Imagine the change 5G could really make if everybody knew how to get the most out of it…

If one thing is clear from this year’s Mobile World Congress 2019’ it’s that 5G’s moment has arrived. The network rolled out in Barcelona has given us 5G calls in real time on stage with no fear of the dreaded “demo effect”, data from cars driving around the city and images emitted from rooftop cameras, with a quality, latency and definition worthy of fiber transmissions. This is not a huge roll out, but seeing operators from various countries comment on their experiences, discussing how 5G means moving from Mbps to Gbps, as well as noting how costs per bit will be reduced by a factor of 10 provides a glimpse of a future that is ready and waiting for us to implement it.

First impressions of the MWC also confirm China’s dominance of 5G, as well as that one should not believe everything one reads in the media: my meeting with an Oxford academic confirms that contrary to what the BBC says, the elite British university has not suspended its relationship with Huawei, and neither has Vodafone, which has provided the infrastructure at the MWC (moreover, the company’s executives I spoke to say not using Huawei’s technology is unfeasible). The most recent news suggests that countries like the United Kingdom and Germany have decided not to follow the Trump administration’s guidelines to blockade Huawei: after all, when the country with the largest spying network in the world, and that even tapped Angela Merkel’s phone, tells you without any evidence not to use a particular company’s equipment because it could be used for espionage, one tends to take that advice with a pinch of salt.

This morning I had the opportunity to meet Ken Hu, the current Huawei chairman. The Chinese company rotates its chairman every six months as part of a management practice designed to make the company more nimble and to avoid corporate rigidity, and the opportunity to speak with him was not to be missed. Above all, we discussed inclusion, the need to prevent technology from becoming a barrier between the connected and the unconnected in light of the ever-lowering cost of infrastructure — base stations that are simpler and cheaper than current antennas and that can manage many more devices and connections — that will lower the transmission cost per bit for operators. We talked about the need to consider all elements of inclusion, which has to be redefined to mean not only access to technology, but also other issues such as financial and cultural inclusion, in terms of the skills needed to use technology to its fullest extent and with the right guarantees.

According to Hu, even in advanced societies such as Europe, around 43% of users lack basic digital skills and 17% have none, not because they lack access to technology, but instead do not have the basic grounding required to get the most out of it and avoid problems. Such a culture can really only be achieved through educating young people to use technology, as well as thinking about inclusion beyond connectivity and extending it to applications that can offer value proposals at all levels.

In the final analysis, as I have pointed out on more than one occasion, I am a teacher of some 28 years standing, and as the saying goes, “when you have a hammer, every problem is a nail.” In short, I almost always see education as the solution to all problems. Discovering that the head of one of the world’s leading technology companies shares that view was arguably the most gratifying part of my first day at WMC.

(En espa?ol, aquí)