Latest / Technology Now / Why does it seem like 5G is rolling out so slowly – and why it is worth the wait
Transcript
- Aubrey Lovell (00:09): Hello friends and welcome back to Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, where we take what's happening in the world and explore how it's changing the way organizations are using technology. We're your hosts, Aubrey Lovell ... Michael Bird (00:22): And Michael Bird. And in this episode, we'll be taking a look at the technology which, for better or worse has been the source of a lot of news coverage over the last few years. Yes, we're looking at 5G. Specifically, we're looking at why we're lagging behind when it comes to the rollout of the technology. We'll be asking why, even when we're apparently connected, we're often not getting the speeds that are promised. And on a more positive note, we'll also be taking a look at why in some cases, 5G might be so much more than just a way to connect your phone to your photos. Aubrey Lovell (00:54): So if you're the kind of person who needs to know why what's going on in the world matters to your organization, this podcast is for you. And if you haven't yet, and we hope that you have because you love us, subscribe to your podcast app of choice so you don't miss out. Okay, I have my first cup of coffee in hand. Let's do this. Michael Bird (01:11): Let's do this. Aubrey Lovell (01:14): Okay. So according to the European 5G Observatory, the technology around 5G was unveiled in 2017 and began rolling out in earnest in 2019. It promises lower latency than 4G at far higher speeds. In theory, up to 10 gigabits per second. So in reality, by 2021, most 5G connections ran at 100 to 400 megabits, and we've cited that statistic in our show notes. Compared to 4G, that's obviously lightning fast. The previous generation's peak theoretical speed was 300 megabits per second, and which, according to the Telecoms Insight Organization, Opensignal, usually ran at something like 35 megabits. That's still a heap better, but it's a long way to go from what's been promised, and that's got wider implications than just our ability to stream on the go. Michael Bird (02:07): Then there's the issue of coverage, which depending on where you are in the world, is patchy. According to Opensignal, in the US, 80% of the population now have some access to 5G. But in the UK and much of Europe, it's less than 40%. We've linked to that report in the show notes too. So why and what can be done about it? Well, joining us today is Andy Bryant. He's Marketing Leader for HPE's telecommunications solutions worldwide, and it's fair to say he knows about 5G. Hi, Andy. Andy Bryant (02:36): Hi there. Happy to be here. Michael Bird (02:37): Excellent. So Andy, in short, why is 5G being rolled out more slowly than some would've hoped? Andy Bryant (02:44): Every time we roll to a new G, a new generation, the industry has a huge task to update both the network and convince consumers and businesses to update their devices. So as an industry, we did a great job talking up the benefits of 5G to get people excited about it, perhaps too good a job in some ways. That created a lot of demand. But deploying that network takes a lot of investment, and at the same time, telcos are investing heavily in rolling from copper to fibers. There's a lot of investment needed to make that network work. Aubrey Lovell (03:12): So Andy, in terms of the speeds we're seeing from 5G, why is it so far off the promise of gigabit downloads? Andy Bryant (03:19): Yeah, it's really a question of the radio spectrum that's being used. So there's three bands that are being used for 5G: the low band, the mid-band, and the high band. So the low band is what was deployed first. It's got great coverage range, so long distance, but lower speed, maybe 50 to 150Mb. So it's still faster than 4G, but it's not as fast as the other bands. So mid-band might be 100Mb to 900Mb per second, and the high band is the one that gets you the super-fast up to 3GB, perhaps 10GB, but the range is no bigger than a city block. So what most of the telcos have done is they wanted to get the biggest coverage fastest so they started with a low band, and then more recently, the mid-band. And then eventually, they'll add in high-band radios in high traffic areas such as airports or stadiums. Aubrey Lovell (04:06): So we kind of talk about two kinds of 5G, the non-standalone and standalone. What are they and why do they matter? Andy Bryant (04:14): So this was a way for the industry to speed up the rollout of 5G. They created these two models for deploying it. The first one is NSA, or non-standalone, so that's where you add a 5G radio onto an existing 4G core network. Or standalone, where you have both the 5G radio and the 5G core. So the first step was 5G non-standalone. That gives you the new wireless, the new spectrum, and the faster speeds, but it's sort of a transition phase. You don't get to the full benefits of slicing and latency and high capacity and reliability until you get the full 5G standalone. Michael Bird (04:48): So can you define the RAN and the core for us? What are they and why do they matter when it comes to 5G? Andy Bryant (04:54): These are the two main components of the 5G network. You can kind of think of the RAN, or the radio access network, as being the arms and hands. It's the cell towers you see at the side of the road and the network connecting them. So that controls the radio frequency stuff.. And then the core is the brains of the network that controls how the network operates. Aubrey Lovell (05:13): So Andy, I'm going to make a dad joke right now. You're basically saying that 4G walked so 5G could RAN. Michael Bird (05:19): That is the best dad joke I've ever heard. Andy Bryant (05:24): Moving swiftly on. Aubrey Lovell (05:25): I had to do it, I had to do it. Michael Bird (05:26): You had to. It was there. So where do you see the trend with the rollout of 5G going? Andy Bryant (05:32): So the next step is really getting to 5G standalone and slicing, and then installing the high band in selected areas. Although, companies don't have to wait for their telcos to get to 5G SA. They can get started by running their own 5G network with private 5G to compliment their existing wifi network. Aubrey Lovell (05:49): Could you tell us a little bit more about slicing and what each kind of 5G does? Andy Bryant (05:54): Yeah. Slicing is kind of a little bit like virtualization on a server where you can run multiple virtual servers on a physical server. Slicing lets you run multiple virtual 5G networks on one 5G network. So you could have one slice for enhanced mobile broadband, which is what powers your phones and cloud gaming, that sort of thing for consumers. The other personalities you can have on slices would be ultra-reliable low latency, which might be for autonomous cars, for robots, for instance, for a road train of trucks. Or the massive machine type communication, which is for huge numbers of low power IOT type devices, which you might use for parking sensors, gas meters, remote monitoring of oil and gas things. So these ones let you run a single device off a single battery, perhaps for 10 years because it's low power, low data rate. Michael Bird (06:43): So will we eventually get to wide coverage and faster speeds, do you think? Andy Bryant (06:47): Yes, definitely. I mean, we're deploying mid-band at the moment in most telcos. In certain areas, they've started deploying the high band, so that will give you the fastest speeds in certain sub-areas of airports and stadiums, for instance. Michael Bird (06:59): In summary, then, why should companies care about the rollout of 5G? Andy Bryant (07:04): Well, I think the difference between 4G and 5G is 4G was really about connecting people with faster broadband. 5G is going to connect everything, all sorts of devices. And if you tie together the ability to roll out private 5G today with a bit of wifi, along with your AI-enabled edge compute, you can do all sorts of interesting things such as video analytics with 5G cameras on drones or servicing a jet engine as it lands with augmented reality. So for instance, you might have an airplane flying that has detected some problems as it's on its way in. The jet lands, taxis to the gate. The aircraft might then connect to the local private 5G network, and because it's a high speed network, it can drop all of the log files from the flight into a local server. (07:47): That server might then use AI to analyze the logs, build a 3D representation of the engine, which it then provides to the engineer who puts on his augmented reality 5G headset and allows him to visualize what's been going on with the engine during the flight, and then guides him what he needs to do to fix the problem. Michael Bird (08:03): Wow. Andy Bryant (08:04): So that's essential for high bandwidth, for the low latency. You need to get an AI headset to work. Michael Bird (08:09): So it makes the whole process much faster, much more reliable for aircraft. Andy Bryant (08:13): Yes. And you couldn't really do this sort of thing with the slower speed networks. Michael Bird (08:16): Wow. Gosh, that's fascinating. That's a great example. Aubrey Lovell (08:19): Absolutely fascinating. Thanks so much. And we'll be back with Andy in a moment, so don't go anywhere. It is time for Today I Learned, the part of the show where we take a look at something happening in the world we think you should know about. Michael Bird (08:33): Yes, it is. And today, it's my turn. Hooray! Aubrey Lovell (08:36): Hooray! Michael Bird (08:37): I'm talking about asteroid mining. Aubrey Lovell (08:40): Ooh. Michael Bird (08:40): Now a new report, co-authored by universities and researchers at the International Monetary Fund, has predicted that within 30 to 40 years, certain rare metals could be harvested more commonly in space than on Earth. Interesting. Now, the report found that metallic asteroids contain more than 1,000 times as much nickel as the Earth's crust, in terms of grams per metric ton. Many asteroids have large amounts of cobalt, iron, platinum, and other metals which are key to electronics manufacturing and several other industries. It all comes down to money. Cobalt and nickel are worth tens of thousands of dollars per ton and demand for them is increasing. In fact, the International Energy Agency claims we are likely to want six times more cobalt by 2050 than we do now, and we can't just provide that from the ground alone. (09:35): There's a number of companies looking to mine the sea floor to extract these metals, but that has its own challenges with huge underwater pressures, habitat destruction, and the use of fragile equipment in saltwater. Meanwhile, space launches are getting cheaper all the time. The research has found that we may reach a tipping point where actually launching mining probes to asteroids and returning them to Earth could become financially the most viable option. Of course, there are a lot of challenges in the way, there's no relevant regulation about who owns what or what companies can do in space. Rockets have their own environmental cost, and getting to asteroids and then back again is still extremely tricky and yields just a few grams of rock. Oh, and our maps of what asteroids are lying out there is extremely patchy, which makes picking targets hard. That said, it's a pretty cool story from a reputable body, so maybe not so far in the realms of reality. Aubrey Lovell (10:32): Brilliant. Thanks for that, Michael. Very cool. Michael Bird (10:38): Okie-dokie. It's time for questions from the audience. You've been sending in your questions to Andy Bryant on 5G, and we've pulled out a couple. Now, Andy, the first question comes from Laura in Michigan, who wants to know whether the rollout of 6G is likely to be just as tricky as the rollout of 5G. Andy Bryant (10:55): It'll be quite a while before we get there because we're not expecting to see standards finalized until around 2028. So the first commercial deployments won't be until around 2030. So we've got plenty of time. And I think you'll find that the telcos are pushing the industry to focus more on tangible benefits and new experiences, rather than just speed increases as we talked about for 5G. And I think they're also hoping that we can deliver a more evolutionary approach to make it more of a step from 5G as opposed to a complete change. Aubrey Lovell (11:25): Okay. The second question comes from Shannon in Dublin, who wants to know if 5G is likely to find its way into autonomous vehicles as a driving aid. Is it reliable enough? Andy Bryant (11:36): Absolutely. And that's one of the things that we get with 5G SA. When you get the ability to deploy an ultra-low latency, highly-reliable slice along highways, along train lines even, that allows you to ensure that safety critical messages between cars and between cars' infrastructure get through, as opposed to being disrupted by somebody streaming video. Aubrey Lovell (11:55): Fantastic. Thanks so much, Andy. It's been great to speak with you, and you can find more on the topics discussed in today's episode in our show notes. All right. Well, we're getting towards the end of the show, which means it's time for ... Aubrey and Michael (12:10): This Week in History ... Aubrey Lovell (12:13): A look at monumental events in the world of business and technology, which has changed our lives. The clue last week was, "It's 1895 and you'll see straight through this one." It was, of course, the discovery of the X-ray by German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen. The discovery was somewhat accidental. He had been experimenting with electrical discharge tubes and noticed they left a green glow on a nearby fluorescent screen. He decided to study the phenomenon and in just two months, had written and published a paper on his findings, which won him the first ever Nobel Prize for physics in 1901. Just one month later, a Dutch school teacher, HJ Hoffmans, and a local hospital chief called van Kleef created the first prototype X-ray machine. That's pretty cool. Michael Bird (12:59): Well, next week the clue is, "Now you can double click on this." Do you know what it is? If you do, don't tell us. All right? And that brings us to the end of Technology Now for this week. Thank you to our guest, Andy Bryant, Marketing Leader for HPE's telecommunications solutions worldwide. Andy, thank you for joining us. Andy Bryant (13:18): Thank you, Michael and Aubrey. Michael Bird (13:19): And to our listeners, thank you all so much for joining us. Technology Now is hosted by Aubrey Lovell and myself, Michael Bird. And this episode was produced by Sam Datta Pollen and Zoe Anderson, with production support from Harry Morton, Alicia Kempson, Alison Paisley, Alyssa Mitri, Camilla Patel, Alex Podmore, and Chloe Sewell. Aubrey Lovell (13:37): Our social editorial team is Rebecca Wissinger, Judy-Anne Goldman, Katie Guarino, and our social media designers are Alejandra Garcia, Carlos Alberto Suarez, and Embar Maldonado. Technology Now is a Lower Street Production for Hewlett Packard Enterprise. We'll see you next week.