5G Will Change More Than the Wireless Industry, Mobile World Congress Told
Keynote speakers at day two of the Mobile World Congress Americas conference in Los Angeles agreed 5G will be transformative, for the wireless industry and beyond. “We need faster, we need reliable, we need responsive,” said Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri. “We need 5G, which is good because it’s here. We were not always sure that it would arrive so fast.” All four national wireless carriers deserve credit, Suri said. “These folks are moving fast and they’re moving first,” he said. “They want to get started to grab the moment. They’re right.”
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Suri said fifth generation allows “bending the rules of time itself and changing the boundaries of what is possible.” Speed by itself is “empty,” he said. “Time is what matters, what allows us to be more productive, more connected and more social.”
Suri cited the Port of Los Angeles, where increasing size of ships means containers take longer to unload. “It doesn’t have to be that way,” he said. With 5G, drones scan containers, direct ships to the right berth and decide what needs to be unloaded first, he said. “Get this right and total unloading time could be cut by up to one hour per ship, saving tens of millions and thousands of docking hours and improving security at the same time.”
Suri said the FCC has to make more spectrum available to make 5G work. Finish rules for the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio band and reallocate the 3.7-4.2 GHz band quickly, he said. “Other countries are already moving,” he said. “Every further delay risks undermining the U.S.’ current advantage.” U.S. leadership isn’t “a given,” Suri said. “South Korea, Japan and, particularly, China are coming up in the rearview mirror.”
5G “is an enabler,” said Ronan Dunne, Verizon Wireless group president. “It will enable artificial intelligence, deep, deep analytics, the ability to have ubiquitous connectivity.” Dunne noted that in the first few hours it was available, the website for Verizon’s new 5G offering registered 100,000 hits.
Dunne likened it to "another renaissance,” with job creation, too: "There’s going to be a new set of [smart] garages driven and powered by 5G.” Dunne said industry needs help from government to install needed infrastructure. "Now that the technology is here, let's get it out there as fast as possible," he said. "Siting and permitting is one of the most important things. We have to go at speed."
Stakes for cities are huge, said Seleta Reynolds, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation. “Transportation is what holds people back and keeps people from opportunities,” Reynolds said. “When we look around LA today, we see a city that is struggling to get people to opportunities.”
In the city, someone can get to 12 times as many jobs by car as by using public transit, Reynolds said. “We have built a system that requires you to have a car if you want to lift your family out of poverty or achieve economic mobility … and that’s a problem.” Something has to change, she said. The city has to build a transportation system based on technology rather than concrete, she said.
The 2028 Summer Olympics are coming, Reynolds said: “We want to be the model city for autonomous movement in the world when the world comes to Los Angeles.”
Tim Baxter, CEO of Samsung Electronics North America, said 2G meant people had phones in their pockets and 3G and 4G brought the internet. “5G is going to allow us to put the equivalent of fiber into our pocket,” he said.
Samsung has been working on 5G for almost six years, Baxter said. “Now we’re actually bringing product to market.”
MWC Notebook
“Make no mistake, there is a global race to be the first nation to initially deploy 5G services,” Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said at the conference. “countries are going to need the right policies, and that naturally brings us to spectrum.” Regulators in other countries “sometimes contemplate shorter license terms with re-auction at the term’s end, along with high opening bids, to maximize funds for their treasuries and provide a continuing revenue source,” O’Rielly said. “They also look to adjust market sizes and implement technology dictates in an attempt to promote ubiquitous service, innovation and network upgrades.” The approach in the U.S. is different, with its emphasis on flexible-use licenses, he said. That allows “those interested to choose the best use for the spectrum and the ability to evolve and upgrade networks and technologies as they see fit,” he said. The value of the spectrum is then set through FCC auction, he said. “Participants set spectrum values based on their business models, spectrum needs, and deployment plans,” he said. “Price discovery permits entities to modify their strategies and refocus on some markets, if others get too expensive.” O’Rielly continues to have concerns about international spectrum organizations (see 1710050055). He singled out the ITU. “From mission creep and bureaucratic overreach to basic ineffectiveness and blatant cronyism, many of the charges are fairly well known and yet little is being done to correct them,” he said. “My fundamental concern with the ITU, however, is that its leadership has not been prepared or willing to take the necessary steps to focus directly on spectrum issues and, when necessary, challenge those member states trying to stop progress on spectrum policy.”