IT has been predicted that 70 per cent of world’s population will be living in cities across the world rather than stay in the rural areas by the year 2050.
This was the submission of Mr Rutger Reman, the President and Managing Director, Ericsson Nigeria, who spoke with ICT journalists in Lagos late last week in what was his maiden interaction with ICT reporters since his assumption of duty as the head of the foremost ICT Company in March this year.
According to Reman, whose paper was entitled, Digitalising Nigeria- The Role of Ericsson, most people still love living in the cities despite efforts by various governments to provide enabling environments in the rural areas believing that opportunities abound in the cities. He said Ericsson is concerned about this development and is ready to help the world and Nigeria in particular overcome the rush to the cities by providing cutting edge technologies that would discourage the rural-urban migration of the people all over the world.
According to him, Ericsson is the driving force behind the Networked Society, a world leader in communications technology and services and that its long-term relationships with every major telecom operator in the world allow people, business and society to fulfill their potential and create a more sustainable future. He said further that Ericsson is number one in city connectivity with 40 per cent of the world’s mobile traffic being carried over Ericsson networks.
He stated that the company’s services, software and infrastructure, especially in mobility, broadband and the cloud, are enabling the telecom industry and other sectors to do better business, increase efficiency, improve the user experience and capture new opportunities.
Reman noted that ICT as the enabler of the world is felt in all areas of human endeavours, including health, education, commerce, media, transportation and banking among many other areas, adding that the good thing about it all is that Ericsson is better placed to provide all the technologies needed to make live more meaningful for the people.
He said challenges are different from city to city, which range from transportation to agriculture to jobs, housing, public safety and education among others but that ICT has solutions that will turn challenges into opportunities especially from the standpoint of Ericsson
Reman also stated that ICT powers change in all cities and that the three transformative technologies that would together transform all cities are Mobility, Broadband and Cloud, and that Ericsson is at the top of all these technologies.
In his own address at the occasion, Mr Fisayo Araoye, Head of Network Products, Ericsson Nigeria, in a paper entitled, Capitalising on the In-Door Opportunity, noted that in-door marketing is growing and that the in-building wireless market will more than double by 2020, to reach around $6 billion, while Indoor wireless data traffic will grow more than 600 per cent by 2020.
He said that most companies must deliver more services indoors to stay competitive in the market saying with time, this will reduce cost of production and encourage efficiency in the world.
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