Remember all the hype around 4G that preceded its
implementation? In retrospect it all seems to have been justified. 4G - or to
give its correct terminology, Long Term Evolution (LTE) -has been a stunning
success. The increased bandwidth and lower latency it offers are ideally suited
to the demands of a burgeoning population of super-smart phones, tablets and
dongle-connected laptop computers.
It seems to me this is all a bit premature and if you were
to plot the current vibe around 5G on the famous Gartner Hype Cycle, it would
be pushing the peak of inflated expectations into the stratosphere.
Back in May I had a whinge about Samsung making some fairly
dubious claims about a 5G ‘breakthrough’.
I later observed http://stuartcorner.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/the-next-generation-of-mobile.html
that, as a PR exercise, it had been hugely successful “Google 5G and ‘mobile’
and you’ll get the impression that Samsung is the fount of all wisdom on 5G:
almost every one of the top 100 hits related to Samsung and its
‘breakthrough’.”
That’s still true today but other vendors are now moving to
claim their seats on the 5G bandwagon and contributing to the hype around the
technology. In July I reported on an Ericsson white paper that tried to explain just what 5G is all about.
That’s not too easy because it is not expected to be a clear new technology
based on a standard. Rather, according to Ericsson it's a whole bunch of
things.
Ericsson has now followed that up with an article in theEricsson Business Review that aims to flesh out the vision of 5G and, it seems to me, to engender
unwarranted FUD - fear, uncertainty and doubt - regarding its impact on the
established order. It is urging consideration of 5G’s potential impact and
opportunity creation that is somewhat premature. It’s certainly not short on
generating hype around 5G.
In its June white paper, Ericsson said: “5G will enable the long-term Networked Society and realise the
vision of unlimited access to information for anyone and anything.”
It explained that, unlike 4G/LTE, 5G will be “a set of
seamlessly integrated radio technologies that will bring the networked society
to life by 2020.” It continued: “The evolution of LTE will be fundamental to
this future, as will the evolution of HSPA and Wi-Fi. Even GSM will play an
important role, continuing to be an important radio access technology in many
parts of the world – even beyond 2020. Hence 5G is not about replacing existing
technologies but rather about evolving them and complementing them with new
radio access technologies for specific scenarios and use cases.
So, it seems that 5G should be something keeping the boffins
very busy and that operators should be starting to prepare for but that users
and over the top service providers won’t have to worry about much for a few
years yet. Not so, according to Ericsson.
The Ericsson Business Review article argues that
connectivity is already enabling and disrupting business on a global scale, and
contends that 5G will take this process to the next level. “The seamless
integration of evolved versions of today’s radio-access technologies with new
complementary technologies has the potential to become a game-changer for
businesses in every industry.”
No doubt true, but the despite noting that “[5G] technology
– or rather the combination of technologies – is still in its initial stages,”
the article says: “The time is right for businesses to grasp the issues at
stake and begin to explore the possibilities.” I’d suggest most of them are
still trying to come to grips with and exploit the full potential of 4G.
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