FEATURE : 5G
Alix Pressley
The 5G transformation has been long talked about , but as of 2021 , aside from consumer access to slightly faster mobile Internet connectivity – there are still few examples of why the transition to the latest generation of cellular networks will deliver a wave of innovation to empower the modern enterprise . José Duarte , Chief Executive Officer , Infovista , discusses this in further detail with Intelligent CIO ’ s Alix Pressley .
Looking at the headline benefits of 5G , much of the messaging is around bandwidth , with claims that 5G will be 20x faster than 4G thrown around like confetti . Recent public tests such as those conducted by Nokia in Finland that hit 8Gbps download speeds showcase that , in an ideal environment , 5G really can deliver significant speed improvements – along with lower latency for network connectivity . Yet these stellar network performances have not yet materialised in real-world services .
In reality , the move to 5G is more than just speeds and feeds . The new standard offers network operators an efficient path to increase overall network capacity – to meet growing demand from not just consumers , but also commercial customers . Having adequate capacity and the best performance is critical for any operator that wants to win a share of the global telecommunications services market that IDC , an analyst firm , expected to hit US $ 1.6 trillion in 2020 .
The other crucial potential benefit offered by 5G is that it allows operators to start to create more valuable services using their networks – and move away from just offering a ‘ dumb ’ pipe to move data , voice , video and other media from point a to b .
Network-as-a-Service
At its core , the 5G standard makes it easier for operators to start to segment their networks to essentially create private enterprise networks . In essence , this could mean that instead of a large enterprise with a distributed workforce , all connecting into its applications via disparate campus Wi-Fi , home networks and mobile networks from various providers – it could instead use a single , private ‘ sliced ’ mobile 5G network offering Wi-Fi like speeds – but accessible from anywhere . This enterprise Networkas-a-Service ( NaaS ) would be defined by the customer and offers advantages including per-user-per-month pricing , granular service levels , simplified endpoint management – and without needing the CAPEX to build out an extended corporate network – or the OPEX needed to maintain it .
This concept is a whole new category of product for the telecommunication operators and potentially provides a major benefit for a CIO that is struggling to deliver a guaranteed level of secure connectivity to a workforce that has been shifted by not just COVID , but by the ongoing trend towards mobile working . The NaaS model is particularly attractive to the largest organisations such as railways , utilities , government departments and others that have limited IT teams but need to support a large distributed workforce with as little interaction as possible .
Hard choices
Although this NaaS model is theoretically possible with 5G , there are still several hurdles to overcome . The most pressing is that 5G , nowadays , is still mostly a hybrid affair with the underlying infrastructure using the existing 4G networks .
5G works at a higher frequency in the spectrum than 4G , which is one of the reasons it can carry more information than its older sibling standard . However , these wavelengths don ’ t travel as far and have
Expert discusses the 5G revolution and its innovative capabilities
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