Dr. Alan Shark from the Public Technology Institute opened this session by thanking participants for being dedicated to this new topic featured at the 2015 GF. Intelligent Infrastructures – like other new topics – started as discussion points during previous years’ sessions during which thought leaders were “weaving or building a quilt through a dialogue focusing on vast topics under the theme of intelligent infrastructure”.

Shark then presented his view on intelligent infrastructures and Internet of everything.  According to him, increasingly everything will be connected to everything. Predictions are that in 2020, there will be 50 billion smart objects. With this convergence of people, things, processes and data, public leaders should all know that this technology is here to stay imposing real concerns regarding the security in systems which may require a data governance i.e. regulation of data ownership, control and sharing. Governments must establish policies to address these challenges.

Timo Ali-Vehmas, Head of Ecosystems Research, Nokia Technologies, Finland presented on the nature and structure of the future intelligent infrastructure which includes four clusters of ICT: content, network, consumer devices, and the actual consumer with issues of identity, data and services provided. 4G to 5G will be a significant change to the ecosystem. As such, the digitization and software for this ‘conversion’ drive full integration, overcoming segmentation of these interrelated ecosystems with data being the key driver for the changes. As society converges to 5G, there are other network effects of openness that need to considered, such as: consumer choice, interoperability and competition. The transition from 3G to 4G and then to 5G has a history repeating itself, only the transition to 5G will be so vast, that ‘history will repeat itself, but in unpredictable ways’.

Basuki Yusuf Iskandar, Head of Agency for ICT R&D and Human Resources Development, Ministry of ICT,  presented  national  strategy development for 5G. In his  presentation, Mr. Basuki discussed  the  challenges  of  adopting  5G. In technology, there are limited human resources and budget for R&D and additional  cost of social learning in adopting new 5G technology. In infrastructure, the switching cost is high due to unused of most existing infrastructure and limited fiber optic backbone. Challenges in regulation and social challenges are also mentioned. More frequent discussions about the 5G plan are taking place in Indonesia, and the Government of Indonesia is planning to strengthen local industrial players. According to Mr. Basuki, adoption of 5G will be initiated in Indonesia if switching cost can be covered by the future benefits based on rational economic adjustment.

Latin Ladid, Founder& President, IPv6 Forum, Chair, 5G World Alliance, Luxembourg, talked about IPv6 in the 5G era. He argued that 4G systems still remains significant in a 5G world because of its low cost markets and legacy infrastructure. He mentioned some key factor needed to be considered for 5G Network Evolution to meet expectations.

Juha Palve, VP Customer Solutions, Knowledge Intensive Products and Services, VTT Tech Research Centre of Finland Ltd. Finland, talked about intelligent infrastructure which means innovation from silicon to cloud. The enablers of intelligent infrastructure are:

• Data science
• Future communications
• Sensing and measurement

Then Mr. Palve spoke of 5G challenges: handling the capacity need of the radio systems without major increase in energy consumption; ensuring needed HW performance；verifying and improving SW performance; and information security. He discussed also the key 5G system requirements. In the end, he said that as researchers, his team at VTT is already thinking of 6G and beyond.

Claudia Selli, Director European Government Affaird, AT&T Belgium discussed the pace of innovation and our ability to adapt.  In the last 70 years, the pace of innovation was slow and incremental. In the last 10 years, innovative change has been revolutionary  With the advent of smart phones and expanded  networks, data usage has also increased exponentially. The last 8 years has been a 100,000 % increase of data flow.  and in the last 6 years, AT&T has invested $126B to upgrade the network in increased capability & use of streaming.

The Pope Francis visit last week to Washington, DC, Philadelphia and New York; there was an increase in selfies and videos being posted — and AT&T’s increased capability helped provide that service. We are now ubiquitously connected – through devices primarily.  To address this pace of innovation & 5G networks, government needs to become involved and work with Industry to provide a strategic framework to harmonize spectrums and standardize guidance so that we are able to respond to this rapid pace of innovation.