ABSTRACT
The essential vision We are entering a new technological era with unprecedented demand to
digitize everything, and with new value created from the automation of
lives and systems. The network will be required to deliver information and
entertainment content on a massive scale but with an economic outlay that
is not vastly different than what we expend today. This requirement comes
at a time when we have reached the physical limits of today’s network
performance; so a top-to-bottom restructuring of networks is required,
with a wholesale shift to highly distributed, highly intelligent optimized
networking. Today’s self-contained, standalone networking constructs
— whether it be an operator, network, network layer or element — will
be disaggregated and then realigned and reintegrated at different levels
using a set of new software platforms and interfaces. The shift will also
require a new automated control paradigm, in which networks are truly
programmable and become the essential building blocks of a new digital
connected reality. Three essential elements are required to realize this new
digital networking era.