SAN DIEGO–The technology and use cases associated with 5G will be as different and exciting as comparing today to a decade ago, Jay Alexander, SVP/CTO of Keysight Technologies said during an IEEE Globecom keynote presentation. And that means the test and measurement field needs to evolve to support a rapidly changing, competitive industry.
Keysight Technologies provides a full range of test, measurement and simulation solutions, which Alexander said will need to adapt to the “incredibly complex” networks of the future and the “ruthless” competitive nature of the service provider market.
At the beginning of his talk, Alexander channeled William Thomson Lord Kelvin, credited with groundbreaking work in thermodynamics, electricity and other areas, with this quote from 1883: “When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers, you know something about it.”
“This is actually what my company is in the business of doing,” Alexander said. “We help to measure and simulate complex technologies so we can say we know something about them. When we think about a development like 5G, there is no shortage of constituent enabling technology that requires knowing something about.”
He looked ahead to 2025. “We imagine a future that’s very richly connected where we have high connectivity at our workplaces, to our homes, on the road…whether we’re using a fixed platform, whether we’re on the go, whether we’re using a wearable device or perhaps a body embedded device of some sort.”
Based on customer feedback, Alexander discussed how Keysight needs to change its solutions to better fit customer needs.
“In the face of 24/7 global competition, disruptions to established business models and all of the other competitive dynamics, it is a very frenetic and dynamic environment indeed. And that has implications on what design and measurement companies like Keysight have to do. Our solutions have to be much more turn key; deliver much more value right out of the box. they have to be built on flexible software platforms that are open. Our offerings have to include service offerings so that customers can focus on what to them is the core and achieve their competitive advantage while they outsource everything that for them is context.”
