The real action may be in the enterprise.
During the past few weeks, the bids for 5G wireless spectrum have totaled nearly $70 billion, which significantly exceeded expectations. While the main bidders included the mega carriers like Verizon and AT&T, there was also likely participation from satellite operators and cable companies. “5G is the 5th generation of wireless technology, paving the way for the Fourth Industrial Revolution—an era of technology-led disruption and innovation with the potential to transform the way people work, live, and play,” said Frank Boulben, who is the Senior Vice President of Consumer Marketing and Products at Verizon. He notes we’ll see innovations like: · Instant View: Stream 4K movies with virtually no buffering · True Chat: Video chat in HD with near zero lag · Responsive Gaming: Console quality multi-player gaming you can play on the go · Flash Loading: Downloads that used to take minutes now take seconds · Real Response: Augmented reality that responds in near real-time But really this just scratches the surface. The impact of 5G will be wide-ranging and long-lasting. So then as the new year approaches, what are some of the things to expect? Well, here’s a look: Jefferson Wang, who is Accenture’s 5G global offering lead: “We will see more consumer devices add 5G connectivity, compute power and storage to create more stand-alone devices in the form of wearables (e.g., watches), hearables (e.g., ear buds) and head-mounted displays (e.g., glasses). We will move devices closer to consumers where the data is generated.” Mary Beth Hall, the director of wireless strategy at Panasonic System Solutions Company of North America: “Pre-pandemic, smart cities were all about cloud computing, and information could go right to the edge. Post-pandemic, and on the journey to 5G, this conversation will evolve into instant two way communication and feedback between devices, strengthening people’s ability to feel comfortable, safe and protected.” Craig Sutton, the Manager of Advanced Manufacturing Innovation at John Deere: “Businesses in rural counties will also adopt 5G for new applications such as real-time location systems, asset tracking, inventory management, wearables, building automation, and robotics for overall cost savings. Given the foundational infrastructure is advancing with technologies such as 5G, we expect to see more applications which can simultaneously collect larger amounts of data and leverage Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. We also foresee an increase in autonomous mobile robots which will assist worker productivity.” Jeff Ready, the CEO Scale Computing: “5G will likely increase the amount of storage and connectivity needs at the datacenter to accommodate this new wave of communication and data collection. The increased connectivity and workload demand at the edge will open entirely new approaches to how organizations interact with the edge.” Kon Leong, the CEO and cofounder of ZL Tech: “Today’s queasiness of being surveilled by facial recognition on city streets is nothing compared to being tracked every step of the way, every minute of the day. Oversight of 5G applications, including stringent restrictions on the use of the mountains of data generated, will be key to enabling its societal benefits without free-falling into ‘1984.’” Caroline Chan, the Vice President and General Manager of the 5G Infrastructure Division in the Network Platform Group at Intel: “In the new year, enterprises will work diligently to implement 5G technologies to make the use cases the industry’s been teasing for years a reality. We have heard from CIOs at a variety of large enterprises that they are willing to spend 5% percent to 10% of their budget on the technology, as 89% of those we spoke to saw 5G as a requirement or at least something they’d prefer to implement.
