Introduction and cloud robots
You loved 3G and eventually migrated to 4G, but does 5G get you excited? It probably doesn't. After all, who needs to send a SnapChat, a tweet, an SMS or an email any faster than is already possible?
That's not stopping the mobile industry hyping up 5G, which could be in place as early as 2018, and be fully commercialised by 2020. But the 10 to 100 times expected increases in network speeds isn't what operators are getting excited about. Instead, it's the near-instant sending and receiving of data that 5G will enable that could prove a huge enabler of new technology – and a massive fillip to the Internet of Things.
5G in our pockets
But what do you do with a mobile signal that's 100 times faster than the 4G network? "Everyone is using their smartphones and the internet," says Daisuke Kurita, Researcher for the 5G Radio Access Network Research Group at mobile network operator NTT DoCoMo in Japan. "So we need 5G for capacity, and people need more speed for 4K video."
This is 5G's first and most obvious technology – eMBB (enhanced Mobile Broadband) – and for most of us, 5G's gigabit-per-second speeds will make it easier to download, stream and share Ultra HD quality videos, which smartphones like the iPhone 6S, Samsung Galaxy S7 and LG G5 can increasingly produce video in.
Although virtual reality and 360-degree video streams are just as likely to prove a hit. Cisco reckons that video will jump 16% to account for 80% of all mobile data traffic by 2021, fuelled by 5G's ability to download an 8GB movie in just a few seconds.
But with such small phone screens, that's hardly a killer app or a catalyst for global take-up of 5G – and it's not why the likes of Intel, Qualcomm, Samsung, AT&T, T-Mobile, Ericsson, Nokia, SK Telecom, NTT DoCoMo, Cisco, Vodafone and China Mobile are beginning pre-trials this year.
Low-latency and 'cloud robots'
Forget video and the Internet of Phones – it's behind the scenes in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT, also known as 'Industry 4.0') that 5G will have the biggest effect. At Mobile World Congress last month, Nokia and China Mobile showed off 5G-enabled 'co-operative cloud robots', which use 5G's enhanced speeds for exchanging video streams, but also a second, critical technology: URLLC (Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communications).
"Humans can't tell the difference between one or two milliseconds, but robots can," says Sándor Jordan, Software Researcher (5G) at Nokia Bell Labs, while demoing a couple of robots linked to the same mobile edge cloud. Each robot 'held' one end of a platform, constantly uploading and analysing video to balance a ball.
"The latency is so low that you can put some intelligence in the cloud," says Jordan, who thinks the same technology could be used for fully automated manufacturing, and logistics. He even thinks it could be used to keep future delivery drones balanced as they deliver packages.
The Internet of Cars
Send an SMS on a 4G network and it will take at least 40 milliseconds. Do it on 5G and it takes one or two milliseconds. 5G's low latency characteristic is all about safety. Think heavy manufacturing robots in car factories that can react lightning-quick to safety issues. However, the 'killer app' is probably the autonomous car and its dealings with the cloud, and with other self-driving vehicles. In fact, it's hard to imagine them without 5G.
Again, it's the lack of latency that's critical. Calling it "a perfect use-case for 5G", Ralph de la Vega, vice chairman of AT&T Inc. and CEO of AT&T Business and AT&T International, told techradar pro that he thinks only 5G will allow a driverless car to respond to a red light, or exchange data with a nearby vehicle to help avoid a collision.
"That exchange of information is critically important for autonomous cars," he says, noting that while a fridge might not need 5G, autonomous cars will. "These autonomous cars will all be connected, and they will require high speed and low latency."
He's right, but there would have to be some kind of network priority in place – a car that's using 5G to avoid a collision couldn't risk having its data exchanges interrupted when passing a packed stadium with 80,000 people clogging up the same mobile mast.
Smart cities and VR healthcare
The smart city
It's not just the cars that need 5G, but the urban infrastructure at large. 5G would allow cars, equipped with imaging and proximity sensors and able to communicate with fellow cars, and any smart devices, to 'talk' to the phones or wearables of pedestrians, and swerve out of the way if necessary.
Given a car that can communicate with anything, this could mean smart traffic lights that change in real-time to maximise traffic flow citywide, rather than to a pre-programmed set of assumptions, as they do now. Cars could go faster, syncing to each other as they move in convoys, while the city infrastructure itself could come alive.
Cue 5G's third main technology: mMTC (massive Machine Type Communications). "5G is expected to support massive Machine Type Communications, which will allows us to perform citywide monitoring and management of smart infrastructures," says Dr. Eddy Chiu, Manager Communications Technologies Division at the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute Company Limited (ASTRI). He also suggests solar street lights that come on and off as cars approach and depart.
The device-to-device revolution
However, it's that low-latency that brings us to two final examples of how 5G could supercharge the Internet of Things. "One example is device-to-device communications, which allows handsets to reliably communicate with each other even without cellular coverage," says Chiu.
At Mobile World Congress, TCL and ASTRI demoed just that, with devices communicating over radio, with TCL calling it "a foundation technology for the upcoming 5G standard". The tech will allow public safety communications when there is infrastructure damage, as well as proximity-based communications between vehicles, phones, or indeed anything. Real-time gaming between smartphones should also be possible.
Virtual reality healthcare
For all the convenience and efficiency that 5G could bring to the Internet of Things, it's in healthcare that the most wondrous example of real-time communications could exist.
"That low latency will have real-time applications in healthcare, such as remote operations using robotics," says Kurita, explaining that doctors and surgeons could – using a 5G network – examine a patient in real-time using a telepresence unit, and even perform an operation remotely.
Think of a patient in a far-flung rural village without permanent medical personnel having a life-saving procedure performed by a surgeon in a remote city. The latter would require haptic gloves attached to a surgical machine, though the swapping of real-time brain scans over 5G – and perhaps even the creation of virtual clones of patients for surgeons to operate on – make 5G healthcare enticing.
Not just about speed
Unlike 2G, 3G and 4G, 5G isn't just about speed, which makes it more open-ended. "The driving force will be a business-orientated approach about how you make devices work better when you have real-time data and low latency," says de la Vega, suggesting that we could see 5G used sporadically rather than as huge national networks.
5G tests include plans to try out high-frequency signals in the millimetre wave frequency band that can provide extra bandwidth in limited geographical areas – such as industrial factories and facilities, or in sports stadiums. "A lot of 5G is going to be done with millimetre wavelengths, so it will be more focused in an area, and may be an overlay to 4G in areas where it's needed," says de la Vega.
Sure, 5G will be used by most people to swap GoPro videos and download movies more quickly, but there's evidence that ultra-fast networks could power an all-new, real-time IoT and enable other exciting concepts – such as autonomous cars, cloud robotics, remote healthcare and virtual reality – and even life-changing technologies. Either way, 5G looks set to fundamentally change how the IoT can, and will, work.
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