Editorial by our CEO

Dear Reader

A new decade is dawning. The 00’s are over and we only vaguely remember that we were in the midst of a blooming IT-revolution ten years ago. In the millennium shift, we often envisioned the ways we would utilize the Internet and observed how new applications emerged each month.

At this moment in time, the question is not what can be accomplished over the Web – the possibilities are unlimited. The question is rather when, where and how we wish to engage in these possibilities. Today, the Internet is a powerful tool that we use to search and store knowledge, as well as a place where we live an increasing part of our social lives.

TeliaSonera has predicted trends for many years and our forecasts have often been on target. We were one of the first to call attention to how the Internet became portable through mobile broadband. Another trend we noted at an early stage was how people were saying goodbye to scheduled television programming and using on-demand services instead.

This year we delve deeper into the way communication will affect people and society during 2010. We also take a sneak peek at how our field will develop until 2015. Access to the Internet is something we presently expect in our surroundings and perceive as natural. How and when we are connected convey signals about us as individuals and companies. Perpetual accessibility is also creating a new type of impatience that is important to understand.

This new impatience is a consequence of the fact that we, for the first time in history, are no more than a thought away from everyone we ever wanted to communicate with. This is changing our basic view on communication. We used to hope that someone would pick up when we called. Now we expect that the call be answered – and quickly. An unanswered text message, long call queues or a slow website are making an increasingly strong impact on our opinion of the people or companies we are trying to reach.

In our encounters with tomorrow’s customers, this will be something TeliaSonera as well as all other companies have to deal and work with actively. A new decade is indeed dawning. In the previous one, our industry developed on technology’s conditions. Today, people set the terms.

Best regards,

Lars Nyberg, President and CEO, TeliaSonera