4 skills your business needs to embrace 5G

5G promises an unprecedented connectivity in the enterprise and consumer worlds, but CIOs need to understand and embrace the new mobile wireless standard by the end of 2018 in order to fully prepare for its upcoming rollout.

5G will act as a catalyst for innovation across much of the IT industry. By enabling true real-time analytics, 5G will affect demand patterns, possibly from as early as 2018 in some geographies.

As such, companies must prepare now for the effect that widespread connectivity will have on their wider business and IT departments, and the way customers will use the internet in their specific industry.

5G is the next (fifth) generation of wireless systems and is predicted to provide Wi-Fi connections that are three times faster than 4G. As such, your business could benefit from more real-time online interactions with your customers, seamless video conferences for your staff, and, in general terms, a more connected and efficient network, where real-time interactions are enabled seamlessly.

While a comprehensive 5G network is not expected until 2020 in the UK and the end of 2018 in the US, an increasing number of businesses are investigating and investing in the upcoming mobile wireless standard. For example, Ericsson has created a 5G platform that it intends to launch with US telecoms provider Verizon in five US cities by the end of this year.

The City of London also plans to run 5G trials on its district-wide public Wi-Fi network and chancellor Philip Hammond pledged ￡16 million ($20 million) to create a 5G hub in the 2017 Budget.

While there is still much uncertainty surrounding the key technologies required for 5G, it does seem likely that low-latency services, low-power devices and networks, and the ability to support vast numbers of devices, will require substantial investment.

Additionally, we predict that there will be a significant shift in the IT skills and roles that CIOs must acquire to embrace 5G and fully capitalize on this technology. With some analysts predicting that 5G has the potential to unlock up to $12.3 trillion of revenue across a broad range of industries, the size of this opportunity, from a financial perspective, cannot be overstated.

The human impact

5G connectivity is expected to create an additional three million jobs worldwide, which will help drive demand for a range of technical skills and experience. These include:

1. Wide ranging of cloud-based and security skills

Speaking at the Mobile Europe at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in 2017, the CTO of Telecom Italia (TIM) said the potential security threats around 5G are his “personal nightmare,” citing the hacking of internet-connected toys and gadgets. As such, any skills around software and endpoint security will be critical in the 5G era.

Furthermore, your networks will have to scale to cope with the increased volumes of traffic as millions more devices enter the corporate space. A knowledge of cloud-based technologies and virtualization will, therefore, be vital to meet the demands of the 5G network.

A huge demand for 5G-ready telecoms engineers is expected too, with a predicted 22 million roles available by 2035. Engineers will need to broaden their technical knowledge and keep up to date with the new security protocols and cloud-based technologies 5G will introduce to the world’s wireless networks.

2. Machine learning algorithms for Big Data

The introduction of 5G will cause businesses to harvest more data from connected devices and sensors. As a result, you will need expertise to extract this Big Data and build algorithms to provide insights and analytics from it to optimize your business models and processes.

For instance, skills in Node.js may be useful. This is an open source environment for server-side web development that has gained in popularity in recent times, partly due to its ability to manage connected devices such as the Raspberry Pi. It’s also a low-resource overhead, and businesses, including Netflix, PayPal and Uber, reportedly use this framework.

3. GPS development and IoT-focused design

5G could transform smart devices but, many of these, including wearables and smart vehicles, are location-aware and use GPS technology. The GPS market is predicted to be worth $3.5 billion in 2019, according to analyst house ABI, as businesses and consumers embrace smart devices.

Smart, connected devices will also overhaul the current design principles. “The growing network of connected products means a new set of mechanical engineering skills. To design smart products, engineers will need to learn how to integrate digital and mechanical aspects, and how to leverage Big Data to inform future designs,” according to a report from Autodesk. For example, the AutoCAD design software could be a useful skill set as it allows late-stage design changes to be made.

4. Electrical engineering on the small scale

The creation of a predicted 50 billion connected devices by 2020 will cause a surge in demand for electrical engineers to help with embedded device development for mobile applications and other smart devices. Engineers, in particular, will need to develop systems with future-proofed circuit designs for low-power consumption. Experience with micro-controller programming will be useful too.

Far-reaching consequences

The 5G mobile network is extremely ambitious and will lead to a surge of innovative services and applications that can only exist with the widespread connectivity it can offer. As such, CIOs should prepare for a cultural shift: your workforce will regard flexible working as a right not a privilege and your customers will expect 24/7 and ubiquitous connectivity.

In conclusion: anticipating the changes 5G will bring to your workforce and your business will allow you to truly embrace its benefits.

You can read more digital transformation insights and advice below: 

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