Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg on Monday predicted that for the first time this year more people will stream video content than will watch broadcast television.
"[We will] surpass traditional TV viewing with on-demand and video streaming on phones and pads," he told attendees at Mobile World Congress.
Never one to shy away from a big picture industry prediction, Vestberg also suggested that LTE users will exceed 800 million globally by the end of the year, an increase of 80%.
"I think we can almost reach 1 billion 4G subscribers this year," he said.
Meanwhile mobile broadband coverage will reach 70% of the world. There are currently 2.9 billion mobile broadband subscribers globally, with the last billion having been added in just the last two years.
The telcos serving those customers are having to make decisions about their own futures, choosing either to focus on being a network provider or creator of services, or something in between.
Ericsson announced a series of additions and updates to its product portfolio to meet the needs of those operators, including a new radio system, its first new platform since 2008, and its 6000 series routers.
The vendor also announced new cloud hardware and software for data centres that it will deliver via a partnership with Intel
"They need data centres,"Vestberg said, speaking of the vendor’s carrier customers. "We are getting a competitive edge for our customers."
"As the world becomes networked, cloud becomes that much more important," said Intel CEO Brian Krzan ich.
Ericsson has "years of telecom experience" that it is bringing to the cloud and data centre space, he said. Meanwhile, Intel has "a long history in the data centre."
The partnership will allow for faster deployment of cloud services and "faster time to revenue for cloud providers," Krzanich said.
