Whilst the DCMS programmes have cast a spotlight on the services that can be provided by advanced networks, there has been increasing attention drawn to the state and availability of infrastructure to support those networks. The audience were particularly interested in the physical aspects of this infrastructure, namely the availability of spectrum and fibre capacity. Both are clearly pre-requisite to the success of 5G and in both cases there is clearly a lot to do. The frenetic activity to roll out fibre has lifted the UK to 20th place in term of fibre infrastructure. New spectrum bands have been made available for operators and last year Ofcom made localised and shared spectrum available for enterprises. Achieving the data production cost reductions enabled by 5G will require significant investment in both cases.
The second poll question was: Which industry vertical do you see as most exciting for 5G use cases?
The most popular response was ‘Manufacturing/Industry 4.0’ which perhaps is not surprising given the huge interest there currently is in private networks. 5G is often cited as a key technology enabler for connectivity within the enterprise, especially with its support for URLLC. Machine control will require the millisecond latencies that URLLC provides and there are many projects ongoing to explore the improvements that can be gained from deploying, for example Time Synchronous Networking over reliable wireless connectivity in place of the more costly and less flexible wired enterprise networks.
‘Media and gaming’ was the second most popular application. It’s clear there is a trend away from broadcast TV towards streaming on demand. It’s also clear that gaming is growing rapidly in competition with TV and evolving into e-sports with audiences that easily outcompete those of physical events. There is also growing interest in improving the 2-dimensional display-based experiences become augmented and virtual reality experiences, made possible by improved display technologies and QoS. There have been many visionary endeavours to explore the augmentation of sight and sound-based experience with other senses, such as touch, smell and taste
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