What happens to security in a world where the client-server models of the past are breaking down in the face of increasingly disparate, disaggregated systems? Ramanath Mallikarjuna, Chief Strategist at Akamai, discusses what this means for telecoms security... and his home life.
As complex supply chains respond to unexpected shocks, the collection and sharing of data is becoming more urgent and complicated, both to uphold contracts and to enable flexibility. The University of Derby's Raj Thakar proposes how this might be handled.
The primary challenges for future technologies are not just low-latency and high-bandwidth. The more critical problem Mobile Service Providers (MSPs) will face will be in balancing the inflated demands of network connections and customers’ trust in the network service, that is, being able to interconnect billions of unique devices while adhering to the agreed terms of Service Level Agreements (SLAs). To meet these targets, it is self-evident that MSPs cannot operate in a solitary environment. They must enable cooperation among themselves in a manner that ensures trust, both between themselves as well as with customers. In this study, we present the BEAT (Blockchain Enabled Accountable and Transparent) Infrastructure Sharing architecture. BEAT exploits the inherent properties of permissioned type of distributed ledger technology (i.e., permissioned distributed ledgers) to deliver on accountability and transparency metrics whenever infrastructure needs to be shared between providers. We also propose a lightweight method that enables device-level accountability.
The rollout and evolution of 5G is being marked by discussions around open systems,; innovation on top of platforms, decentralisation and coordination using blockchain or decentralised ledgers. During the decade ahead, and the evolution from 5G to 6G, these new developments look set to reshape the telecoms landscape and operating models.
Strikingly, the evolution of financial services and of the metaverse – fundamental to any future digital economy -are being underpinned by similar forces to telecoms’ own evolution and are liable to co-evolve over the coming decade. There are both lessons and opportunities in these that the telecoms market would be wise to explore.