ISE Magazine, August 2019

ISE ICT SOLUTIONS EDUCATION 36 ISE EXPO 2019 Mattias Fridström VP and Chief Evangelist Topic YOUR ROLE Whats the most challenging thing about your role and what is the most gratifying What is the greatest thing youve learned thus far and how do you plan to move the needle in your position this year Fridström As the chief evangelist for Telia Carrier I generate new ideas and uncover new angles to existing trends and then turn those thoughts into useful applicable information for the public be it for our customers partners or the general public I work daily to keep our conversation with the world relevant staying aware of when a certain topic is exhausted and knowing when a fresh interesting approach should be explored The best part of my position is the feeling that Ive contributed something new to the conversation which is very gratifying and boosts my energy and drives the next exploration This year as Telia Carrier moves to build more relationships within the Enterprise segment I look forward to expanding my knowledge and bringing our carrier perspective into the conversations happening in what is a fairly new market for Telia Carrier Topic OVERLOOKED ISSUES What should all of us in the Information and Communication Technology ICT industry be talking about that we are not Or what current topic is the most important that needs additional and different attention Fridström Many enterprises are not carefully evaluating and asking questions about what cloud strategy is best for their business The current trend of publicly telling the market that your new strategy is cloud first is something I think many enterprise businesses should spend more time evaluating internally However thats easier said than done Questions about the visibility and control of their data and how to make this work economically is no small feat Topic RURAL CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS What is your greatest pain point delivering higher speeds to underserved and rural communities What are some solutions Fridström The largest challenge in reaching rural areas is the availability of fiber most importantly fiber at an affordable cost The initial investment to serve an underserved market is quite high and adding expensive fiber buildout on top of those costs often leads to the decision to invest somewhere where conditions are better and the business case looks more attractive Topic COST PER BIT What are some realistic solution to lowering the cost per bit and OpEx overall Fridström I believe machine learning can change how we operate our network it has the potential to change our cost structure drastically We have beta tests in service that will allow us to foresee where the next fault in equipment will occur Through a project Telia Carrier is doing with the Royal Institute of Stockholm we have built a tool that can indicate when a component in our network is likely to fail within 10 days If we could deploy this tool throughout our entire network we project that we could lower our OpEx significantly and at the same time enhance our customers experiences