What’s 5G? What’s 5G? A point on the network of the future
After years of testing and while 5G is being deployed worldwide (USA, South Korea, Great Britain, Switzerland, Spain and Finland) France is finally ready to be the next country on the list. This network of the future is considered a “key technology”, in other words a vital and necessary technology for a company, a state or an industrial sector. Indeed, with the rise of smartphones and communicating objects, its potential speed can meet the growing demand for information.
One of the most important goals of the advent of 5G is the much faster sharing of data, but also the ability to send and receive huge amounts of data through connected devices.
As far as consumers are concerned, the appearance of this network does not only mean a faster mobile internet connection but also an increase in the number of connected objects; the car, as said before, is a revolution supported by the 5G network: the IoT (Internet of Things), but it is not alone, the house is too. And for good reason: on average in a French household, we have about twenty connected objects, a number that is only increasing. However, not everyone has the necessary equipment to host so many connected objects, so the network can quickly become clogged. If each of these devices had its own way of accessing the Internet, it would be faster, but it would also unblock the Wi-Fi network since they would only connect to it when necessary.
How is 5G really different from 4G or 3G?
Thanks to the 5G, there is an incredible reduction in latency. This is the time elapsed between the application of the stimulus and the subsequent voluntary response. And while this latency is 10 milliseconds in 4G, in 5G it will drop below 1 millisecond.
5G will allow better network coverage, especially in places with a lot of people (stadiums, festivals, shopping malls…) or very difficult to access. With its much wider coverage performance than 4G, 5G can enter a building very easily and give network access to all spectators in a stadium and to all visitors in very busy places such as airports or, more commonly, city centres. The 5G will allow access to 4K but also perhaps to 8K on smartphones. It will facilitate online gaming, which will no longer row due to poor network quality. Access to the cloud will also be available and more generally, 5G should provide a solution to everything that is impossible to do because of the slow network or too large files.
In short, the benefits of 5G will be numerous: more speed, higher throughput, less latency and a faster connection. Indeed, compared to 4G, the 5G speed is multiplied by 10 while the data transmission time is divided by 10.
The 5G network will therefore make it possible to be more efficient than 4G, particularly in terms of speeds and usage, and will therefore make a true IoT (Internet of Things) ecosystem possible, unlike the Wi-Fi network. It will provide the level of performance necessary for a massive IoT. In other words, 5G will offer a perfectly connected world, more powerful than current IoT services, which opt for compromises in terms of performance in order to benefit from wireless technologies such as 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
5G: What progress has been made in terms of mobility?
The expected benefits of 5G in terms of mobility
As mentioned above, the arrival of 5G in France will not only impact one sector of activity but all of them, and in depth. Thus, the technological advances that 5G will bring will transform mobility, particularly advances in connected mobility. 5G will develop connectivity in all types of vehicles and in all areas: security, comfort, reliability, entertainment, etc.
Also, the arrival of 5G in France this year will boost the evolution of the mobile Internet towards the Internet of Things (IoT). In effect, this new network, compared to 4G, will change the perception of speed, instantaneous response time and also performance for the IoT. In addition, connected objects with low power consumption will benefit from longer battery life.
The 5G, a breakthrough for tomorrow’s vehicles
The 5G accelerates the subject of autonomous cars, having a very powerful computer analyzing the road and making decisions in real time. All this, with a reactivity rate obviously lower than that of a human being, but enormously reduced by the deployment of the 5G. With the 5G, we can also expect to see clear advances on the long-awaited subject of the driverless car and on numerous innovations that will transform the car of tomorrow, which will become a real place to live, entertain (consumption of content, videos, interactions, etc.) and work.
The car wouldn’t be the only winner in terms of innovations since 5G connected bikes have already been designed and are ready to win the battle of safety for the user. Indeed, thanks to sensors and infrastructure connectivity, 5G-connected bikes could prevent the majority of accidents. By connecting to other elements on the road (red lights, cars, pedestrian crossings, etc.), the two-wheeler would have all the information for greater safety. We can easily imagine the deployment of these technologies on electric scooters, electric scooters…
Holoscene 5G, the bike from Boréal Bikes that helps prevent accidents with the 5G
Tracking 5.0
Today, depending on Bluetooth and the Wi-Fi networks they use to triangulate their position, tracking systems continue to improve their performance, but many systems are flawed. On the other hand, equipped with a 5G chip, they would actually be much more autonomous and therefore much more efficient. This is one of the most eagerly awaited developments for 5G.
With even more accurate, more efficient tracking, the opportunities for using urban data for mobility are endless. This new network will enable the development of an impressive number of services, including predictive maintenance, real-time route optimisation, driving assistance and accident management. In addition to revolutionizing the experience of fleet managers and two-wheeler manufacturers, it will revolutionize the user experience with safety and comfort.
The drawbacks of the appearance of 5G
5G is a much safer network than 4G. On the other hand, despite relatively low security risks, they will be more numerous as this technology will soon become ubiquitous in the daily lives of the French. Indeed, “there is no such thing as a tamper-proof security system,” reminds Sylvain Chevallier, partner in charge of the telecom sector at Bearing Point. It would indeed be dangerous for someone to have access to the remote control of a vehicle. As a result, one of the disadvantages of the appearance of 5G may be the presence of hackers.
Obviously, there is still a major ecological stake in the deployment of 5G, which will require colossal specific equipment to enter this new era, which raises the question of the end of life of our current equipment (connected objects, especially smartphones…). Even if, in the long term, 5G will make it possible to achieve a 90% reduction in the network’s energy consumption by using energy-saving modules, the massive data consumption that will result feed scepticism about the ecological risks of this network.
Genuine technological advances and innovations concerning autonomous cars, connected bicycles, the use of connected objects, increasingly precise geolocation and intelligent use of data to turn them into high-performance services… This new network should be developed and perfected throughout its deployment, in order to meet the challenges of Smart Cities. The transition to smooth and intelligent mobility will only be possible through connectivity, which will bring services and security to professionals and end-users alike. 5G should therefore be a powerful long-term ally in this profound transformation of travel modes in cities and around the world.