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CIOS ABSOLUTELY SHOULD BE LOOKING AT HOW 5G CAPABILITY CAN HELP THEM REDESIGN AND OPTIMIZE BUSINESS PROCESSES .
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GABRIEL BROWN , HEAVY READING
An ultra-fast wireless technology , 5G represents a foundational change . It ’ s being sold by mobile carriers as a platform for everything from self-driving cars to high-resolution security cameras and virtual / augmented reality experiences .
While 5G is fast — up to 100 times faster than current cellular connections , making it faster even than fiber-optic cable — its ultimate impact on hotels will be broader than an increase in networking speed .
“( 5G ) will enable business processes that weren ’ t possible , or were impractical to scale ,” says Gabriel Brown , a principal analyst at Heavy Reading , the research division of B-to-B digital media platform Light Reading that analyzes emerging telecommunication trends .
Brown says 5G could be more impactful than the arrival of mobile data and associated handsets was 10 to 15 years ago . Although it remains to be seen if there will be hiccups along the path to widescale 5G deployment , Brown says the time is now for chief information officers to consider how 5G will impact their industry .
“ CIOs absolutely should be looking at how 5G capability can help them redesign and optimize business processes ,” he says .
NOT SO FAST All the hype about 5G , generated mostly by the mobile carriers themselves , clouds some thorny issues , including investment costs , necessary infrastructure changes and spotty coverage — at least at this point . Among the immediate technical obstacles : the impact of 5G on the current generation of distributed antenna system ( DAS ) devices that provide cellular coverage inside buildings like large hotels and casinos .
What about those exciting , low-latency applications for things like VR / AR rowing machines in the hotel gym ? They ’ ll need new devices and antennas that support millimeter-wave , or mmWave , frequencies . ( The term mmWave refers to a part of the radio frequency spectrum between 24GHz and 100GHz .) Latency , or the delay in communicating across a network , is around 20 milliseconds on today ’ s mobile networks ; it can be reduced to as little as 1 millisecond with mmWave 5G .
But it ’ s costly to deploy low-latency
50 hotelsmag . com July / August 2019