AT&T with some bold predictions for the future

The text is published on the web site of AT&T

Our network is evolving faster than ever.

We’re using new tools to perform tasks not possible a year ago. And new technologies are reaching faster speeds and higher performance levels once unachievable. We’re taking new approaches to our network architecture opening doors for what’s possible in the future.

1. Video is driving data demand – We’re experiencing unprecedented wireless traffic growth. The key driver? Video. And we expect this trend to continue through 2017. Data on our mobile network has increased about 250,000% since 2007. By 2020, we expect 10x this growth.

2. Soaring to new heights with drones – In 2016, we launched our company-wide drone program. In 2017, we’ll take it to new heights. This year, we’ll test a Flying COW, or Cell on Wings. This offers temporary coverage in places it would be hard to bring a large vehicle – think about an area affected by natural disaster.

3. Creating a bots boom – From 2015 to 2016, we saw the use of bots on our network performing automated tasks grow by more than 200%. We expect this to triple in 2017. We also expect to see our robotic automation program evolve from bots performing data entry to early stages of artificial intelligence. 

All of these efforts are to improve our customers’ experience. They’re also designed to boost network potential, laying down a foundation for future use cases.

The future of automated cars, virtual reality and other experiential technologies are becoming more of a reality. And they will rely heavily on mobile networks to do their jobs.