G will soon be here, and
it’s set to be an incredible
step-change in how we
do business. The kind
of jump in mobile data
speeds it will enable - a
6X leap at least, and up
to 30X quicker for the very fastest
connections - is roughly equivalent
to the last decade of incremental
improvements arriving all at once.Consider what the last ten years brought
us - Siri and Bixby, Netflix, Spotify, and
Uber, to name a few - and how these have
changed our behaviour, our lifestyle and
our society as a whole. The mass spread
of these types of innovations was made
possible by mobile data; by more of it, at
greater speeds. In this context, you begin
to appreciate the scale of change set to
roll out with 5G.Where will we see the next dramatic shifts?
Near real-time feedback
Beyond its fast data rate, a critical part
of 5G’s appeal is its improved latency, or
‘ping’. Put very simply, if the download
rate is like the size of a package being
passed through a door, latency is how
quickly the door opens after you knock.Low latency is critical in the field of
telehaptics, or computer-generated
sensory feedback. Use cases include
remote surgery where a human surgeon
can get tactile feedback through their
fingertips - for example understanding the
precise texture of the tissue being severed- even though the actual cutting is being
done far away via robot.
5G technology will be key to delivering
such realistic simulated sense experiences.
That’s because, with device latencies as
low as one millisecond, 5G can send and
receive sensory data so fast that the
human brain - which typically operates
about 80 milliseconds behind ‘reality’ -
doesn’t notice the extra delay.That could have benefits beyond the
obvious. For example, in small countries
like New Zealand, where we often have a
shortage of niche surgical specialists, gaps
could be filled by international experts
‘dialling in’ to perform operations that we
would otherwise be unable to staff.City traffic solved
Very low latency is also critical for
driverless cars. We often think of them as
single units, but 5G tech will also allow
very fast-moving ‘trains’ of autonomous
vehicles just centimetres apart, brakingand accelerating in synchrony, thanks to
the ultra-low latency between them.When the ‘two-second rule’ of following
distance becomes more like the two-
millisecond rule, will traffic jams become
a thing of the past?Voice everything
Voice recognition requires grunty AI,
which is why it all happens in the cloud
rather than on your phone, smart watch
or smart speaker - and tends to perform
best when you’re on Wi-Fi. In a 5G future,
however, voice processing can become
‘always on’, unlocking the huge power of
voice biometrics and sentiment analysis.
Devices will be listening and continually
getting better at identifying emotions
and meanings. With 5G, that nuanced,
dynamic data can be parsed andThe top speed recorded
by journalist testers in
London’s new 5G network.
980 Mbps
5
it will change us more than we know
5G will soon be here, and it’s set to be an incredible step-change
in how we do business. Wherewill we see the next dramatic shifts?
Darren Kirkland, Managing Director at krunch.co,shares his predictions.
Get ready for 5G
The Transformation Issue | Idealog.co.nz
020