"Those planning and building networks today are now setting the course for several decades. Infrastructures for fiber to the home, mobile communications, the Cloud, smart business, smart factories, smart buildings, smart cities and a wide range of digital applications require a capacity for data traffic that will continue to develop dynamically for decades to come. Those planning networks today need to design them for a need that we've never seen before. It is essential, in every project and at every network level, to plan and build infrastructures for huge volumes of data and data transmission that is secure and instantaneous at all times. The long-term scale of the digital revolution cannot yet be seen in detail. At the moment, however, many new technological concepts are coming into focus, bringing with them new opportunities and possibilities for the future. These are just two of the many examples. Trends such as smart business, smart factory, smart mobility, smart city, and smart building also have the potential to bring the Internet into all areas of life and increase the amount of digital information that people generate and move around in the long term. These trends in the various segments of the connectivity market confirm our long-term expectations,” says R&M CMO Andreas Rüsseler.

There are several reasons for this:

• The digital revolution is changing requirements. From this, Andreas Rüsseler concludes: "Those planning networks today need to design them for a

need that we've never seen before. It is essential, in every project and at every network level, to plan and build infrastructures for huge volumes of data and data transmission that is secure and instantaneous at all times."

• R&M anticipates that extensive investments in blanket development will only pay off in the long term. Planners and network operators should, therefore, opt for long-lasting, high-quality products.

• Valuable fiber optic cables, which are being more and more frequently nowadays, should not need to be replaced after a few years just because they were inadequately measured, to begin with.

New dimensions in all markets

"The long-term scale of the digital revolution cannot yet be seen in detail. At the moment, however, many new technological concepts are coming into focus, bringing with them new opportunities and possibilities for the future," says Andreas Rüsseler.

• Take the Internet of Things (IoT), for example: Ultra-small sensors, switches, measuring devices, control systems, light sources, safety systems, blinds, heaters, air-conditioning systems, cameras or even medical devices are connected to the Internet. The IoT enables them to be managed efficiently. Data can be merged more easily and used for multiple functions.

• Another example is Blockchain, the tamper-proof data transaction system. It can protect money transfers, goods, merchandise, industrial and digital products, and much more. The technology is based on a cryptographic, continuous and remotely organized daisy-chaining of data sets. It uses many data centers which work in parallel and permanently synchronize the blockchains via fast networks.
"These are just two of the many examples. Trends such as smart business, smart factory, smart mobility, smart city, and the smart building also have the potential to bring the Internet into all areas of life and increase the amount of digital information that people generate and move around in the long term," the R&M CMO anticipates.

The volume of data today lies at 2.5 quintillion Bytes per day (a 1 with 18 zeros). Around 90% of the world's data has been generated in the last two to three years. And according to Cisco's comments in the latest Visual Networking Index (VNI), that's just the beginning. The potential can be seen, for example, in the data-hungry applications virtual and Augmented Reality. By 2022, their market will grow by 670% to USD 209 billion. The number of Internet users is increasing by 7% per year. Social media is gaining eleven new users per second.

"These trends in the various segments of the connectivity market confirm our long-term expectations," says Andreas Rüsseler. R&M splits the market into the areas of public networks, data centers and local area networks (LAN).