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Webrain Reports Archive

#217 – The Future of the Connected Economy: 5G and Beyond

For many years, 5G has been hyped as a transformative technology that will vastly improve existing data and voice transmissions, as well as generate lucrative new use cases. But now that 5G is commercially available, how is it actually being used?

 

Most of the mainstream attention given to 5G has focused on consumer applications such as faster data speeds for cell phones. Webrain notes, however, that the most important 5G impacts are occurring in key industrial sectors. In addition to its faster speed, 5G brings drastically lower latency and higher reliability than previous technologies, allowing industrial systems to operate at much higher levels of performance. This report looks at:

 

  • Healthcare, where telemedicine and even remote surgery become more viable with 5G.

  • Manufacturing, where removing even a millisecond of latency can make all the difference when optimizing a production line.

  • Automotive, where autonomous cars on the road can communicate with other instantaneously, greatly enhancing safety and reliability.

  • Retail, where 5G enables more automated processes and provides real-time actionable insights.

  • Entertainment, where fast-moving events such as basketball can be instantly delivered to fans from multiple perspectives.

 

But even though 5G is just beginning to be deployed, researchers are already hard at work on what may one day make it seem slow and outdated. Early specifications are being developed for 6G and other wireless protocols. While most of which are likely five to ten years away, it’s a good idea to be aware of them now when thinking about a corporate technology roadmap.

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