By CGTN’s Dan Williams
Tech firms are betting on a 5G network to reform the industry and change people‘s lives, from what it looks like at this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain.
The “KT” logo of South Korea`s largest wireless carrier, SK Telecom, hangs from the ceiling on the 2017 WMC in Barcelona, Spain. /CFP Photo
5G, or 5th generation mobile networks, is supposedly the next telecommunications standards beyond the current 4G/IMT-Advanced standards, with greater bandwidth support.
Despite a lack of universal agreement on how to define 5G network exactly, most tech watchers appear to agree its lightning speed connectivity will become reality by 2020. And companies at the WMC are already taking 5G as a major selling point.
A 5G Connected car produced by Ericsson, SK telecom and BMW is shown at the 2017 MWC in Barcelona, Spain. /CFP Photo
The Intel/BMW car on display connected to 5G network is believed to further drive the move to autonomous cars.
“Not only can the vehicle talk to the cloud but the vehicles themselves can also communicate with each other and pass on relevant information. So you are talking about improvising the flow of traffic,” said Al-Yaman Awad, the Technical Lead of Autonomous Driving at Intel.
The speed and capacity of 5G will further expand the so-called “Internet of Things”, the ability of devices to connect with each other and create smarter homes and cities, so to generate real life-changing impacts on average people.
A model aircraft is shown on the IBM Technologies stand as part of their Transforming City exhibition on the second day of 2017 MWC in Barcelona, Spain. /CFP Photo
"That a lot of things come together enables us to redesign our healthcare profiles or how we go from A to B in mobility, how we organize our governments, and will make us redesign a lot of things we do in our cities," said Ger Baron, the Chief Technology Officer of the city of Amsterdam.
The extra speed of 5G network is also likely to bring new designs into manufacturing, pushing smart business forward.
People wear Samsung Gear headsets to experience a virtual reality roller coaster ride at the Samsung Electronics Co. stand on the second day of the 2017 MWC in Barcelona, Spain. /CFP Photo
Nokia’s 5G Market Development Manager Jason Elliott believed the future network would help boost efficiency for manufacturing.
“We can effectively look at 5G as a replacement for that wired infrastructure, so that enables them to reconfigure their network, change the production line, increase automation and increase the intelligence across the entire factory productions line if you like,” Elliott said.
MWC is an annual exhibition for the mobile industry hosted by Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) since 1995. The 2017 WMC will close on March 2.
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