The number of 5GOpens a new window connections is expected to grow from about 10 million in 2019 to 1 billion in 2023 at a CAGR of 217 percent. These numbers, while impressive, don’t convey the full significance of this development. This is because 5G is much more than a new generation of wireless. Anant Adya, EVP, Infosys Cobalt, takes a closer look at the winning combination of the latest innovations in 5G, IoT, the edge and the cloud.
Packing exceptional bandwidth and reliability, and very low latency, it will of course fundamentally change mobile communications. But it will also elevate the performance of other technologies, especially IoT, cloud, and edge computing, to throw open use cases that were considered implausible before. In return, these technologies will give 5G its purpose as well as avenues to fulfill its potential.
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Expanding IoT, Enabling Edge Computing
Because 5G can transmit data up to 100 times faster than 4G, it will support devices on the IoT to communicate much quicker than before. Being highly reliable, it will provide stable connectivity, which is critical for devices that must work in real-time, such as security cameras, self-driving cars or gadgets used in immersive entertainment. With latency reduced to (near) zero, devices requiring real-time network performance will be able to work without interruption even in far-flung locations – think sensors in hazardous environments, such as oil fields, or robots used in remote surgery. Â
When billions of IoT devices communicate via 5G networks, all that data will need to be processed somewhere. Based on criticality or the computational power required, this data may be processed at the edge – on the device itself – on the cloud or somewhere in between. Self-driving cars do the bulk of this processing in the vehicle itself because they have zero tolerance for latency. Home automation systems, voice assistants and location tracking apps also work on edge computing. On the other hand, temperature and weather sensing devices, which usually don’t need real-time analysis, can easily send their data to a central server on the cloud. There are also use cases that do their processing somewhere in between (also called fog computing) – oil wells transmit enormous data which they cannot process in their sensors because it takes considerable computing power, so they process some data at the edge (in the sensors) and send the remaining to a bank of computers located somewhere in the field. Â
By opening the floodgates to edge computing, 5G localizes compute and storage, thereby reducing the consumption of expensive bandwidth because the devices only need to send that data that they cannot process by themselves to a central server or cloud. That being said, 5G networks also need IoT and edge computing to showcase their power; without this combination, data processing would continue to happen on a remote cloud somewhere, undoing the low-latency advantage that 5G has to offer.Â
Feeding and Feeding off the Cloud
In 2020, the cloud was already a game-changer in IT infrastructure provisioning. When the pandemic hit, it became, quite literally, a life-saver, enabling people the world over to work and collaborate safely from their homes. The scalability and security of the cloud made it ideal for sharing large files and providing backup and recovery in the event of a cyberattack or natural disaster;Â these attributes also positioned the cloud to compensate for poor network speed and stability.
Now, 5G is returning the favor. By sending the IoT into overdrive, 5G will create so much data that there will be a need for vast cloud capacity in all its forms – public, private and hybrid. To explain, smaller compute in the IoT will move to the edge, but the heavier use cases, like magnifying the operating site in remote surgeries, will only be accomplished with cloud resources. Â
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All for One, One for All
5G may be one of the most exciting developments of this decade, but it can deliver its promise only in conjunction with other technologies, such as IoT, cloud and edge computing. There is a symbiotic relationship between all these technologies, which will go hand in hand to inspire future use cases.Â
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