Infrastructural facilities have in all history of humankind been the backbone and foundation for the stability, prosperity and quality of life of a general public. At all times they had to be developed further in order to be and remain an enabler for the progress of society. While on the one hand it is fulfilling our ever growing and changing requirements, by generating new possibilities, infrastructure itself shapes and changes our behaviour and creates demand and needs we have not been aware of before.
In today’s society the prevalent demands and needs have become information- and communication- centred. Telecommunications as the enabling factor of modern lifestyle, where being connected anytime and everywhere has become of paramount importance, has evolved into society-changing relevance - into the “infrastructure for the 21st century”.
As the need for telecommunication services does not cease to increase and new innovative services and use cases continue to emerge, the data volumes that have to be handled pose substantial challenges to the telecommunication industry. The infrastructure has to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for service quality while at the same time cost bases have to be kept at a level that allows non-prohibitive pricing and access to broadband services for everybody. Stepping towards next generation networks will prepare the telecommunications ecosystem to address these challenges appropriately.