tiny pipes in the sky , but lots and lots of them – they estimate one million devices per square kilometre .’
Finally , there ’ s what Van der Bergh calls ‘ mission-critical services ’. These refer to any situation that involves life or death , and could include remotely driven vehicles , remote medical facilities , industrial automation , and suchlike . It ’ s the type of high-speed , low-latency connection that would enable a medical surgeon to operate , in real time and via a surgical robot , on a patient who ’ s on the other side of the planet .
It all sounds very futuristic , but that future is already here . MTN recently partnered with equipment vendor Ericsson to conduct 5G trials in Africa , while rival operator Vodacom has run similar trials with Nokia – both with a view to commercial deployment in the near future .
Those trials achieved download speeds of more than 20Gbit / second , with blink-of-an-eye latency ( network round-trip time ) of just 5 milliseconds – the highest speeds ever achieved on a mobile network in Africa , and significantly faster than the fastest connections available to South African consumers over fixed fibre-optic lines .
The fibre connection
That ’ s not to say that 5G will replace fixed-line fibre connections . ‘ You ’ re always going to need both fixed-line fibre and mobile ,’ Blake says , explaining that each one comes with its own set of trade-offs . ‘ You will never beat the reliability of a fixed cable , but it ’ s at a fixed point . Mobile gives you connectivity while you ’ re mobile , but there are physical barriers like trees and buildings which mean you sacrifice some of your throughputs . So you want both : fixed line to your home , and mobile for when you ’ re on the move .’
‘ We ’ ve done three trials to date ,’ says Geoffrey Blake , senior manager : technical regulation at MTN .
‘ The first was a proof-of-concept , while the second was an end-toend process , where we tested the entire network to see what the user experience would be like in the real world . The third trial was a use case , where we did a simulation with an autonomous car .’
Blake expects that , just as we currently have 3G routers for our laptops , we ’ ll use 5G routers in the future . ‘ It ’ s a lot easier for the guys who make the systems to build you a router , which is bigger and static , than to build you a handset ,’ he says . ‘ The first 5G systems that come up will be routers for homes and businesses and things like that . After that you ’ ll get into the handsets , and the real missioncritical stuff will come last .’ He expects 5G routers to hit the market in 2019 , with the first 5G-enabled handsets / smartphones following in the second half of that year .
Van der Bergh suggests that homes or estates that cannot accommodate fibre might consider installing 5G home routers instead . ‘ You will want the freedom to be able to go beyond your house , and beyond where the fibre is connected ,’ he says .
A self-driving car that runs on a cell phone data connection ? Now that ’ s a future worth looking forward to .
Mark van Dijk
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