5G (5th generation network) - Huge opportunities lay ahead for business and the general population

Around 2005, I was asked to join a "5G club" (at first, I thought it was one of those secret handshake clubs) by a guy called John Ivison. A number of us turned up and heard his wacky version of the future (I am sure he mentioned flying cars). Being the sceptic that I was, I didn't go back for any second meeting. Looking back now, John was clearly a visionary and until 2017 (when I met a lady called Christine Bayes) I had never heard the term again.

Now, in 2020, everyone has heard of 5G (in the main, due to the tin hat brigade trying to blame the creation and spread of Covid-19 on it) and yet nobody knows it potential power to change how we live our lives beyond all recognition within a decade (more on that down the page).

Just for the record, the 5G signal operates in a wavelength that has no effect (according to science and the WHO) on any living matter.

I bet most of these tin hatters will sunbath in huge numbers, for at least two weeks of the year and not even contemplate that they are baking under one of the largest sources of UV radiation known to the universe. Most of these same tin hatters will also have a microwave in their house and regularly use that too. Just goes to show the propaganda and influential power that social media now has.

The diagram below shows the spectum and that ALL of 5G wave lengths will fit into the non-ionising aspect (i.e. non harmful)

Around the time of this first 5G meet up, Orange (the network provider) was at the peak of its powers and was about to be sold to France Telecom after a ￡23 share price increase. This increase was largely due to the amazing innovation and vision of a small number of people (and the backing of a company called Hutchison Whampoa) in the mid to late 90's.

The Orange management team clearly recognised that 3G and 4G would change our lives beyond all recognition. They produced a film (in 1999) that predicted 20 things would happen as a result. 19 of them came true and the only one that didn't was them predicting a female US president! (which, lets be fair came pretty close to happening).

Please forgive the 20 year old feel.

Orange world: the future's bright - the future is orange

Why is all of this relevant?

Orange fully understood what was about to play out using these new generations (social media and connected homes, right the way through to the iphone and streaming content). They were true visionaries and saw opportunities in 3G and 4G that very few others did (aside from John that is) at that time. They saw that that increased data, application capable smart phones and significant developer interest were all about to meet.

Today, we have Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google (FAAMG) have a market capitalisation of $5.1 trillion. This is a greater figure than the GDP's of many countries (inc. Germany and Japan).

Roll forward 20 years and everything is about to change again, we will shortly have new products, services and experiences that the average person literally cannot dream up. Luckily for mankind a small number of people can.

I recently met up with Jim Brisimitzis https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/jim-brisimitzis/ from the 5G Open Innovation Lab based in Seattle (after an introduction by Steve Ramsay https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/steveramsay/ through my Babson College experience).

Jim has an amazing background (particularly at Microsoft) and crucially spotted the huge opportunity of 5G way before most and I believe his lab will be the centre of the 5G tech universe over the next few years.

He spoke with such energy, passion and love that I couldn't help but be hooked in. One of the topics discussed was the "three legged stool" principal (where three technology forces come together at the right time to drive change). 3G had it (explained above) and now 5G has it with:

1. "on the edge" computing (edge computing is computing that’s done at or near the source of the data, instead of relying on the cloud at one of a dozen data centres to do all the work)
2. Artificial Intelligence (data is processed in an automated way that affords much better decision making)
3. Connectivity (vast amounts of sensors all linked/connected to each other without limit)

As with 3G, developers are hugely interested again. 5G is going to produce huge amounts of data and this offers a huge playground for insights, applications, autonomous machines and vehicles.

5G is different in many ways to its forerunners, but perhaps the largest difference is that it will be mainly built on software and processed "on the edge" locally and not always in the cloud many many miles away. There will still be the requirement for significant hardware, but this increased reliance on software brings a new battle line that Mobile Network Operators (Vodafone etc.) are not built or prepared for.

The potential for software providers (think FAANG +M...Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google and Microsoft) plus the plethora of others that currently exist (as well as the ones yet to be birthed) now represent a huge threat to the traditional MNO's. Are we now beginning to see the end of the these huge global monoliths?

In my opinion yes. Most of these huge MNO's cannot possibly pivot in a way that allows them to compete toe to toe with the tech industry. If they are to give themselves a chance, they have to change now. The reality is that they don't have the vast amounts of cash available to change, but perhaps more crucial, they don't have software expertise across the business to achieve change.

What will this mean?

There will be a rise of what we call neutral operators. These operators will be much smaller and more agile and will have a focus on software/application and potentially Internet of Things solutions. These operators could then be bought or funded by (FAANG+M) and in turn then have access to data beyond all current comprehension.

I don't say this lightly, but living these next 10 years will be like living the previous 40 in a very concentrated way. As well as 5G, we will see amazing advances in artificial intelligence, blockchain, immersive technology, various space technologies. These will provide legitimate independent solutions to real world needs, but the real value will come from solution providers that amalgamate some or all of them in order to provide amazing advances (and threats) for civilisation.

The worlds real visionaries will see this and will right NOW be sowing the seeds of enterprises that go onto create this decades Facebook, YouTube, Google and Amazon. Except they will happen with such a velocity that it will feel like Facebooks rise took 50 years.

So, what does 5G provide (I wont get to boring with it)?:

It is ultra fast (Upto 20 Gbps data speeds which is 20x faster than the fastest 4G signal. This will mean that you can download an 8k movie in a handful of seconds).

It has ultra low latency (3 times faster than you can blink. This will mean that you can have fully autonomous vehicles or doctors could perform surgery with the help of a robotic twin from any location in the world).

It has the ability to connect 1 million devices in a square kilometer (No more going to a concert and not being able to get a signal, in fact the experiences at concerts of the future will blow your mind.

It only uses 10% of the energy of current networks

What will 5G give us in the context of the education, the workplace, entertainment and in the home?

In the home:

My feeling is that Covid-19 will further expedite the totally personalised and the everything connected at all times solution that was already in motion and in particular driven at almost breakneck speeds by the tech hungry and ever more demanding millennial and Gen z population groups.

The baby boomers will also drive change in their own way too, but this is likely to be a slower process. As this group continue to age they will likely demand that their homes and wearable's monitor their health, movements and perhaps focus on assisted and yet independent living. Why is this? I think that most people under the age of 70 will now expect and want to live at home and only move onto assisted living by exception. I suspect that governments would prefer this too, particularly if population health is monitored in a much more proactive way.

Gen z's already rely on personalised digital services and devices and tend not to regard their home in the way that boomers or some millennial's do. For this group, I think that they regard home not necessarily as a fixed physical location but rather a set of devices, services and emotions. As result, this group is likely to be extremely picky and will very likely have a "do it for us" rather than a DIY outlook on life. With this in mind, all future products and services provided to younger markets must focus on being very easy to set up. Design Thinking as a process will come the fore even more so.

The vision for a truly connected home where everything is connected to each other is perhaps utopian especially when we take into account the current battles between the likes of Samsung and Apple. As things stand, most devices are only connected to the individual and the manufacturer and NOT with other manufactures of smart home equipment. This really needs to change.

Perhaps the ownership of your own data in private blockchains could drive this?

To achieve this "all things connected all of the time" vision, we will need 5G and specifically the edge computing solutions that will ride alongside it. This will mean that all data could be stored and processed locally. The individual could then be in a position to choose who to share this vital data with.

If we all own and are in total control of our data then tech/digital companies will have the tables turned on them to an extent and will be driven to act in an ethical and responsible way in order to gain us as customers. Perhaps our own AI assistant will market us to them??

Any future tech companies that looking to exploit the advantages of 5G must truly understand their market, build genuine relationships and provide bespoke solutions.

Vision of the future?

Imagine that you are in your back garden, the sensors in your lawn tell your automatic lawn mover that the grass needs cutting, your soil sensors automatically turn on the water for individual plant needs and a drone automatically hovers looking for weeds to manage. Now imagine that the same drone spots a plant has died and it automatically shops for a replacement. This then arrives by drone within 1 hour and is ready for you to plant.

Next imagine that you are in the garden and teaching your child how to count. You have to go inside and you pass the teaching task on to your child's favourite bear. It understands trigger words and some context and is able to carry on teaching where you left off. At the same time it has a camera embedded into it and provides you with a continuous video stream and will warn you of any dangers in a proactive way.

Whilst inside your home your other child bounces a ball and it breaks a smoke alarm. The alarm and/or the house management system recognises irreparable damage and orders an new one automatically. This is then delivered within an hour by a drone.

During this time, you receive an alert from your parents house. Your father has not switched on any devices today, but the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the house are normal. Their health monitoring application is warning that they have a high temperature and it has also alerted his doctor of other vital sign information but all appears normal and in line with previous recent diagnostics. You voice call your father on all of his smart devices. It turns out he has a mild cold and is sleeping things off.

You get a call from a friend who lives in Australia. He suggests a joint movie watch. You both put on you smart glasses, watch the movie engage with each other as if you were physically sat next to each other and enjoy a long overdue catch up.

Finally, you decide you need a beer. You open the fridge and because you have a connected smart fridge it has recognised that you were down to your last two bottles, the weather forecast is hot and sunny and that you have no diary plans today. It ordered some more proactively and they are to be delivered within the hour, again by drone.

AI will understand and anticipate you, will afford automated shopping. It will know that you are on your way home, heat your home and even run your bath to the perfect temperature.

5G offers the opportunity to streamline protocols across all smart products from all providers and in turn this will allow all devices to speak with each other. That said data fragmentation, privacy needs and high costs will provide significant barriers. These must be addressed.

Data privacy is an ongoing issue and cyber security will never be more needed (particularly when everything about you is stored somewhere) especially as we will shortly be entering a world where your fridge knows more about you than your partner.

From a device perspective current market costs are prohibitive to homes becoming totally connected. Companies who sell smart devices may well need to work together in order to bring prices down and increase uptake. I guess the big question is, how likely is this?

In other words we will need to create an ecosystem together. This must include businesses, developers and customers and access to a platform which is cross cutting and underpinned by 5G. The company most likely to achieve this at the moment is Amazon.

This ecosystem platform or platforms will need to be developed to afford data to flow freely between hard and software companies, app developers, home users and add incentives for all to play together. For home users, there must be huge upsides to being involved in this way.

In an ideal world, there will need to be a single data lake (or at least the ability for multiple data lakes to communicate with each other) which is safe and total secure for the individual. Perhaps a look to the banking model and the use of SWIFT type software to communicate is an option? This will stop data fragmentation, afford platform based ecosystem growth and will bring companies, developers and users together in a way which doesnt undermine privacy and security issues. Through decentralised methods (personal blockchains?) regulation of its main data resovoir, and last its scalable and sustainable enough to bring down vosts of devices and services

Education

The world of education is in turbulent times. Recent events have heavily expedited the need to build real resilience (which is very different from the tried and trusted model of many years) and perhaps look at new ways of educating our young people (certainly in the short term and potentially ever lasting).

Many young people now learn in a very different way to what most of us are used too and their expectations as a result of them paying has/is naturally changing their demands.

Covid-19 has shut down campuses globally. It will very likely mean (for 12 months at least) that international student numbers will drop significantly. Added to this, in the UK young people who are currently finishing their college education are now making final decisions on whether to attend Universities this coming academic year.

So how does 5G come into play in this context?

My view....there is a huge opportunity for Universities who spot an opportunity to create an amazing immersive augmented and virtual reality learning environment. Get a strategy right, through getting a true understanding of the global market and how/what young people want to learn and Universities have a wonderful opportunity to enter a global volume based market place. Get the audience and they can then attract the best academics to teach (accredited and non)

Whilst VR/AR can never replace "white of the eyes" teaching and learning it could provide a win/win for those international learners who crave amazing content, delivered in an interactive way (there are so many examples in the world of Disney that we could learn from) and delivered by some of the worlds best academics (as well as certain Higher Education Institutions).

The link below highlights the problems that international students will have in the very near future.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-52846214

Perhaps HEI's who have built financial models around the highly profitable international market for the foreseeable would be wise to investigate and collaborate in this arena?

The report below is a very interesting one relating to students expecting a much more flexible solution in the future.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/may/27/students-like-the-flexibility-why-online-universities-are-here-to-stay?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Aligned with this, there could be opportunity to provide an online platform (similar to Tedx) but in the augmented/virtual reality world. This could be a cause for good as the content could easily be made available to 3rd world or isolated communities.

Apple will shortly release its augmented reality glasses where there will be little (if any processing on them. Due to 5G, Complex environments could be created as a result and will offer huge opportunity for education and gaming (and perhaps both together??).

In the work environment

Industry 4.0 is a brand that has been pushed around for at least 5 years. In truth, it has stuttered and there is a number of reasons for this (Investment amount required (real and perceived), scepticism of the benefits, moving away from a trusted way of working (even if it is less efficient) and crucially a lack of capacity, coverage and capability in the 4G telephone networks).

Some examples of where 5G could help:

It will afford a huge number of sensors in which everything can be measured and monitored. This measuring and crucially the analysis (artificial intelligence/machine learning) will be completed "on the edge" (i.e. locally) and will reduce cyber risks as a result. This will mean that a business can become much more automated, efficient and hugely profitable. There is a strong argument that this will mean jobs are shed, but the reality is that it only takes one country to embrace and everyone else will suddenly become much more expensive (this could be tolerable in high end bespoke markets, but volume based ones it is very unlikely)

Linked to the above, companies will be able to take their own part of the network and keep it for their sole use. This again will be hugely important to those companies where security is everything.

From a practical perspective, 5G will bring to life predictive maintenance as well as the ability to have complex augmented/virtual reality versions of a real piece of machinery. Why is this useful? It will help with training/competence first and foremost, but it will mean that engineers can have a repair routemap with them at all times whilst crucially both hands will be free to work. It will also mean that a 4K/8K feed can be transferred live to other remote engineers.

If there are robotics working in factories of the future, there is a strong possibility that they can be remotely operated by humans (due to the low latency) from anywhere across the globe (there is still the speed of light as a limiting factor to contend with).

Entertainment (including e-sports)

Recent events have showcased the power of e-sports in areas such as basketball, football (soccer) and formula 1. When you look at the viewing numbers for these events they are in many cases they are higher than the original "live" sport. 5G could offer huge immersive experiences (think of Lewis Hamilton having a 360 camera on his car that is providing a live feed to a VR headset. As well as seeing exactly what the driver sees, you have access to all other views (sometimes seeing things before the driver), stats and information.

At the 2020 Superbowl final 5G was deployed to an amazing effect and this is just the beginning....

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/01/tech/super-bowl-5g/index.html

At any point during the game, people could access content like never before (game stats, betting info, the ability to one click buy clothing from an AR solution). As 5G allows up to one million devices in a sqaure kilometer, the opportunity for audinece engagement is now infinite. Think of music concerts where you can buy outfits there and then or you get access to additional content or you have new ways of making each audience member feel like its their own private concert.....

Every concert in the future could have its own digital twin. With this in place, the opportunities to extract additional revenue on one side is huge, but the audience will get expereinces like they have never seen on another. Truly remarkable opportunities lay ahead.

Fortnite has recently held a Travis Scott concert inside of its platform. This experience was viewed by millions and showed in a very small way just what VR/AR could bring when they are fully utilised in the gaming/lifestyle environment. Many worlds are beginning to collide using technology and we are just at the beginning.

Gaming has now moved from a solo activity to one which is about friends getting together. VR is the perfect way to enable this (particularly in a social distancing world)

5G will positively impact both our personal and business lives in equal measure. It will become all about the experience across every sector and companies/institutions who get this will survive and thrive.......the ones who don't will become irrelevant in the most part.

Be lucky

David