5G will change the way we meet our stakeholders.

This time of year, many of us are cherishing time with friends and family and enjoying the gifts they gave us. One new item I am looking forward to receiving is a new 5G phone. A phone that utilises the next generation mobile network. A network that will render capacity and latency issues of previous generations to distant memory. A giant leap forward in capacity that will benefit not only Forum 360, but our clients and their stakeholders. Attached, take a look at the pioneers of each generation before this new phone and admire just how far we have come in mobile communication platforms over the last 25 years.

The capacity of the 5G network, according to whistleOut, is up to 20Gbps with user minimum speeds of 100mbps and a latency as low as 1millisecond. Compare that to the release of 4G in 2011/12 that offered users between 5mbps - 10mbps at the time with latency of over 60milliseconds on average today. This was a step up from 3G that offered 300kbps - 1.5mbps at a latency of ~120milliseconds. With 2G phones, data usage was mainly for SMS texting and of course the analog phones of the first generation offered no data.

How 5G will change the way we meet is best illustrated with two 4G use cases. We have seen the telco TV adds that showcase mobile streaming as an example of services that could only exist thanks to the capacity that 4G offers. On Netflix for example, we can bring up a legend that shows the streaming speed of the movie we are watching. Last time I checked this, it was streaming at 7-8Mbps (in HD) download. Streaming was a problematic experience for most during the early days of 4G due to capacity constraints, that improved as the average download speeds improved across the 4g networks. Even today though minimum download speeds of 2mbps on the 4G networks make streaming our favourite show on Netflix a frustrating experience at times. With 5G a minimum download speed of 100mbps will easily accommodate streaming services. And this is important as Cisco forecasts that 44% of all IP traffic will be from mobile phones by 2022 growing at CAGR of 46%. And that live video streaming will grow 15-fold between 2017 and 2022.

The second use case are video-calls and latency. While data speed is important, it is more a measure of capacity rather than reaction time. Latency is the measure of reaction time. More specific to video, the time between when a frame is captured and when it is displayed on the counterpart device, hopefully in sync with the audio. Latency issues are not limited to the network but the network is a significant factor. Low latency for the human eye is <100milliseconds which we really only started to experience as 4G networks improved. While the average is 60milliseconds today, that is an average and is still lower than the processing speed of the human brain. It is estimated that it takes 10milliseconds for the brain to register what the eye sees. The average latency of 5G is expected to be 10milliseconds with latency as low as 1millisecond. Again, another leap forward to ensure that live streaming is a consistently stable experience with no latency to the human eye.

At Forum 360, we are dedicated to helping active managers bring their engagement strategy into the age of live video streaming. Active management is a human value proposition that is best shown via regular meetings with stakeholders. Nothing beats an in-person meeting but that is just not scaleable compared to Forum 360's solution. Nor is it a great way to measure the strength of relationships compared to Forum 360's solution. Unlike marketing roadshows, there is no carbon footprint with Forum 360's solution either. Our clients look forward to saving on cost and the travel time between meeting stakeholders. Key to our success is delivering a convenient meeting place for all parties, no matter where they are located in the world, with a consistently good experience. Our business could only start to deliver on this in the later years of 4G and will benefit from the next leap forward to 5G. Thanks to 4G we now enjoy video streaming as part of our day to day. The age of virtual meetings (live video streaming) is now upon us and over the next five years we can all expect our ratio of virtual / physical meetings to skyrocket with a far higher percentage of our stakeholders enjoying frequent meeting opportunities.