The 5G Factor: Future of Cloud Gaming, Vodafone's NB-IoT Deal, IBM Deals With Telefonica and DISH, Nokia's Silicon Moves

In this episode of Futurum newest webcast series, The 5G Factor, I'm joined by my colleague and fellow analyst Ron Westfall to explore and break down some of the most exciting news, trends, and partnerships in the 5G ecosystem. In this week's episode we covered some exciting 5G news, including:

The future of cloud gaming — it's powered by 5G. The future of cloud gaming is exciting, especially when powered by 5G end-to-end network slicing, which is revolutionizing cloud gaming services. We explore how this capability, the E2E network slicing, has been optimized for cloud virtual reality game streaming using Ericsson's networks, service orchestration, and monetization tools, all of which will be instrumental in enabling communication services providers (CSPs) to "get a slice" of the action and, more importantly, monetize their networks. Ericsson's E2E network slicing is definitely something to keep an eye on, as we know it will be a key enabler for innovation and opening up a myriad of 5G opportunities for CSPs across multiple industry segments, including healthcare, government, transportation, energy and utilities, media and entertainment.

Vodafone's Multi-Million Market NB-IoT Deal is, Well, Pretty Massive. Cellular narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) is in the news this week as UK-based Vodafone is reportedly on the brink of announcing its biggest ever IoT airtime supply deal outside of China. Carrier managed services can serve as a harbinger for how 5G and IoT can work on a mass market level – fleet management, transportation, warehousing, etc. where a mobile IoT is required. Our conversation covered why this deal is a big one and what it marks the beginning of.

IBM Partners with Telefonica for Cloud Native, 5G Core Network Platform. More exciting 5G news of the week is around IBM's partnership with Telefonica to help the telco implement its UNICA NEXT 5G core network platform. IBM's intelligent automation software and services will come from IBM's Global Business Services unit and our conversation uncovered why this is also a very big deal – for both IBM and Telefonica.

DISH Makes a Tasty Treat of its Greenfield Cloud-Native 5G Network with IBM as a Partner. In another win for IBM's Global Business Services unit, this new smart network will be agile, scalable, and fully virtualized, looking to benefit enterprise customers across a multitude of industry verticals.

Nokia addresses the alarming increase in DDos attacks. With DDos attacks that disrupt network traffic and servers growing by a massive 154% between 2019 and 2020, largely targeting financial services, telecoms, and government agencies, but now spreading out to target businesses of all kinds and all sizes, Nokia's move here to build network security into its latest gen silicon is an impressive — and much needed — solution.