What to expect from 5G technology

DATE

Feb 21, 2023

After global subscriptions to 5G doubled in 2022 reaching 1,961 million according to Ericsson (2022) the world distribution of this technology remains uneven – with China still as the world power in 5G.

However, the future of 5G in Western Europe seems bright – maybe even brighter than that of North America – with the average annual growth of 5G expected to reach 41% for the next six years, thus accumulating a total 490 million subscriptions by the end of 2028. There is therefore a lot of room to grow and major opportunities to help make sure those predictions become a reality.

What impact does 5G have today?

With the truth being out about the potential of this new connection technology, many enterprises are eager to have it positively impact their business through improved productivity levels and insight, better application performance and the creation of new experiences for their customers.

There are currently 750 cities USA, China and the Philippines where 5G is available and active, and organizations are already profiting from the benefits of 5G which include:

Transitioning From 4G to 5G

While transitioning from 2G to 3G only required users to get new SIM cards, the change from 3G to 4G was indeed more costly due to phones having to be built with this capability in mind. However, the need for higher speed in wireless connectivity and the major profit manufacturers made from this change showed it was all worth it.

Now, globalization is stronger than ever and effective connectivity has never been this highly demanded. Therefore, the main goal was to achieve better use of the radio spectrum in order to allow thousands of devices to be handled simultaneously by a single network without jeopardizing speed, and 5G was developed to do just that ever since it first began to be developed in 2008.

The following chart shows the main differences between 5G and its predecessor:

Latency: 10 ms → less than 1 ms.
Peak Data Rates: 1 Gb/s → 20 Gb/s.
Available Spectrum: 3GHz → 30GHz.
Connection Density: 100 Thousand connections/km2 → 1 Million connections/ km2.
Frequency Band: 600 MHz to 5.925 GHz → 600 MHz to mmWave.

Aplications of 5G

There are many ways in which 5G can improve the dynamics of today’s society, in all sectors and for multiple purposes. In fact, each of its core features can themselves give way for one or multiple actions that overall make connection faster, better and cheaper.

Massive Machine Type Communication

Used for Smart Cities, Smart Agriculture or industrial automation

Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communication

Used for immersive entertainment, remote patient monitoring or autonomous vehicles

Enhanced Mobile Broadband

Used for AR/VR, content streaming or cloud gaming

5G & Media and Entertainment

More focused in our sector, 5G is expected to bring so much to the table including a never-ending list of new ways to both offer and enjoy content.

Some of these advancements will be linked to:

Content experience: Support high quality data services, sharing of user and machine generated content.
Immersive media: Support the immersive theatrical experiences such as AR, VR, mixed reality and location based.
Smart Distribution:Enable use of multicast and broadcast modes over wireless network.

Off site media production: To remove production from on site, outside broadcast units to a central location and enables cloud based production.

5G & Telcos

With the expansion of 5G, telecommunications companies can rewrite their business models, creating new revenue streams by service 5G-reliant service providers as well as end users, thus suiting a wide range of use cases.

Over the next 4 years, telcos are expected to invest up to US$57 billion to build higher network density, add spectrum and upgrade active equipment. However, it is going to beequally important for them to think hollisitically about the monetization opportunities and not only focus on charging more for faster data.

Optiva Media and 5G Technology

We believe in change, in technology and in the digital revolution. We are thrilled to see the future of technology get closer everyday with us being in synch and prepared to thrive in whatever it throws our way.

Optiva Media has already started working with 5G technology, for many of our products and services require that low latency and major speed for them to deliver – such as metaverse features and cloud systems.