A large number of new consumer and industrial applications are likely to change the classic operator's business models and provide a wide range of new markets to enter. This article analyses the most relevant 5G use cases that require ultralow latency, from both technical and business perspectives. Low latency services pose challenging requirements to the network, and to fulfill them operators need to invest in costly changes in their network. In this sense, it is not clear whether such investments are going to be amortized with these new business models. In light of this, specific applications and requirements are described and the potential market benefits for operators are analysed. Conclusions show that operators have clear opportunities to add value and position themselves strongly with the increasing number of services to be provided by 5G.

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Smart and connected devices can improve industrial processes and generate new and better services. While this premise is well understood within the ICT industry, there is a challenge in extending this knowledge to vertical industries. The potential of the Internet of Things (IoT) lies in the interaction among industries working together towards value co-creation. Firms need to look beyond their internal business models and explore cooperative perspectives to define new business opportunities. In this paper, we look into the relevance of vertical cooperation in the IoT and highlight the need to develop new value networks which leverage this cooperation and enable the creation of new business models. To lead our discussions, we use the examples of two major building blocks of Smart Cities; Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) and Health and Wellbeing services based on connected devices and solutions.

In the evolution of communication networks, there has always been a need to increase the capacity to cope with the continuous growing demand for data transmission. However, with the arrival of the Internet-of-Things and the commoditization of broadband access through smartphones, tablets, smart-watches, and all types of connecting devices, future networks must be capable of providing higher bandwidth and Quality of Experience, as wellas operating in dense networks with a massive number of simultaneous connections. This high number of connections will be very heterogeneous, spanning from highly-demanding data rate applications to low-complexity and high energy-efficient Machine-to-Machine communications. In such a dense and complex scenario, a more flexible use of spectrum resources is deemed to be the way to meet the growing requirements for data transmission. In particular, this article focuses on Device-to-Device communications and small cell deployments as emerging facilitators of such a demanding and heterogeneous scenario. The pros and cons of both complementary strategies are identified from both a technical and a business point of view, and main standardization activities are discussed. The aim of this article is to identify and describe open challenges and to inspire new areas for research that make viable the next generation of dense networks.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version