Letter from the Editor

By: Tim Young

“I want to put a ding in the universe.”
-Steve Jobs

Innovation is a beautiful mash-up of failure, aspiration, creation, exasperation, criticism, and, occasionally, triumph. It’s what our industry is built on, sure. But it’s what every industry is built on. It’s why we aren’t grunting in caves right now.

The beauty of innovative thinking within the context of communications and entertainment technology—the sphere in which we operate—is that we are well-positioned to enable innovation for everyone else. There are forward-looking engineers out there as we speak putting together tomorrow’s toasters and earth-moving equipment and patio furniture and they are probably looking to connect their device to a network. Or at the very least, they are transferring ideas and working with partners using the networks that our industry creates, maintains, and optimizes.

In short, we are all well positioned to put a ding in the universe, and enable others to put their own dings out there.

In this issue of Pipeline, we explore the state of innovation in our industry. We examine new innovations in bi-directional latency testing, explore AI and machine learning, check out the potential of 5G for other industries, and look at the next killer app: the human voice. We also hear from Vodafone on the keys to digital transformation, advise on how to maintain customer experience during M&A activity, and check out what’s next in start-up culture. That’s just the beginning! There’s much more inside.

So ding away! The universe is waiting.

Tim Young
Editor-In-Chief