LIVE FROM HUAWEI GLOBAL MOBILE BROADBAND FORUM 2013: Providing “easier and faster” access to content and applications will be a “core competitive advantage” for operators in the evolving mobile internet market, Eric Xu (pictured), EVP of Huawei, said this morning.

He noted: “We are seeing a shift of value toward content and applications. This is primarily driven by the needs of consumers shifting away from basic connectivity.”

Within this, there are several key areas in which operators can still differentiate themselves from rivals. This includes building ubiquitous networks which deliver the best experience, integrating enriched content and applications, and adopting agile and efficient business operations.

To deliver the last of these, operators need to look at their existing business systems to enable them to “get close to consumers, reduce time to market, and reduce costs,” Xu said.

Noting that many existing legacy systems were developed with a voice-oriented business model in mind, he continued: “As new services take off, we are seeing a long time to market and a slow response to market changes. This is an area where we are working hard.”

In his keynote presentation, the executive also touted Huawei’s efforts in the “5G” race, noting that “we continuously invest in innovation in LTE, and at the same time we started our investment very early in 5G”.

Xu said that future development will enable a “fibre-similar” experience, with 1,000 times more capacity, 100 billion connected devices, a 100 times faster user experience with 10Gbit/s data rate, and very low latency and response times.

But this is still some way off. 5G deployments will begin between 2020 and 2030, he said.