Singtel, Ericsson and Singapore Polytechnic launch “5G Garage”
Singapore network operator Singtel has opened Singapore’s first live 5G facility in conjunction with Ericsson and Singapore Polytechnic. The 5G facility at Singapore Polytechnic’s Dover Road campus is named “5G Garage.” It is connected to Singapore’s pilot 5G network using the 3.5-GHz spectrum allocated by regulator IMDA for 5G trials. 5G Garage will serve as a training center, test bed and idea creation lab to develop Singapore’s 5G ecosystem.
The strategic objectives are:
• Build and operate a 5G facility where enterprises can develop and test 5G solutions
• Co-develop 5G solutions relevant to industries such as transportation, logistics, healthcare and manufacturing
• Develop and deliver 5G wireless technology curriculum for the SP’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Develop 5G capabilities of our workforce
Mark Chong, Group Chief Technology Officer, Singtel, said, “Singtel is pleased to partner Ericsson and SP on our 5G Garage initiative. As Singapore advances its digital economy and becomes a Smart Nation, the benefits of 5G will first be seen in enterprises, especially in their digital transformation when they integrate technology into their processes, services and products. With 5G standards largely established (????), now is an opportune time for SMEs and enterprises to join us in shaping our 5G future.”
“As Singapore advances its digital economy and becomes a Smart Nation, the benefits of 5G will first be seen in enterprises, especially in their digital transformation when they integrate technology into their processes, services and products,” Chong added.
Martin Wiktorin, Country Manager Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines, Ericsson, states: “5G has the potential to transform industries and bring enhanced mobile broadband experience for consumers. At Ericsson, we are already collaborating globally with 42 operators, 45 institutes and 31 industry partners, to create a thriving 5G ecosystem. We are delighted to partner Singtel and Singapore Polytechnic towards the setting up of the 5G Garage, which we hope will stimulate SP students to come up with new 5G use cases.”
Enterprises will be able to use the facility to develop and test 5G solutions, and the three parties plan to co-develop 5G solutions for industries ranging from transport and logistics to healthcare to manufacturing. As part of the collaboration, around 250 final year students from the polytechnic’s Diploma in Electrical & Electronic Engineering and Diploma in Computer Engineering will integrate 5G education and training into their coursework. Students in Singtel’s Engineering Cadet Scholarship Program will be given the opportunity to take up internships in the 5G garage.
5G Garage is the latest project in Singtel and Ericsson’s 5G Centre of Excellence programme which focuses on upgrading of employees’ skills, technology demonstrations, live field trials and collaborations with educational institutions. Last November, Singtel and Ericsson made Singapore’s first 5G data call over their 5G pilot network at one-north.
Reference:
“The 5G Garage will be an exciting place where SP staff and students will work alongside Singtel, Ericsson and their partners to research and experiment with 5G technology, conduct 5G use case trials, and develop innovative 5G solutions and applications for businesses and industry,” said SP’s principal and chief executive, Mr Soh Wai Wah.
Out of more than 80 final-year projects developed by around 300 SP engineering students, three were chosen with potential for 5G Garage: an autonomous surveillance system that uses drones; a self-driving vehicle that can send real-time videos of the traffic situation to the cloud for data analysis and “intelligent” decision-making; and a pipe-climbing robot that uses magnetic wheels to attach itself onto metal structures and can provide a live feed of its surroundings via a mobile app.
Mr Mark Chong, Singtel group chief technology officer, said the engineering students demonstrated their capability to develop engineering solutions and help enterprises.
“The benefits of 5G will first be seen in enterprises, especially in their digital transformation when they integrate technology into their processes, services and products. With 5G standards largely established, now is an opportune time for SMEs and enterprises to join us in shaping our 5G future,” he said.
Infocomm Media Development Authority chief executive Tan Kiat How, the guest of honour at the event, said 5G will be an integral part of Singapore’s infrastructure. He said: “Apart from improved network speed and capacity, 5G’s significantly lower latency will allow us to maximize the potential of IoT (Internet of things) and smart city applications. These include autonomous vehicles, robotics or smart lamp posts.”
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/singtel-ericsson-spore-poly-set-up-5g-testing-centre
Gartner strategic roadmap for networking
The future-state network is an aspirational view of how enterprise network architectures should evolve to meet emerging business requirements and align more closely to critical business objectives.
The primary external forces driving network change are the adoption of digital business and the concept of “digital to the core.” This will result in increased adoption and investments in hybrid-cloud-based infrastructure, platform and application services to meet dynamic business requirements, and a greater focus on always-on service delivery to clients. Digital to the core will also drive IoT deployments to richer, more complex business models and processes, which will compound the pressure of increasing user expectations for consistently strong network performance, quality, reliability and security. This is overlaid with the fact that we anticipate increased pressure from the business to maintain flat networking budgets.
As expectations of greater network dynamism become the norm, network service providers will also follow suit with rapid delivery of new enterprise network services. These will be delivered through network function virtualization (NFV) capabilities, deployed on customer-located vCPE platforms, or within the service planning network, in next-generation, Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter (CORD)-based architectures. We will see a continued trend to leverage software-based, virtualized network solutions deployed with enterprise networks — as xSP services and available as over-the-top (OTT) services from a growing number of players.
After decades of focusing on speed, network performance and features, future network innovation will target operational simplicity and business models that closely align with elastic cloud-based services. These services are becoming more prevalent in — and demanded by — organizations with strong digital transformation agendas. The evaluation of networking technology within the most successful enterprises will balance between functional, financial and operational requirements. Understanding when “good enough” is actually good enough will be critical to architecting networks that are ready for digital business.
Gartner Group: Enterprise WAN Recommendations & Predictions
Key Findings:
- As enterprises increasingly rely on the internet for WAN connectivity, they are challenged by the unpredictable nature of internet services.
- Enterprises seeking more agile WAN services continue to be blocked by network service providers’ terms and conditions.
- Enterprises seeking more agile network solutions continue to be hampered by manual processes and cultural resistance.
- Enterprise’s moving applications to public cloud services frequently struggle with application performance issue
Recommendations:
IT leaders responsible for infrastructure agility should:
- Reduce the business impact of internet downtime by deploying redundant WAN connectivity such as hybrid WAN for business-critical activities.
- Improve WAN service agility by negotiating total contractual spend instead of monthly or annual spend.
- Improve agility of internal network solutions by introducing automation of all operations using a step-wise approach.
- Ensure the performance of cloud-based applications by using carriers’ cloud connect services instead of unpredictable internet services.
- Improve alignment between business objectives and network solutions by selectively deploying intent-based network solutions.
NEC Demo’s Face Recognition Using MEC to NTT DOCOMO 5G Open Lab
In order to optimize bandwidth, monitoring cameras can stream low definition images when people are not detected, and high definition images when certain behaviors are detected. The demo system consists of NEC’s face recognition AI engine NeoFace, Image Analysis and Behavior Detection System and Context-aware Service Controller solutions. They are installed on MEC servers and connected through a virtualized evolved packet core.
“NEC will continue to develop and offer a variety of solutions as a top vendor of domestic mobile core networks in the 5G era and to contribute to the expansion of the DOCOMO 5G Open Partner Program, while taking advantage of our experience and knowhow,” NEC GM for network solutions Kazuhiro Tagawa said.
This announcement includes part of the results of a research project “Research and development for the achievement of a fifth-generation mobile communication system – Research and development of high-speed and low-power consumption wireless access technology utilizing a super multi element antenna with high-frequency and large bandwidth” commissioned by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
The NTT DOCOMO 5G Open Lab OKINAWA provides charge free technical verification environments, including 5G base stations, for companies and groups participating in the DOCOMO 5G Open Partner Program. The lab aims at creation of new use cases for 5G, promotion of local industries and resolution of social issues in Okinawa. NEC has provided 5G base stations utilizing 4.5 GHz frequency band to this lab.
References:
https://www.acnnewswire.com/press-release/english/49108/
https://www.nec.com/en/global/solutions/safety/face_recognition/index.html
NEC Contact: Seiichiro Toda [email protected] +81-3-3798-6511
KDDI, Samsung: 28GHz surveillance video call on train platform using 5G base station
Samsung Electronics and KDDI have completed a test using 28 GHz to transmit 4K ultrahigh-definition (UHD) surveillance video on a train platform in Tokyo, Japan. The demonstration was conducted between Nov. 21 and Dec. 21 2018 at the Haneda Airport International Terminal in Ota, Tokyo. Along with Waseda University, Keihin Corporation and Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR), Samsung said it was able to demonstrate effective communications through 4K UHD video using a 5G base station. Samsung’s 5G solutions were used to conduct the demonstration. KDDI was responsible for assessing and designing the 5G test environment at the train station, which was provided by Keikyu Corporation, while Waseda University provided the monitoring system, VR goggles and video evaluation.
Last year, KDDI and Samsung showed how they were able to download an 8K video via the CPE installed onboard a moving train. This latest accomplishment demonstrates how 5G can be used to increase train passenger safety. The companies say that collecting and analyzing 4K UHD videos in real time will remove some of the burdens from the staff in charge of constantly monitoring footage. It also helps them in detecting dangers in advance and improving overall safety.
During the demonstration, the video files collected from both 4K security cameras and security robots patrolling the station were sent via tablets using 5G, according to a press release. The files were then received by the base station to be displayed on the monitor and virtual reality (VR) goggles in the monitoring room. Detecting any suspicious people or objects at the station was made possible through collecting and analyzing the received 4K files shown on the server.
The demo used Samsung’s 5G solution, and KDDI was responsible for assessing and designing the 5G test environment at the train station, which was provided by Keikyu. Waseda University provided the monitoring system, VR goggles and video evaluation.
Separately, another 5G demo involving KDDI and Samsung was conducted at an elementary school, where they compared the differences between 5G tablets and Wi-Fi tablets in their ability to download and play back videos.
A gym at Maehara Elementary School in Tokyo was set up with Samsung’s 5G network at 28 GHz to enable UHD videos. They also worked with the ATR.
The students were given a chance to create their own videos and experience high-speed and large capacity transmission of large video files. At the same time, they verified the capabilities of 5G for this type of use case. KDDI was responsible for assessing and designing the 5G areas used in the trial, and ATR provided the testing infrastructure.
References:
Wireless Backhaul Breakthrough: 40G bps & sub 1 usec Latency; 5G NR Call on 2.6 GHz
Ericsson announced on Friday that it has teamed with Deutsche Telekom to demonstrate a 40 Gbps mmWave wireless transmission link with sub 100-microsecond latency.
Ericsson said the test took place at the Deutsche Telekom Service Center in Athens. The test used millimeter wave (E-band) spectrum for transmission over a distance of 1.4 kilometers. The round-trip latency performance of the link tested was less than 100 microseconds, which confirmed the positive contribution of wireless backhaul technologies to satisfy network-specific latency targets.
Alex Jinsung Choi, SVP Strategy & Technology Innovation, Deutsche Telekom, says: “A high-performance transport connection will be key to support high data throughput and enhanced customer experience in next-generation networks. While fiber is an important part of our portfolio, it is not the only option for backhaul. Together with our partners, we have demonstrated fiber-like performance is also possible with wireless backhauling/X-Haul solutions. This offers an important extension of our portfolio of high-capacity, high-performance transport options for the 5G era.”
Per Narvinger, head of product area networks for Ericsson said: “Microwave continues to be a key technology for mobile transport by supporting the capacity and latency requirements of 4G and future 5G networks. Our joint innovation project shows that higher capacity microwave backhaul will be an important enabler of high-quality mobile broadband services when 5G becomes a commercial reality.”
Ericsson has a five-year contract with Deutsche Telekom, which kicked off in December 2017. Ericsson’s senior VP Arun Bansal says that they can deliver a 5G network in that time frame. “We listened to Deutsche Telekom and understood their urgency to have 5G-ready infrastructure in order to stay at the forefront.” They’ll run 4G on their 5G hardware until it is installed across the entire network, then they’ll launch 5G with the flip of a switch sometime in the next few years.
Technical setup included the use of Ericsson’s latest mobile transport technology including Ericsson’s MINI-LINK 6352 microwave solution and Router 6000.
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Separately, Ericsson and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, have achieved a non-standalone (NSA) 5G New Radio (NR) data call on 2.6 GHz, adding a new frequency band to those successfully tested for commercial deployment.
The bi-directional downlink and uplink data call was made at the Ericsson Lab in Kista, Sweden last December 20. It brings a new sub-6 frequency band one step closer to commercial rollout.
This latest Interoperability Development Testing (IoDT) data call is compliant with the 3GPP Rel-15 “early drop” specification that was frozen in March 2018 but further stabilized in September, and which is the basis for commercial launches expected in the first half of 2019.
5G quotes we don’t believe + 1 we do believe!
“I think this is the beginning of the fourth generation of the industrial revolution. 5G will be the platform linking billions of devices together,” Terzioğlu told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos in early 2018. Many others, including top executives (two CEOs and others) at Verizon have said: “5G is the fundamental platform for the fourth industrial revolution and will become an integral part of societies and civil infrastructures, just like roads, energy and transportation.”
That is yet to be proven because there is NOTHING resembling IMT 2020 standards based 5G to be deployed for at least the next 18 months.
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“The adoption of 5G will even faster than what we saw on 4G, which was already fairly fast.,” said Ignacio Contreras, Qualcomm’s director of marketing for 5G. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855, introduced in December, includes the X50 5G modem and will be used in many of the 5G-ready smartphones coming this year.
Qualcomm has said that 20 operators around the world will roll out 5G in 2019, including all major US carriers. Eighteen device makers have committed to using Qualcomm’s 5G components in their devices.
We believe wireless network operators are in a race with each other to roll out pre-standard 5G (based on 3GPP Rel 15 NR NSA) or totally proprietary “5G” this year. However, we believe the deployments will be limited in geographical coverage an very few smartphones or personal devices. All of the 2019 “5G” base stations and endpoint devices will have to be upgraded to IMT 2020 once the RAN/RIT and mobile packet core specs have been agreed to by ITU-R WP5D. The non radio aspects of IMT 2020 are being standardized by ITU-T (e.g. network slicing, virtualization, etc) which will also have to be adhered to for wide scale interoperability. One example is the yet to be published ITU-T recommendation Y.3112 (12/18) Framework for the support of network slicing in the IMT-2020 network.
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“5G will be the post-smartphone era,” said Robert J. Topol, Intel’s general manager for 5G business and technology. “Phones are the first place to launch because [they’re] such an anchor in our lives from a connectivity standpoint.” Well then what is the post-smart phone era?
Like AT&T’s John Donovan said at CES 2019, we believe the first real uses of 5G will be industrial/enterprise use cases(AT&T has partnered with companies for 5G based hospitals, stadiums, robotic manufacturing, etc.
“We’ve done dozens of trials already,” Intel’s Topol said. “Now as we get closer to the commercial silicon, that’s where the OEM announcements [from hardware makers] will start to come in.” We doubt that as the only REAL 5G standard- IMT 2020 is likely 2 years from completion.
“There are network operators that will be very aggressive with their plans,” Intel’s Topol said. “There might not be a lot of devices ready but it’s important that the networks be ready before the devices. Intel chipsets will start to be ready for handset manufacturers and others to go and build around.” Don’t agree. Wireless network operators will be very cautious with their 5G rollouts because they know they are based on pre-standard network equipment and end point devices.
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“5G is one of those heralds, along with artificial intelligence, of this coming data age,” said Steve Koenig, senior director of market research for the Consumer Technology Association. “Self-driving vehicles are emblematic of this data age, because with one single task, driving, you have massive amounts of data coming from the vehicle itself, [and] a variety of sensors are collecting a lot of information to model its environment as it moves. It’s pulling in data from other vehicles about road conditions down the lane. It could be weather information, but also connected infrastructure. There’s lots of data behind that task, which is why we need the capacity and lower latency.”
We are 100% confident that self driving/autonomous vehicles will NOT use any flavor of 5G. There are already two competing standards that are much better alternatives.
Here’s a quote I do agree with: “I think a lot of the hype is where things are gonna be 10 years from now with 5G, not what it will be at launch,” said Ron Marquardt, Sprint’s vice president of technology development.
Addendum:
After quietly showing off a prototype 5G device at CES using its own chips. Samsung will host a product event on Feb. 20th in which it could detail its 5G plans. Samsung is a strong contributor to IMT 2020 standards activity.
Huawei is also making a 5G phone using its own silicon. Other smartphone vendors will likely use Qualcomm or Intel 5G chips which will evolve to be compliant with IMT 2020.
Expect to pay up for 5G connectivity. OnePlus CEO Pete Lau speculated that his company’s 5G-ready phone could cost anywhere from $200 to $300 more than its current device, the $549 OnePlus 6T. And OnePlus has a reputation for keeping costs down on its phones.
ZTE completes 3rd phase of CMIIT IMT-2020 5G core network tests
ZTE has announced it has completed the third phase of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s (CMIIT) “IMT-2020 core network tests.” Those tests include: evaluating the performance of the network function virtualization infrastructure (NFVI) platform, the service performance of the 5G core network element, as well as system capacity and stability. The security function test focuses on the device identity management and registration, as well as the security service procedure in mobility.
ZTE said it has passed all test cases and met the requirements for service model and specification indicators with its test results, verifying the maturity of its 5G core network solution.
ZTE general manager for telecom cloud and core network products Liu Jianhua said the completion of the testing represents another significant milestone following the vendor’s completion of 5G standalone architecture functionality testing in September last year.
“ZTE will actively support and cooperate with (China) Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to help the 5G industry grow mature and embrace the arrival of the 5G era,” he said.
In addition to the completion of IMT-2020 third phase 5G core network test, ZTE also completed the world’s first end-to-end connection between 5G device and system, based on 3.5 GHz NSA networking, by virtue of ZTE’s 5G prototype smartphones. In collaboration with China Telecom, ZTE recently completed the first 4G and 5G network interoperability test using standalone (non LTE) architecture. In collaboration with Tianjin Unicom and Port of Tianjin, ZTE released 5G&MEC smart port industry applications.
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China’s IMT-2020 (5G) promotion group was jointly established in 2013 by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Ministry of Science and Technology, based on the original IMT-Advanced Promotion Group. In China, it is the primary platform through which 5G research and international exchange and cooperation is conducted. Operators participating in the IMT-2020 Promotion Group include China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom and Japanese telecoms operator NTT DoCoMo. Vendors which are part of the initiative are Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson, Nokia, Datang and Samsung. A number of chipset and test measurement vendors, including Qualcomm, Intel, Mediatek, Ctec, Keysight Technologies and Rohde & Schwartz are also part of the initiative.
Under the guidance of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group initiated the third phase of 5G R&D tests in November 2017, aiming at continuously improving the 5G technological R&D capability and promoting the maturity of the 5G industry. Under this initiative, China state-run telcos are in the process of deploying 5G networks in 16 cities to trial the pre-IMT 2020 standard wireless technology.
China has previously announced plans to commercialize 5G mobile networks as early as 2020. China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator, previously said it aims to deploy 10,000 5G base stations across China in 2020.
https://www.telecomasia.net/content/zte-completes-third-phase-imt-2020-core-network-tests
AT&T Communications CEO John Donovan on 4GE, 5G enterprise use cases, and partners
AT&T Communications CEO John Donovan and MediaLink Chairman and CEO Michael Kassan explored 5G and its potential opportunity for robotic manufacturing, AR/VR and mixed reality, sporting experiences, public safety and beyond.
Evidently, John Donovan isn’t concerned about the criticism that his company has faced for updating some 4G-LTE phones to display the 5G E label, a move that competitors are calling misleading for customers. Nor is he concerned that AT&T’s description of their so called mobile 5G deployed in 12 U.S. cities last month is: “standards based,” when it really is not. A video stated:”AT&T is the first to deliver standards based mobile 5G.” In fact, it is neither standards based or 5G as per ITU-R WP5D or 3GPP (which is NOT a standards organization).
“If I occupy beachfront real estate in my competitors’ heads, that makes me smile,” Donovan on Wednesday told CES attendees during a keynote in Las Vegas. HIs comments came one day after some customers discovered that their phones had changed from reading LTE to 5G E, which stands for 5G Evolution. The move, which caused some confusion, was meant to indicate that the phones were now accessing a network twice as fast as 4G LTE, Donovan said, and one that would pave the way for 5G.
Competitors slammed AT&T over the move. T-Mobile poked fun at the marketing ploy on Twitter. Verizon took out a full-ad in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today to tell customers that it wouldn’t make the same move. And Sprint’s CTO told Engadget that “AT&T is blatantly misleading consumers.”
The 5G Evolution network is currently available in hundreds of markets for certain phones. Donovan said it is a stepping stone to the fifth generation of wireless technology and is twice as fast as the 4G LTE network that most mobile phones connect to, though still not as fast as 5G will be.
Donovan wrote off the criticism as frustration from competitors over AT&T’s “5G” advancements. In the fall, the company announced that it would make a mobile 5G network and mobile 5G devices available to consumers by the end of the year. In December, its pre standard mobile 5G network went live in 12 cities. Even with AT&T’s 5G work, it could be years before most Americans connect to 5G on their mobile phones. Donovan said, “the (5G) network wont be as broad geographically as to be a consumer benefit.” Therefore AT&T will concentrate on industrial users such as enterprise campus and in building wireless networks.
While Donovan did note that “media will be most transformed” by 5G technology, he shared a number of different industrial use cases. The AT&T executive said that 5G could be used to update billboards in real time and make them personalized based on the interests of drivers. 5G will also be instrumental in making mixed-VR headsets like Magic Leap, which AT&T has invested in, usable in mobile environments. He also referred to a new partnership with the Dallas Cowboys, but did not elaborate. Rush Hospital in Chicago was another 5G partner Donovan noted. “Those are front burners, rather than downloading a movie faster,” he said.
As AT&T prepares for 5G, Donovan said he is rethinking the retail experience. “What’s the WOW experience in our store? The WOW stands for ‘walk out and watch,'” he said, explaining that he wants customers to know about the content coming from Warner Media, which AT&T recently acquired. “It’s providing a whole new set of opportunities for the media business.”
Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg CES Keynote: a Magic Show of 5G Hype
At yesterday’s long winded CES keynote, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg promised that 5G technology will dramatically impact all aspects of the economy. As others before him have said, “5G will usher in a 4th industrial revolution.” It will also be “a quantum leap compared to 4G” and “5G changes everything,” he said.
Yet none of those claims can be proven, because standardized 5G (based on IMT 2020) won’t be deployed till late 2020 or early 2021. Verizon’s version of 5G is based on the carrier’s proprietary V5GTF spec. Moreover, residential fixed wireless broadband (which Verizon has deployed in several U.S. cities with many more coming in 2019) isn’t even a use case for IMT 2020!
During the keynote, Vestberg introduced the eight “currencies” of 5G that will unleash highly connective technologies and blend physical and digital realms like never before – from AR and VR to IoT, AI, autonomous vehicles, advanced robotics, 3D printing, wearable tech and more.
The eight currencies are:
- Speed and Throughput: Peak data rates of 10 gigabits per second and mobile data volumes of 10 terabits per second per square kilometer
- Mobility, Connected Devices and Internet of Things: Mobile devices traveling at up to 500 kilometers per hour can potentially stay connected on a 5G network, and up to one million devices can be supported by 5G in a square kilometer
- Energy Efficiency and Service Deployment: 5G network equipment and devices will consume only 10% of the energy consumed by 4G network equipment and devices, and specialized services that will operate on the 5G network will take much less time to implement
- Latency and Reliability: Five millisecond end-to-end travel time of data from the mobile device to the edge of the 5G network – faster than the blink of an eye, and 5G will be more than 99.999% reliable
Vestberg added that Verizon’s ability to deliver all eight currencies of 5G is dependent on its fiber, spectrum, network density, and real estate – and that companies lacking these assets are underestimating what it will take to provide true 5G service. “Anyone who thinks 5G is just for the mobile handset is thinking too small.”
Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg discusses 5G at the 2019 CES. Image Credit: Jeremy Horwitz/VentureBeat
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To add credibility to his claims, Vestberg shared the CES stage with a diverse set of industry partners, including the New York Times, Walt Disney Studios, a doctor from the medical technology company Medivis and Verizon-owned drone operation company Skyward. There was also a carnival style basket shoot by a member of the L.A. Lakers using Virtual Reality goggles with the image provided by Verizon’s version of 5G.
Each partner spoke of how 5G will transform their business. For instance, the New York Times is opening a “5G journalism lab” with Verizon. NY Times CEO Mark Thompson (a Brit) expects that it will transform the way the publication’s journalists gather news, as well as how it distributes the news — notably including more VR and AR content.
Verizon is separately partnering with Walt Disney’s StudioLab to explore how next-generation connectivity can improve Disney’s content production and transmission. Walt Disney Studios CTO Jamie Voris took the stage to say that his company will be working with Verizon to give Marvel, Pixar, Disney, and LucasArts filmmakers early access to 5G innovations. Six months ago, Disney’s StudioLab was created in Burbank to figure out how to do things like improve rendering speeds for digital effects and use drones to advance cinematography. Now Verizon has joined StudioLab as a core innovation partner and will help Disney work on 5G cloud-based production workflows, 5G-connected movie standees and posters, and volumetric performance capture.
Skyward President Mariah Scott said that Verizon is committed to being the first to connect 1 million drone flights on its 5G network. Vestberg used a tablet in the keynote venue at the Venetian to pilot a drone in Los Angeles through a 5G connection. Ms. Scott mentioned the promise of using 5G-powered drones for industrial uses. “The ability to gather data and analyze it in real time is what will change things,” Scott said.
Dr. Christopher Morley (MD) of Medivis spoke about the impact of 5G on medical science, including how 5G could help the medical community rethink the connections between patients and caregivers — bringing people together and changing the way doctors provide care. He also offered a powerful tangible example of how 5G and AR will work together in medical procedures. However, there was no mention of 5G being able to deliver the low latency and high quality imaging that AR requires.
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To expand its network of partners, Vestberg announced Verizon is launching a 5G innovation challenge, offering up to $1 million in seed money for the best applications of the technology. It’s called the Verizon “5G Challenge.”
Verizon last October said it launched “the world’s first commercial 5G service” with 5G Home, a fixed wireless service for residential customers. It offers theoretical peak throughput speeds of 1Gbps. During the keynote, Vestberg made a video call to Clayton Harris of Houston, Texas, the first 5G Home customer. Harris ran a speed test from his home, reaching 690 Mbps. He said he normally sees between 600 Mbps and 1 Gbps, with speeds at times reaching as high as 1.3 Gbps.
Vestberg said he ultimately wants to see an easier installation process for its 5G Home service– one that you can install yourself. That will be a very difficult endeavor indeed. For example, there is an outdoor antenna (RF transmitter/receiver) that has to be mounted outside, possibly run wires through walls, floors or ceilings, configure 5G router settings, and (if needed) Wi-Fi extenders will be installed in the home, at no charge, to ensure adequate Wi-Fi coverage for the entire house. Here’s the complete 5G Home installation procedure:
The Asurion technician will complete the following installation process for your 5G Home service and connect your devices:
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- Verify and explain the areas in your home where the 5G signal is received.
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- Conduct a test to determine whether the 5G receiver can be installed inside or outside your home. The strength of the 5G signal can vary inside and outside your home.
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- Conduct a test of the Wi-Fi signal strength of each device throughout the house that is connected to the 5G Home Router. A Wi-Fi extender may also be installed at no charge to strengthen the Wi-Fi signal throughout your house or for devices that have a weak Wi-Fi signal.
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- Install the receiver, with your approval, either inside or outside on the side of your house.
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- Depending on the locations of the receiver and the router, the technician may need to run wires through walls, floors or ceilings.
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- Ensure that all your previously Wi-Fi connected devices are now connected to your Verizon 5G Home Router.
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- Demonstrate how you can use the My Verizon app to manage your router, such as how to restart it when you are away from home, and check the signal strength of the devices connected to the router.
–>Do you really think a non technical person can do such a self install?
