Last month the Consumer Electronics Show served as the global main stage to preview 2020’s most influential technologies. Artificial intelligence and the next generation of wireless, called 5G, were well represented and will open up vast new opportunities for the use of technological tools. Taken together these innovations will move the currently so-called “IoT,” or “internet of things,” to another IoT, the intelligence of things, as the wireless connectivity of seemingly every consumer electronic device continues. The demand for ever more streaming video and increasingly immersive experiences will make them some of the most important technologies of 2020.
As 4G spread across the country, the world changed. App stores and the sharing economy became everyday fixtures of personal technology use. 5G will bring currently unimaginable new benefits as well. Taking advantage of speeds 5 to 20 times faster than 4G, a 100-fold increase in capacity and the delay of data transfer, or latency, reduced to 1 millisecond, 5G will revolutionize communications once again.
Even though the 5G rollout, while further along than many imagined possible at this point, is still near its beginning, another generation of broadband is being discussed. Plans for “10G” are now underway as the demand for broadband and the need for uninterrupted connectivity continues to grow rapidly.
But 10G is not the tenth generation of wireless. While the “G” in 4G and 5G stands for “generation,” in the case of 10G the “G” is about speed. When it becomes reality, 10G will reach speeds delivered to the home that are five times faster than current wireless speeds; that is to say at 10 gigabits per second, and boasting increased security.
This new platform will provide the power for a variety of next generation technologies such as video walls in the workplace, holodecks, advanced alternative reality games and tools, as well as innovations not yet imagined. The benefits will spread across wired, wireless, fixed and mobile networks in such a way that the communications platform will be seamless. The pathways for the infrastructure improvements are already laid; it simply requires upgrading the existing networks with new software and hardware to make it work. Field trials are underway even now.
As 10G continues to advance, the competition with wireless offerings is obvious. That sort of competition in a free market is what best serves customers. In a truly competitive marketplace, businesses must constantly be seeking ways to please customers. Only by pleasing customers can a business advance its own interests.
Michael Powell, president & CEO of NCTA, the Internet & Television Association, said it best about the advance of 10G, “…soon 10G will be changing the way we live, learn, work, and play by reinventing the role technology plays in our everyday lives. 2020 will be another significant year as we continue to develop and implement the technologies needed to deliver the 10G platform to consumers and businesses across the country.”