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Written by: Sergio Severo
A few years ago, we used to hear about the "intelligence" of the 5G networks and we knew that we were facing a technological advance with potential to change the way we use the internet.Several organizations in Europe, South Korea, and, recently in the United States, have already begun investing in 5G trials and projects. Here at Hitachi Vantara we are at full throttle and engaged with 5G. We recently contributed directly with one of our solutions, the Hitachi Content Platform Anywhere Edge , in an experience made by Telefónica and Santander, in Europe, along with other partners.Besides a low latency cloud storage solution, through this new experience, employees and customers can attend 4K videoconferences between two branches, and conduct a virtual tour of co-working spaces, using Virtual Reality.
This immersive reality service allows customers to remotely visit co-working spaces, such as Santander Work Cafe, located at the Santander office, in central Madrid.The technology that was adopted in this case was based on Stand Alone mode, the most recent international standard, creating a 5G end-to-end network architecture that does not require Long Term Evolution support. Solutions like these will bring new services and ways of connectivity to the financial sector, as well as other industries.Beyond the organizations, people will also feel the difference with 5G's arrival. The speed of 4G, that you are probably using at this moment, is 1 Gbps per second. The new network, at its maximum potential, will be able to deliver standard speeds of 20 Gbps per second, according to the UK regulator Office of Communications (Ofcom).
5G as part of Social Innovation
A few days ago, I read an article in The Wall Street Journal, which explained how we would feel when using 5G. As an example, downloading a 1-hour playlist on Spotify would take about 7 minutes with 3G, 20 seconds with 4G, and 5G, only 0.6 seconds. Another example would be the platforms like Amazon Premium or Netflix. In order to download a movie to watch while you’re “offline”, it would take 3.7 seconds with 5G, compared with 2 minutes for 4G.The latency with 5G will be reduced to one millisecond - a significant gain compared to the 20 seconds of the 4G network. In other words, it will be possible to send and receive data almost instantaneously. Also, the infrastructure used for the technology would allow more devices connected at the same time, which means that instead of connecting 300 people, it would connect 1 thousand or even more.To understand how this new technology will change our lives, it is important to bear in mind that 5G is about so much more than just fast download speeds and lower latency.
We are ready to build a social innovative environment, delivering intelligent experiences across all scenarios, to enable people, homes, and organizations to have access to the benefits.Smart Mobility: 5G will become more important as devices with their own data connections roll out as part of the Internet of Things, making life easier for those who use busy routes and areas such as stadiums or train stations at rush hour.Improving Healthcare: online consultations, illness preventions through smarter devices, doctors to perform remote control surgery, among others.Energy saving: increasing energy efficiency in mobile networks will reduce the costs of capital and operational expenditures.
This includes reducing power requirements for antennas (smaller at higher frequencies), cloud and virtualization technologies as well as the consolidation of data centers over smaller facilities.In a world where technology optimizes our time and consequently helps monetizing business operations, 5G is long-awaited in Latin America and will revolutionize connectivity in the world of data analytics and IoT as well.The arrival of 5G in our region will be the start of a revolution in connectivity between people and organizations – a breakthrough for Digital Transformation, and an important key to accelerating smart cities deployment.
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