Taking a fresh look at 5G – Phase of inflated expectations

Roberto Saracco May 16, 2017 Blog 348 Views

5G is the talk of the town but the claims are suspiciously similar to the ones made ten years ago for 4G. So what is really new in terms of needs and answers? Image Credit: PresseBox

“What is becoming crystal clear is that 5G is not just a discussion about a network technology where consumers will have a bigger and faster pipe. 5G is a technology, business model and ecosystem overhaul in which operators will no longer be selling airtime packages and handsets but instead offer consumers an all-IP network experience for many types of consumer devices.” (Fierce Wireless)

“Key drivers to 5G will be:

a multitude of diverse devices (distributed, embedded, wearable, pervasive)
predominance of machine-to-machine communications
dynamic networking and air-interfaces
improved coverage mechanisms
improved and dynamic spectrum usage.

Hence it will need to provide higher speed with lower latency”

(IEEE Vision Statement)

My apologies. In the previous statements there is a mistake. Rather than 5G the original statements had 4G (both of them were published in the early years f the next decade when people started to talk about 4G).

If you did not realise the mistake, may be it is because today you are reading very similar sentences about 5G, to the point that those two would fit seamlessly in today’s literature. This, to me, is a clear sign that we are in a virtual marketing phase for 5G, not in a real development phase (or if you want, that development is looking for a justification).

It is interesting to note that those two previous “visions”, related to the 4G, contains two elements of which one applicable to 6, 7, 8 …G (more bandwidth, lower latency) and the other related to a change in the structure of the market with the entrance of new players and a repositioning (displacement?) of the present ones.

Given that the “dream” for the 5G is pretty similar to the one we had for 4G, and to the one we will have for the 6G…, I feel it would be more to the point to look at what new technology enablers would make a 4+1 G possible and what could be the implication on the business and market that might steer the evolution one way or another.

In the first series of posts I will take a look at the former. Stay tuned.