Author: Sanjay Bahadoorsingh
The document entitled “The 5G Economy: How 5G Technology Will Contribute to the Global Economy”, published in 2017, is still highly relevant. This informative document provides a very insightful, transformational description of 5G. At a high level, 5G is defined by three driving KPIs:
- Peak data rates faster than 10 Gbps: for enhanced mobile broadband.
- Device connection density of greater than 1 million per km2: for immense machine-oriented communication.
- Latency below 1 ms: for ultra-reliable machine-oriented communications.
Many applications being developed to use these new 5G networks will impact on every aspect of human life, not only mobile communications.
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are two impressive 5G applications that recently featured at the 2018 Winter Olympics allowing attendees to experience the thrills of competitive ice skating. This can potentially change the way sports enthusiasts experience their favourite sporting events. 5G technology also lends itself to improve educational experiences for any immersive application (e.g. medical surgeries). The (safe) autonomous vehicle, despite recent tragic setbacks, still remains a very realistic goal which can transform the traffic management sector and fully leverage on smart cities with smart traffic from shared data resources.
As devices are continuously added to our network, 5G provides a platform to address this significant increase in connected devices as the present networks approach their capacity limits. The Internet of Things (IoT) and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will continue to revolutionise how we work and play respectively. Trinidad and Tobago and its Caribbean neighbours will continue to advance and as the financial barriers to such technology adoption are reduced, we must be ready.