At this week’s Mobile World Congress
in Barcelona, one of the hottest topics of discussion was the future of
5G — a next-generation mobile communications network that would offer
exponential gains in both speed and capacity over existing 4G networks.
If 2G networks were for voice, 3G networks for voice and data, and 4G
networks for broadband Internet connectivity, what exactly do you get
when you deliver a 5G network?
When asked to answer that question
in Barcelona, the heads of Europe’s top mobile operators — the likes of
Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, Orange and Nokia – couldn’t even define what 5G was, but were nonetheless committed to spending billions of dollars to make 5G a reality
in Europe. The same timetable exists in Asia, where Japan and South
Korea also plan to invest billions to build the next 5G networks by
2020.
So here are five examples of innovations that 5G might make possible.
Now that the Olympic Flame in Sochi
has finally been extinguished, it’s interesting to consider the types
of innovations that might appear at future Olympics. Both Pyeongchang
(host of the 2018 Winter Olympics) and Tokyo (host of the 2020 Summer
Olympics) are in nations that are at the forefront of 5G innovation in
Asia, so it makes sense that they will attempt to showcase 5G innovation
throughout the Olympics. When Tokyo hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics,
for example, the city became the first-ever to broadcast the Olympics overseas via satellite and in color.
For the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics,
here are just some of the ideas that might be made possible by 5G
networks: one-second downloads of massive Olympic video clips;
super-high-definition screens for broadcasting events; holograms of
Olympic athletes; and mobile 3D images of venues and competitors. There
are also hopes of creating “instant translation” glasses
that would enable visitors from all over the globe to read anything
written in Japanese within seconds. It might also be possible to offer “facial recognition” glasses
in which Olympic visitors could spot fellow countrymen in a crowd, and
instantly receive personal details about them to facilitate an
introduction. As anyone who has ever missed a connection knows, seconds matter. New high-speed 5G networks would give you back those seconds.
Okay, it seems like we hear about the Internet of Things every year at CES in Vegas, but nothing ever comes of it. But the logic behind the Internet of Things is inexorable – Cisco predicts that by 2018, worldwide mobile data traffic will have increased 11x from current levels,
with much of that traffic driven by billions of devices talking to
other devices wirelessly. To make that M2M (machine-to-machine)
communication possible you need fast, high-capacity networks. New 5G
networks promise speeds that are 100x faster than anything that exists
today.
At its most basic level, the “Internet of Everything”
means that any device can talk to any other device. This can either be a
relatively basic application – such as your refrigerator telling your
smartphone that you’re out of milk – or something much more
sophisticated. One big application that has been talked about (perhaps
too much) is the “Smart City,”
in which devices and sensors are installed on every element of a city’s
infrastructure and constantly monitor the city. A sensor on a bridge,
for example, might detect abnormal traffic patterns, and that
information could be used to create alternate transportation routes.
The Google driverless car was just
the beginning. In order to support a large number of driverless vehicles
on highways, you need 5G networks and all the extra capacity they
deliver. And those 5G networks need to be qualitatively different from
4G networks, capable of handling and distinguishing between a variety of
different uses: infotainment, communication, traffic navigation and device syncing.
When your car is attempting to change lanes to avoid a collision, you
don’t want your network being used by a child in the backseat,
downloading a cartoon movie or making a hands-free mobile call.
Some mobile companies are even talking about a connected vehicle cloud – a
massive network of connected car data that makes all types of new
services available at faster speeds. In Barcelona, for example, Volvo unveiled the concept of a “Roam Delivery” network that
could deliver groceries or packages to consumers wherever their car
happens to be parked. A digital code would enable the delivery agent to
access your car’s trunk, and you’d never have to worry about missing the
UPS or FedEx delivery person again.
We’re now entering an age where
real-time health data from mobile devices is becoming the norm rather
than the exception. Building on the success of devices from FitBit and
Nike, it now seems like every new digital device — including smartphones
and smartwatches – will come embedded with some sort of health-tracking
service. In Barcelona, for example, Samsung unveiled its new Galaxy S5
with a built-in heart rate monitor to complement three upcoming fitness
devices.
Speaking at the Mobile World Congress, Vice President of the EU Commission Neelie Kroes suggested that m-health would emerge as one of the biggest applications of new 5G networks.
As wearable device use increases, it will lead to new types of
“sentient” health devices that are aware of real-time changes in your
health — and capable of relaying that information to health providers
and loved ones. It might also lead to innovations like “remote surgery.” Healthcare would essentially become mobile, rather than being tethered to fixed spaces such as hospitals and clinics.
One of the quirkier devices unveiled at the Mobile World Congress was the Tethercell,
a device that essentially transforms any battery-powered device into a
Bluetooth-enabled device. You take out one AA battery from your device,
and insert the Tethercell, which has room for a AAA battery and a
Bluetooth chip. Tetherboard,
which makes the Tethercell, calls it “the world’s first app-enabled
smart battery.” What that means is that you can control battery-powered
devices at will from a distance. One example is a parent shutting down a
child’s loud musical toy from the next room when it’s nap time. Another
example is getting an alert when a battery-powered device is about to
run out of juice.
That may not seem like much, but it
hints at a solution to a problem being created by the proliferation of
billions of mobile devices in society – the need for more spectrum, more
capacity and more power. So it makes sense that some of the most
interesting ideas about 5G concern ways to make our mobile devices more
efficient and effective. Concepts like “Green 5G Mobile Networks” acknowledge that spectrum is a limited resource, and that we need to think about smarter ways to power our mobile devices.
***
At the end of the day, the reason
why Europe and Asia are committing so much attention to 5G is because of
the potential to drive future economic growth. At a news conference in
Barcelona, Neelie Kroes, vice president of the European Commission, even
talked about the ability to reduce rampant youth unemployment across Europe by deploying new 5G networks.
It’s not so much that 5G infrastructure build-out would create new jobs
— think of this as a type of New Deal for technologists — it’s that 5G
would create entirely new markets and economic opportunities driven by
mobile in industries ranging from healthcare to automotive to
infrastructure.
