How 5G is changing business

Christopher Gehlen at Neutroon explores the effect of 5G on businesses and their customers

5G (fifth generation mobile networks) will, together with the cloud and AI, become a key enabler for futuristic technologies and organisations based around AR/VR, autonomous vehicles and others.

With more demanding applications being deployed at scale, wireless networks have had to rapidly evolve. 5G is the way forward to enhance connectivity globally. 

As the network is considered one of the most critical resources in organisations, it is important to embrace the latest technologies to enable businesses to go, especially with remote and hybrid working.

5G is many times superior to 4G, not only in terms of higher bandwidth but also because of ultra-low latency and support for a massive number of devices from a single radio. This is what people typically hear from mobile phone providers when they are trying to sell 5G plans. And it is the truth. 

Programmable networks

The most revolutionary aspect of 5G for businesses is its capability as an extremely programmable wireless network. Through 5G, software is king - and this makes possibilities endless for companies of all shapes and sizes.

Indeed, AI has made it possible to customise the network for every user and enable businesses to utilise all kinds of advanced applications. This is known as 5G-slicing, a configuration that enables multiple networks to be created on top of common physical infrastructures.

In simple terms, this means that if a customer wants to pay for a superior experience for their AR/VR game, it can be assigned a specific slice of the network in a matter of seconds. For businesses, it means that one network can be divided up and tailored to each part of a business’s specific requirements.

Hyper-personalisation will be one of the biggest impacts of 5G on business. Today’s customers are demanding more personalised experiences with real-time content and insights, both of which require massive data transfers and low latencies. And 5G is the only wireless network technology capable of achieving this customisation in a reliable way.

The verticals most impacted by this are entertainment and retail. Think about a stadium with hundreds or thousands of visitors using their AR devices or headsets to enrich their live experience simultaneously.

The same will happen with retail stores. Omnichannel experiences that combine the bricks-and-mortar and online worlds, potentially in the metaverse, will inevitably need 5G to provide a real-time and tele-presence feeling to customers. A few milliseconds of lag would destroy these hyper personalised experiences, for which customers will probably pay a significant premium.

Operational efficiency

The second way 5G will impact businesses is through operational efficiency. Enterprises that are advanced in their digital transformation journeys have reached a ceiling in terms of operational efficiency improvements. The only way to increase this further is by implementing autonomous robotics at scale.

For critical operations where reliability is a must, 5G appears as the only wireless solution to lean on which can also transmit large amounts of data in ultra-low latencies. This will be particularly relevant for IoT devices operating in critical environments. Imagine an autonomous robot responsible for airport traffic, based off a runway. These are devices that simply can’t lose connectivity to ensure human safety and operational continuity. 

Ubiquitous connectivity

The third way 5G will impact business will be by providing ubiquitous reliable connectivity. Whether it’s through a 5G-slice by a fully dedicated private 5G network, or via 5G over satellite, enterprises will be able to have reliable cellular connectivity everywhere for the first time in history.

For example in logistics we can expect to see massive improvements in the end-to-end shopping experience. With 5G location analytics, customers will be able to see the location of the shipped goods in real-time and, therefore, have a more accurate estimation of when a package will arrive at their door. Similarly organisations will be able to better track these deliveries.

Still early days for 5G

However, it’s important to acknowledge we are still in the early days for 5G as a technology and therefore, it is hard to pinpoint its true impact on businesses.

For consumers, apps like Uber were the ones enabled by 4G thanks to the smartphone. With 5G, it will better enable the use of apps based on AR/VR. The speed at which these technologies are evolving is mind blowing, and a reduction in the cost of chip sets will drive an inevitable adoption of these technologies during the next 2 to 3 years.

On the enterprise side, use cases enabled by 5G related to operational efficiencies shouldn’t be neglected. Companies that want to stay ahead of the curve in terms of process innovation will need to continue investing in technologies. They should seriously consider future-proofing their wireless networks to avoid capacity bottlenecks in a few years from now.

For businesses as we enter 2024, the moment to start experimenting and defining a future-ready wireless network strategy is now.

Christopher Gehlen is Co-Founder and CEO at Neutroon

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com