Technology lovers keenly watched the launch of shiny new smartphones, smartwatches, cameras and virtual reality (VR) headsets by consumer electronics heavyweights at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week.
But at the centre stage of the global wireless industry’s annual marquis event in the Catalonian city of Spain were the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G and virtual reality.
IoT is a proposed development of the Internet in which everyday objects have network connectivity, be sensed and controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure, allowing them to send and receive data.
A forecast suggests that the market for IoT services will top $101bn this year, nearly 30% more than the $78bn that businesses spent last year.
By 2020, spending for services like network deployment, operations management and data analytics is forecast to balloon to $257bn.
Experts estimate that the IoT will consist of almost 50bn objects by 2020.
According to industry experts, the next big thing to revolutionise the way we connect will be the ‘5G’ or the fifth generation of mobile networks.
The super-fast wireless network of the future is still likely a few years away from becoming a reality.
Nevertheless, it was a hot topic at MWC in Barcelona this year, where some of the world’s most innovative companies and influential technologists gathered to discuss the future of connectivity.
5G is expected to massively speed up the Internet and unlock the Internet of Things, making driverless cars and talking fridges a reality, but experts warn plenty of hurdles remain.
It should permit devices to connect over the Internet, allowing them talk to us, to applications, and each other.
“4G was an improvement on 3G, with more speed, but it basically came from the same sphere, while 5G has aspirations to solve a whole range of uses, which are outside that sphere,” points out Viktor Arvidsson, head of strategy for Ericsson France.
In future, 5G could have a whole range of applications underpinning the Internet of Things — the increasing inter-connection of everyday appliances — with uses as varied as transport, health or industrial machinery, for which 4G is completely unadapted.
That said, one of the major challenges in realising 5G will be to “connect the unconnected”. An estimate shows that about 4bn people around the world still has no Internet access at all!
Hence, 5G will require massive investment to create a truly global network- one that ensures up to 99.9% network coverage around the globe!
Highlighting this massive challenge, some experts have cautioned mobile operators not to rush to make the Internet faster for the small proportion of mobile users who already have access to a decent connection at the expense of improving things for those who haven’t been served quite so well.
While a global race to develop 5G and IoT is under way, technology leaders will have to devise a strategy to “connect the unconnected”.
Otherwise, the exciting leap in technology may still remain beyond the reach of a majority of people around the globe!