The next generation of wireless networks is poised to “break the internet.”
Last year, regulators cleared the way for next-generation 5G wireless, with expected speeds between 10 to 100 times faster than today’s 4G networks.
The foundation for expanding the potential of networked society is adding a new essential building block to the equation: the industrial internet.
In just a few short years, 5G wireless will enable organizations to move into new markets and build new revenue streams with radically new business models, and that’s just the beginning.
Although no hard definition or hardware standard has been set for 5G yet, many wireless providers have tests currently underway with hopes of deployment no later than 2020.
Because of this, all the players in the wireless world, from the chipset makers to carriers, are jockeying to be the first to define 5G and establish themselves as its leader.
The only point of agreement among carriers is a vague outline of what 5G would and could be.
Topping the list, 5G will be crazy fast, crazy stable, and crazy versatile.
It’ll surely replace home Wi-Fi networks, as well, and offer faster speeds and better coverage.
Verizon spokesman Marc Tracey has this to say about the future of 5G:
Basically, 5G will provide a wider pipeline and faster lanes. By faster, think about speeds that are ten times faster than 4G LTE; you’ll be able to download Lord of the Rings in seconds, and enjoy a live VR experience streamed to your headset from across the country with very little lag. 5G will also offer lower latency in network communications—picture a transit corridor filled with autonomous cars and drones reacting to wireless signals instantly in life-or-death situations.
Companies are looking way beyond smartphones for 5G.
It will completely reconstruct our current experiences with wireless networks and be strong enough to connect not just smart houses but also the entire world.
Presidential Support
Just last week, President Trump hosted a tech summit at the White House that featured companies specializing in 5G and drone technology.
The point of this summit was to discuss the potential effects of these emerging technologies, especially the next generation of wireless networks, on U.S. industrial workers.
It has been made very clear by the president that he wishes to reignite the industrial and manufacturing sectors of this country.
And a faster and more reliable network will make that happen.
President Trump brought together venture capitalists and executives from the telecommunications and unmanned aerial systems industries to discuss how the government can speed up getting these technologies to market.
The meeting, which lasted over three hours, was intended to tap industry experts on how to boost U.S. competitiveness in various fields and how to create more jobs within these fields.
All agreed that wireless signals need to be much faster and more responsive in order to allow such advanced technologies like driverless cars, virtual surgery, or remote control machinery to take hold.
With a presidential backing, 5G wireless stands a much better chance of making it to market by 2020, despite the numerous infrastructure hurdles.
A Step in the Right Direction
When the 5G wireless standard hits the mainstream, home internet speeds will be so fast that we’ll be downloading 4K movies, games, software, and any other large form of content at a fraction of the time we’re used to.
Rob Topol, the general manager of Intel’s 5G business, has this to say about the coming wireless revolution:
Where you saw a growth in 4G was around data-centric, smartphone-centric use cases. We’re looking beyond the smartphone for 5G. In particular, that means categories like automotive, virtual reality, drones, and more should reap its benefits first.
And according to the Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (GSMA), in order to qualify for 5G, a connection should meet most of these eight criteria:
- One to 10 Gbps connections to endpoints in the field.
- One millisecond end-to-end round trip delay.
- 1,000 times the bandwidth per unit area.
- 10 to 100 times the number of connected devices.
- (Perception of) 99.999% availability.
- (Perception of) 100% coverage.
- 90% reduction in network energy usage.
- Up to 10 years of battery life for low-power machine-type devices.
Verizon (NYSE: VZ) announced that it will roll out its 5G service in 11 U.S. cities by midyear, but that deployment is only meant to replace fixed broadband rather than mobile services.
However, it is still a step in the right direction.
AT&T (NYSE: T) will deliver its DIRECTV Now video service over 5G to a limited number of customers in Austin, Texas.
Last year, Sprint (NYSE: S) delivered live 4K coverage over 5G of a soccer game, and T-Mobile (NYSE: TMUS) intends to make 5G a high-speed pipeline for virtual reality (VR) video.
On the hardware side, both Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) have introduced 5G modems and other pieces of infrastructure to support the various trials that will roll out later this year.
These tests are being conducted long before this technology has been standardized.
As of now, they are intended for limited use cases, a far cry from deploying a massive wireless infrastructure to be used by millions of people.
But like I said earlier: It’s a step in the right direction.
Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Samsung (OTC: SSNLF), and Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) all have reached notable advancements in 5G technologies, as well.
Like Qualcomm, Samsung has focused its efforts on hardware by creating a 5G enabled home router.
Both Nokia and Ericsson have created 5G platforms, more aimed at mobile carriers than at consumers, earlier this year that claim to provide the first ever 5G radio system. According to Paul Gainham, senior director SP Marketing EMEA at Juniper Networks:
While the networking industry is working towards making 4G ubiquitous, we also need to future-proof for 5G, which probably won’t see deployment until 2019 or 2020 at the earliest. It will take that long as a completely new eco-system needs to form with the right architectures and agreed standards.
In line with that, the mobile vendors will need to develop the network infrastructure and end user devices such as new 5G capable handsets. Ultimately, the biggest technological challenge confronting the industry will be spectrum availability.
The “Evolution” Revolution
Back in February, AT&T offered a glimpse of its software improvements that make the speed boost possible.
Samsung’s newest smartphones, the Galaxy S8 and S8+, will have access to speeds faster than we’ve experienced before on AT&T’s network.
The carrier announced back in April that more than 20 cities across the country will have access to this faster network by the end of the year.
This network speed boost is made possible by something that AT&T refers to as its “5G Evolution.” This 5G Evolution is not a true 5G network, as that is still years away, but the carrier is making major improvements in the way it manages its existing cell network.
The wireless carrier has promised to deliver speeds up to twice as fast as what its customers currently experience, thanks to the 5G Evolution.
By the end of the year, the faster service will expand to Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis, Nashville, and San Francisco, among other big cities.
The 5G Evolution will eventually become compatible with other devices beyond Samsung’s flagships, although AT&T didn’t mention which ones.
Known as software-defined networking, the open-source code enables engineers to treat the AT&T network as if it were a giant data center, remotely changing server configurations to optimize data flow without having to send technicians out into the field with trucks and ladders.
Like other carriers, AT&T is also working on building and testing a true 5G network.
The Bottom Line
Remember when 3G completely revolutionized our mobile internet experiences?
And then 4G wireless went and did the same thing.
With the onset of 5G on the horizon, it will break the internet, without a doubt, but in the very best way possible.
Here’s to 2020, 5G wireless, and the death of slow internet.
That’s all for now.
Until next time,
John Peterson
Pro Trader Today