DIGITAL LIFE

5.5G will bring the era of 3D shopping malls and smart cities

The 5.5G era brings more interactive services, including a plethora of 3D applications such as shopping malls, enterprise cloud services become a general trend, and passive IoT devices capable of transmitting data without their own power source are spreading. Exploiting the detection capabilities of networks brings significant progress in safer and more efficient operation of city infrastructures.

“Rethinking commercial use of 5G and strengthening coverage by bringing industry players together is key to moving into the 5.5G era”

– said Li Peng, president of the Telecommunications Business Division of Huawei Technologies, in his keynote speech at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. According to the director, exploring the potential of 5G networks is essential for the development of the infocommunications industry.

From 5G to 5.5G: Ten times more capabilities, a hundred times more possibilities...5.5G ushers in an even faster, more automated and smarter era, providing ten times more network resources than 5G, which implies a hundred times more possibilities. The five key characteristics of the 5.5G era are the achievement of 10 gigabit speeds, the spread of even more versatile IoT solutions, the use of wireless networks as sensors, the emergence of more automated networks that operate with lower power consumption and provide better quality as well as more sustainable global networks will be the infrastructures.

Thanks to higher speeds, mobile and home users will have more interactive and higher quality experiences: 3D applications such as 3D online malls will become widely available, 24K VR games and glasses-free 3D videos will become commonplace. In the 5.5G era, the number of online users of these innovative services is expected to exceed one billion, a hundredfold increase. According to the company's forecasts, the number of established private 5G networks will increase from the current ten thousand to one million by 2030. Fiber connections will extend from homes and businesses to production lines and even manufacturing equipment, with an improvement of ten times in latency, location accuracy and reliability. In addition, cloud applications are entering a new era, and cloud-based and multi-cloud enterprise applications are also becoming a trend.

Emerging breakthrough technology: Passive IoT...Thanks to passive IoT technology, the number of connected devices will increase from 10 billion to 100 billion. The advantages of passive IoT tags, which are capable of transmitting small amounts of data without a continuous power source, and can even be used for location and temperature sensors, will be widely exploited with the development of 5G networks and, among other things, , in the automated inventory of warehouse items, they can bring a breakthrough in agriculture and animal husbandry. Currently, there are more than 30 billion passive IoT tags in use annually, and with the digitalization of industries, the number of passive IoT tags in annual use is expected to reach 100 billion.

Sensor networks also detect fog, traffic jams and obstacles... New technologies will also appear, such as wireless sensing, when the entire communication network will serve as a sensor. This solution can be widely used, for example, in the field of road transport services and for the detection of environmental elements. For example, in rainy or foggy weather, 5.5G networks will be able to automatically detect obstacles or other problems on the road and notify drivers a kilometer in advance via in-car maps. This makes traffic safer and the city's infrastructure more efficient.

70% of users would be willing to pay more for a better 5G experience...It took 5G networks only three years to catch up with 4G development in five years, but coverage is still uneven across different regions and countries. Around the world, 200 million copper broadband lines still need to be urgently upgraded, and more than 60 million small and medium-sized businesses want access to leased line services. Stronger coverage would benefit users and service providers alike: 70% of users are already willing to pay more for a better 5G experience, which may also provide a blueprint for next generation 5.5 experiences, while service providers may expand its markets and considerably increase its revenues.

BY: international news agencies