I love love love being alive in the here and now. Why? It’s statements like this: “In 2024, we project that 5G will reach more than 40% population coverage and 1.5 billion subscriptions, making it the fastest generation ever to be rolled out on a global scale,” in the November 2018 edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report.
We today, all five generations of us out there who are actively building and using telco networks, we get to be IN this 5G transformation, making it happen, literally right before our eyes.
5G isn’t just another G, it’s an entirely new approach to the paradigm of how mobile and mobility are being implemented. Instead of retroactively connecting (shoe-horning) the IoT to the internet, it’s a network designed, from the ground up, for the IoT.
Key points of the Ericsson mobility report that caught my attention:
The mobile subscriptions outlook (see page 6)
- After a range of false starts by operators marketing the term “5G” without really delivering, it’s finally here, there are functional 5G services in play, now.
IoT connections outlook (page 8)
- Remembering that the IoT is the sum of allllll the devices using cellular (and other) connections to conduct data transactions online, tracking the number of cellular IoT connections is akin to trying to count the number fish on the Great Barrier Reef by hand.
Mobile data traffic outlook (page 16)
- The high speed, low latency, high throughput and high bandwidth of 5G enables high resolution live streaming video – not just for entertainment but across segments, from retail to autonomous vehicles, manufacturing, communications, and education. Think about what we can do using 4K video sensors to better control factory automation and keep people out of harm’s way.
Making fixed wireless access a reality (page 20)
- It’s no fun if only I get 5G for Christmas – I want everyone to have access (it’s true, follow me and you’ll see what I mean about giving back and paying it forward). Huge sectors of the globe have been getting by purely on mobile network. How much better will it be when we deliver the same level of fixed wireless service that the developed world enjoys?!
Fixed wireless access (FWA) over 5G with features such as network slicing completely changes the way in which we can now deliver B2C, B2P and B2B grade wireless network services, by removing the “wire in the ground” issue and using network slicing to deliver multiple tiers of value, price and quality of service. Check out my latest FWA article on the Ericsson network blog for more on this subject.
Final key point: “Combining cellular networks with Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will make manufacturing more effective and flexible – challenging the traditional connectivity paradigm.”
5G is about building a capability (not just capacity) that is so extremely dynamic and broad that it enables All Kinds of Growth. The manufacturing sector (and smart cities, and the smart grid, and and…) have been a great adopter of IoT enabled smart devices, utilising cloud and 4G. The data they are collecting and starting to analyse is going to take all kinds of waste out of their processes.
But they’ll be the first ones to tell you – if not for commercial grade tech advances, they could never be doing what they are. 5G is going to blow their doors open, driving a whole ‘nother cycle of innovation.
Leaders such as Ericsson are using 5G to roll out an additional cellular network infrastructure, implemented in a telco cloud and automated and orchestrated entirely as Software Defined Infrastructure ( SDI ) using next-gen Operational Support Systems ( OSS ) and Business Support Systems ( BSS ).
This infrastructure is what makes it now possible to deploy complex and intelligent self healing, self managed, industrial-scale, industrial-grade networks and services, over cellular networks, in ways 3G and 4G simply were not designed for, and have struggled to support.
That’s all for now – again, I strongly encourage downloading the full mobility report from Ericsson, it really gets the mental wheels turning….