trying to do something now is a really important step because nobody’s done much so far.
Ron Westfall: Yes, exactly. And drilling down, the FCCs program is intended to inform consumers about the cybersecurity qualities of their IOT products.
Todd R. Weiss: Yeah.
Ron Westfall: And in many cases, the devices that do not have good cybersecurity posture are threat to their owners and others actually on the network. And I touched on that, IOT being a bit of a security threat relative to say a firewall network. And so as a result, Cisco has established product security incident response team or PCERT. Here we go with acronyms again.
Todd R. Weiss: Oh my.
Ron Westfall: A while back to protect customers for this very reason. And that’s why it’s advocating that this software has to be kept up to date. And with a government’s warrant, I think that will incentivize the entire ecosystem, not just Cisco, to be on top of the software updates.
Todd R. Weiss: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also on that, a lot of these devices are cheap. You buy them on online retailers, they’re cheap, they’re 10, 20 bucks. Well, at some point when the security you know of a device is bad, toss it and go spend the money and buy another one that now is certified. I mean, people that may not realize, companies may not realize how big a deal this is, but when hackers get into things, it’s not where you think they are getting in. It’s in the smallest, tiniest little spot where somebody left something open and they find it, they discover it and they worm their way in. There was one massive attack, of course, I can’t think of it right now, where they came in through some ridiculously simple easy thing and kaboom took down a company. And these are massive, huge problems. And if people don’t think it can happen to them, if companies don’t think it can happen to them, they are completely nuts. It can happen to any company, anywhere, anytime.
Ron Westfall: Yes. And that’s the context the paranoid will thrive. And hey, Todd, you’re on a roll. What else about the FCCs ideas for a labeling program that I think caught your attention?
Todd R. Weiss: Well, like I said, I really like this idea. Cybersecurity label would demonstrate to consumers that these devices have gotten some meaningful protections in them, that these devices have been looked at, that the code’s been looked at, that what they’re buying is something that they can trust as much as you want to trust anything. Okay? I mean, is anything perfect? No. Is any code perfect? Not much, but they can improve code. And where vendors aren’t going to update their code and things like that, then you do, you toss it, you swap out another one, but make sure it’s certified, make sure it starts out with a baseline that you know is secure. I really think this is going to be important and that means some of these devices are going to rise in price a little bit because they will provide updated software and updates. And I think that’s worth it. I mean, if you can buy something for 10 bucks or you can buy it for 20 knowing that it’s going to be updated over the air and things like that, or via the internet to keep them safe and secure, that’s really worth the extra money I think. And then also needs to be things, and I think this is part of the regulations, they’re looking at, letting consumers know when a device they have isn’t safe anymore.
Ron Westfall: Right.
Todd R. Weiss: That to me is a really big… It’s like with cars and seat belts or a recall. Hey, your Ford truck has got a bad axle. You need to know that.
Ron Westfall: Right.
Todd R. Weiss: The same thing with these. Now, is it as impactful as the axle or gas tank in your car? Maybe not as impactful, but it’s plenty important if you’re doing your checking account and your savings account and you’re paying bills and things like that online and somebody gets into your computer because of this or a business, somebody gets into your systems because of this because you have a device that’s got this little teeny tiny place where somebody can get in, ’cause they’re going to get in. I really think that’s important. And I think people should also, and businesses need to do like businesses do. They do network checks, they do these kinds of checks, they have security systems running. Those kinds of things have to be done with your IOT system and network as well. These have to be regularly checked, regularly, assure yourself that you’re protected and if not, swap out another device that you feel is more safe.
I think those things are really important and I really hope that the FCC can make this happen and get a lot of good comments from people. There’s going to be people out there who say, oh my God, it happened to me. Those are the people we want to hear from. There’s going to be companies that say, it happened to us. We want to hear that kind of input. And then people often don’t think these things are going to happen to them, but life is a tricky, crazy, wild ride. I think it’s really good to be paying attention to this. We’ve heard about this for years, that these IOT devices, many of them are not secure. The bad guys are onto it as well. And we need to all take our responsibility in our businesses and homes, I think.
Ron Westfall: Right on, Todd. Don’t let your IOT device take you on a wild, wicked ride-
Todd R. Weiss: There you go.
Ron Westfall: Out of the blue. And so naturally we’ll be revisiting this IOT security. This is something that’s very critical.
Todd R. Weiss: Yeah, yeah. I’ll pay attention to it too because I think that’s really amazing stuff.
Ron Westfall: Okay, great. I think we’ve queued up another theme for our future 5G Factor episode. And on that note, thank you everyone for tuning in and joining us today. And of course, thank you, Todd, for coming on today to discuss the hot topics in the 5G ecosystem world.
Todd R. Weiss: Well, thank you, Ron. And at some point, maybe over the holidays, we’ll do an all acronym episode, every acronym.
Ron Westfall: That actually wouldn’t be as challenging as some might think.
Todd R. Weiss: I do not think it would.
Ron Westfall: Thank you for tuning in. Be sure to check out our streaming on The Futurum Group website. And with that, good 5G day, everyone.
Other insights from The Futurum Group:
Nokia Fiscal Q3 2023: Adjusting to Macro Uncertainties
Juniper Q3 2023 Earnings: Enterprise Takes Spotlight
Cisco Q4 and FY 2023: AI, Security, and Cloud Fuel Milestone Results
Author Information
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
He is a recognized authority at tracking the evolution of and identifying the key disruptive trends within the service enablement ecosystem, including a wide range of topics across software and services, infrastructure, 5G communications, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), analytics, security, cloud computing, revenue management, and regulatory issues.
Prior to his work with The Futurum Group, Ron worked with GlobalData Technology creating syndicated and custom research across a wide variety of technical fields. His work with Current Analysis focused on the broadband and service provider infrastructure markets.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
