Letter from the Editor: Building Hope

By: Scott St. John - Pipeline

Fear is easy. Fear is instinctual. But hope is a different story. Hope is hard. Hope has to be constructed and, in some cases, built brick by brick. It may be hard to be hopeful now, as the global pandemic continues to rage on.  We are all worried about our countries, economies, companies, jobs, homes, families, friends and even our individual well-being. It's appropriate, expected, and rather natural under the circumstances. But there are reasons to be hopeful too, if you look for them.

As I proclaimed in my Letter from the Editor last month, the Covid crisis is over. We now have a better understanding of the disease, more effective treatment options, and the rate of mortality is rapidly dropping.  But before you blow up my inbox, I fully realize the disease is still spreading at a seemingly relentless rate, and at the incalculable cost of over one million human lives. I am not saying the pandemic is over, but the "crisis" is. And by crisis, I mean the part where we didn't know what the disease is, does, or how to treat it – what we are going to do, and how or even if we are going to be able to adapt to meet our uncertain future. The fact is, that part is over and it is the bedrock on which we can begin to build a foundation of hope.

There is a new layer of connectedness running atop of that foundation already.  We have become more connected to the people in our lives – whether that be at home, the office, or to the services we count on – from grocery delivery to healthcare.  And that layer of connectedness is built upon a layer of technology and connectivity.  We, unlike any other time in our recorded history, have leveraged technology to essentially side-step a global pandemic that could – and has in recent history – cost us much more. We have evolved to an unprecedented point, and continue to adapt to the new normal, thanks to the technology, tools, and people who build, provide and use them. Which is why this issue of Pipeline is so important, timely, and relevant.

In this issue of Pipeline, we take a look at the evolution of networks, and the technologies we reply upon. We hear from Nadja Risse of BT Global who explores five ways 5G will transform the future of healthcare. ZenFi describes how a revolution in networks architectures will deliver on the promise of tomorrow’s technological opportunity, and ProLabs describes how to future-proof networks with fiber optics.  NoviFlow illustrates ways the network edge is being pushed to evolve; while Everstream explains the application of network automation technology to drive a better entprise experience. The CTO for Nokia Fixed Networks investigates the impact of the global pandemic on the broadband industry; whereas Enea's Openwave discusses how to bolster mobile networks against the ever-growing data tsunami. Radisys provides an update on the latest developments around Open RAN; and EdgeConneX shows us the growing importance of connectivity. All this plus the latest industry news and more.

Be well,