Connected Devices Are Here

Let's go back to the future. Connected cars, drones flying in to help, surgeons operating on critical patients from thousands of kilometres away, flying machines helping to herd the sheep back home at dusk from your holiday shack, and appliances speaking to each other at home!

This is not impossible anymore. You could be experiencing all these soon, even in India, when Samsung undertakes the first 5G trials in New Delhi early 2019.

Fifth generation, or 5G, radio technology comes with some unique characteristics that make it by far the most advanced communications technology. It is far more efficient, allowing a lot more information to be transferred with the same amount of spectrum.

What makes 5G technology stand out are data speeds and bandwidth over the air, giving communications an altogether new perspective, allowing machines to talk to each other and even think for themselves. With 5G come data speeds that are 20 times faster and allows 100 times more devices to be connected compared to 4G. But the crucial difference between 4G and 5G is the 1/10th latency in data transmission or the time taken for a packet of data to reach from one point to another.

The potential uses are yet unimaginable given that now, at the very nascent stage of the implementation of the technology, it is already disrupting the way things have been done for centuries.

A recent report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization says that farmers across the world will have to grow 70 per cent more food by 2050 to feed this population. While academics, economists and researchers are trying hard to find a solution, an interesting idea came up at Samsung during one of our meetings with the government - Smart Agriculture.

Why not use the power of 5G, and 5G-enabled IoT to find a smart solution to this problem highlighted by the UN?

Smart sensors placed in a farm can gather and deliver real-time soil status, humidity and temperature to measure and inform farmers about what needs to be done to keep their crops healthy. This will help enhance, monitor, automate and improve agricultural operations and processes. Real-time information will enable farmers to act immediately in case of a disease in a particular part of their farm and ensure maximum yield and usage of resources like water and fertilisers.

So what is 5G and how does it work?

As was the case when 4G was deployed over 3G networks, initially 5G technology will work as an overlay over 4G networks till such time as 4G gets saturated and 5G becomes the primary network. Every new generation of wireless technology has brought with it new capabilities and disruption - 2G brought wireless voice and some data; 3G came with a lot more data and better voice and 4G came with wireless voice on data; 5G will be the most disruptive of all, by far. Higher data speeds on 4G enabled Internet telephony drove wireless content consumption as well as revolutionised social networking. It enabled digital governance, online banking and other crucial services across the country.

Now 5G with its higher bandwidth, speed and lower latency is set to enable consumption of richer media, including 4K videos, Virtual Reality streaming and potentially VR and holographic calls - something straight out of a science fiction movie.

Network latency, as low as a millisecond, allows for millions of devices to communicate with each other creating almost completely automated factory shop floors, complete with pre-programmed robots along assembly lines and automated traffic management that adapts itself to changing traffic patterns as the day progresses. This also means connected homes can be a reality.

Reduced latency will allow a much richer, immersive entertainment experience and interactive mobile gaming.

5G has the potential to redefine the insurance industry, too, with sensors that track the real-time usage of a car, enabling remote diagnostics and repair. Telemedicine that is steadily seeing acceptance will get a huge boost. Doctors would be able to perform complicated surgeries sitting thousands of kilometres away from the patient, enabled by low network latency and high data reliability.

The automobile industry will transform, because all vehicles can be fitted with telematics for remote diagnostics and fault monitoring. The next phases of 5G deployments will enable vehicle-to-vehicle communication as well as vehicle-to-infrastructure and vehicle-to-people communication.

Connected cars will enable passengers to safely enjoy high-quality content even when they are on the road. Ultra-high speed data transmission between road infrastructure and vehicles will enable instant download of High Definition videos, and upload blackbox footage, update driving software and allow smart navigation.

And for this, we wouldn't have to wait for decades. These could be a reality just three to five years from today.

It's not just the consumer that benefits from 5G technology. Network or telecom service providers would be able to customise their networks based on the required usage. The network can be sliced in such a way that the service provider can allocate more resources to services that need it and lesser to those that don't need so much bandwidth or latency. This allows the operator to meet all quality of service requirements, agnostic of which industry the service falls under - be it entertainment, public services, emergency services, telemedicine or even automobiles - every industry can get its own slice.

Apart from artificial intelligence and machine communications, one aspect of technology that will see the biggest change with 5G is data storage. We are already storing data on cloud and with 5G this will grow exponentially as data from the cloud will be retrievable faster than some current devices can from their built-in storage units. Imagine that - being able to carry out any operation, including playing a High-Definition game from anywhere, at any time.

Let's not forget that higher bandwidth and faster speeds will bring with them much wider usage and far more affordable rates, making it much easier for the whole country, and the world, to connect.

The writer is Managing Director, Samsung R&D Institute, Bangalore