Towards a hyper-connected world

The exponential growth of connected devices, big data and cloud computing is driving a concrete transformation impacting the ICT world. This hyper-connected scenario is deeply affecting relationships between individuals, enterprises, citizens and Public Administrations, fostering innovative use cases in practically any environment and market, and introducing new opportunities and new challenges. The successful realization of this hyper-connected scenario depends on different elements of the ecosystem. In particular, it builds on connectivity and functionalities allowed by converged Next Generation Networks (NGN) and their capacity to support and integrate with the Internet of Things, M2M and Cloud Computing. This paper aims at providing some hints of this scenario in order to contribute to analyze impacts on network issues and requirements and open the way to handle this explosion in data communication, while maintaining consumer expectations and turn data into meaningful social and economic benefits.