DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
are still under development . There is also the fact that many consumers have found mobile broadband speeds underwhelming relative to 4G , which means there is more importance on the next version of 5G to deliver value .
James Kirby , Senior VP and Head of EMEA Business at global software and services provider , CSG says : “ 5.5G was initially spearheaded and sponsored by Huawei to advance the network and deliver something better to the second phase of the 5G roll out ; and also to help put the industry on the path to 6G . It is expected to deliver ten times faster uplink speed than 5G and provide increased high-bandwidth to more wireless endpoints , through better RF utilisation , duplex speeds ( equal download and upload speeds ) and significantly lower latencies , all to benefit businesses . To narrow further in on these improvements , they will predominantly support business and enterprise sectors , for example in machine-generated video for medical , security and transportation applications , to name a few . In addition , to accommodate crucial requirements in mission- critical use cases such as autonomous cars , remote surgery , etc .”
What time is now for 5.5G ? Sally Bament , VP of Product Marketing , Cloud and SP at networking and cybersecurity solutions firm , Juniper Networks , adds some caution to this . “ Despite years of discussion , 5G use cases themselves are still in the early stages of implementation and 5.5G is currently being socialised by a very small number of vendors . Also , the 3rd Generation Partnership Project , which develops protocols for mobile telecoms , is not supporting 5.5G as of yet . However , ongoing innovation is always important and the industry expects to see the various iterations of 5.5G-5.9G , mainly driven by vendors , in the run up to 2030 when 6G is being touted for very early deployment .”
6G ’ s up next , but what will the differences be between the two generations ?
It is expected that 6G - or whatever it is eventually called - will replace versions of 5G , but right now it is not a functioning technology and still in the very early research stage . Mobile telecom companies are much too focused on 5G to deal with it in any significant way , although early research projects have already begun , thanks to some government funding wanting to gain an edge .
48 August 2021