LOS ANGELES — 5G became real this year, but the mobile industry faces three omnipresent challenges it must overcome before it can collectively deliver on the opportunity and achieve its vision of a better future, GSMA Chairman Stéphane Richard said during his keynote at MWC Los Angeles 2019.

Those challenges include the loss of trust in global supply chains, the loss of trust in the protection of peoples’ digital lives, and the loss of trust in businesses’ ability to deliver sustainable growth for the entire industry, he explained.

“Since 2000 the mobile industry worldwide has invested $2.7 trillion in capex. It’s about the [gross domestic product] of my country, France,” said Richard, who also serves as chairman and CEO of Orange Group. “The mobile industry currently enjoys unparalleled economics of scale underpinned by globally harmonized standards…and global competition at all levels, from chipsets and devices to infrastructure and service provision.”

The supply chain that fuels that is complex and becoming even more so as software and hardware components are sourced around the globe, he said. “These economies of scale, and therefore customer services, are now being threatened by the risk of fragmentation — market fragmentation and technical fragmentation.”

Restricting access to key components will reduce the addressable market size for all parties and lead to a decrease in competition and increase costs, he argued. Without naming Huawei specifically, his comments left little doubt about where these disruptions in the supply chain are occurring amid an ongoing clampdown on Chinese vendors by U.S. government officials and some of its allies.

“Those market restrictions may ultimately lead to different solutions being applied in different markets” and threaten the globally interoperable standardized technologies the industry cultivates today, he warned.

The loss of trust in the protection of peoples’ digital lives is an issue that permeates beyond the confines of mobile networks, but a growing fear of exploitation and manipulation by big businesses and governments is weighing on the mobile industry all the same, Richard explained.

This issue, whether perceived or real, acts as a barrier to growth in economies that are increasingly driven by data. As such, operators should be encouraged to ensure privacy guarantees, security, and the protection of wireless customers against cyberattacks, he said.

“To find the right balance between privacy and data protection, innovation and legal intersection — that are essential to fight against crime and guarantee national security — governments should ensure that legislation is technology neutral, and that its rules are applied consistently to all players,” Richard said.

Vulnerabilities in peoples’ digital lives, ranging from bank account balances today to automated services tomorrow, has been ranked the No. 1 risk in the U.S. intelligence communities worldwide threat assessment, according to Richard. Operators are confronting the challenge by investing in the defense and attack-detection capabilities of their networks.

Finally, if businesses can’t be trusted to deliver sustainable growth, every domain of life will suffer, he said. Political turbulence and environmental risks are pushing global societies to question the role and impact of businesses at large, he added. “The mobile industry is a great power, and with great power comes great responsibility.”

Network operators and other players in the industry can earn more trust by bridging the digital divide, being a responsible steward for the environment, and investing further in low-cost networks and devices, Richard said. Affordability is an even greater barrier to mobile internet access than coverage. “There is a much bigger usage gap with 3.2 billion people living in areas covered by 3G networks but who are not using internet services,” he said.

A growing number of people are also asking questions that the industry must answer in a more forceful but honest manner, he said. “Do we really need 5G? Do we want our lives to become even more digital? We have to find responsible answers to these questions.”

Richard also argued that 5G will lessen the industry’s impact on the environment compared to previous generations of network technology because it can be directional and concentrated toward active users rather than diffusing signals everywhere.

GSMA forecasts 40% of the world’s population will be covered by 5G networks by 2025, and 25 billion IoT connections will be live by then too. “Our responsible leadership of the industry can make a difference,” Richard said.

Mats Granryd, director general at GSMA, also put the size of the mobile industry into a more global and economic perspective. “If we were a country we would take Germany’s place as the fourth-largest economy in the world,” he said.

GSMA Chairman Stéphane Richard shared his view on industry-wide challenges during his keynote at MWC Los Angeles 2019. Photo Credit: Tobias Mann.