With early 5G deployments being limited in coverage scope, it's hard to tell exactly what direction they will take off in, but more and more revelations begin unfolding the demands needed to see 5G at its full capacity. Developers are clearly displaying 5G as something much more than a simple next step in mobile broadband experience. With low latency and ultra reliable applications running appearing as prominent features that come with 5G, operators and ecosystem partners will need to push for more investments in virtualising network functions and distributing cloud compute infrastructure.

Managing Director of IBM's Global Telecommunications, Media and Entertainment Industry business, Steve Canepa, said the company has followed trends the telco sector un convergence of content creation/ownership and distribution. This allows them to better serve end-to-end value in a unified go-to market organisation. The move in IBM is one toward a hybrid, multi-cloud world, which Canepa stresses are workloads that have to be sticked together to create value.

To make low-latency applications-automated industrial control, data needs to be processed physically close to a machine, which communicates to edge computing and artificial intelligence. Canepa has said that once the right network and compute resources are in the right places, it will be a matter of time before 5G establishes itself. The mobile broadband experience will revolutionise how we understand automation and simplify difficult network processes that at the moment show process at the cost of time and expenses.

IBM partners with Vodafone

IBM and Vodafone recently entered into a partnership geared toward enabling enterprises to take advantage of these technologies. With cloud interconnectivity, companies would be able to access and process their businesses in a more simplified and secure manner.

With more than 70 percent of organisations using up to 15 cloud environments, companies are striving to access powerful new digital solutions and services. Interconnectivity is no longer a promise for innovation, but a global issue where the protection of data and the optimisation of efficiency are key goals. IBM and Vodafone Business will help companies do away with the complexity and obstacles from their technology choices, allowing data and applications to flow freely and securely across their organisations.

Like this article? Check out our most recent episode of Tech Chat!