Kathy Gibson is with Huawei in Braamfontein – 5G is set to revolutionise industries – but the technicalities of the service are not what’s important.
This is the word from Dr Mohammed Madkour, vice-president: wireless and cloud core marketing at Huawei, addressing the Huawei Editors’ Xchange today.
“I think we are all behind the hope that people can have happier, healthier, more productive lives. For organisations, it is about having more productive and efficient businesses. For countries it is to alleviate poverty and put themselves on the ICT leadership map.”
The core vision behind 5G rests on four platforms: Society, industry digitalisation, technology innovation and a prosperous economy.
“That’s it: no wars, no politics, no distraction – these are the thing that will help us be successful in Industry 4.0,” Madkour says.
In 2002, mobile subscriptions overtook fixed line connections, he explains. The next crossover point, in 2009, happened when the number of mobile phones in the market surpassed laptop computers.
“There is no device that beats mobile devices,” Madkour says. “Everything is being connected on the go – that is what mobility is about.”
Now, he says, we are seeing a growth in manufacturing industry connections, where wireless is becoming more important than ever and will soon reach a tipping point.
In the past, industries were almost always silos – there was little sharing of data or technology.
“This is not what Industry 4.0 is: now telecommunication is the foundation of all industries. 5G, cloud and AI are the media for transformation, built on a telecom platform.”
When it comes to Industry 4.0, the supporting pillars are services, infrastructure, talent and ecosystem, Madkour adds.
The system is supplied by infrastructure and talent, with the services driving demand , working in an open, transparent ecosystem.
The advent of 5G opens up the possibility for richer experiences and industry digitalisation, Madkour explains. These will be felt by people, households and industry.
The drivers behind 5G are a need for data value – which 5G delivers; for cloud capabilities for applications like gaming, computing, robots and virtual reality; and industries like manufacturingg and other smart services.
Madkour points out that 5G provides a powerful and efficient connection. “Simplicity is also important for 5G,”he adds. “It needs to be simple and, at the same time, powerful.”
A base station that is 20% smaller than a 4G base station could be five-times more powerful, Madkour adds.
Spectrum is key to the implementation of 5G – and, in fact, for the whole economy, he says. “Every Hertz that is licensed will be 5G.”
Government needs to consider what to licence, and to who, to make the rollout of 5G as efficient as possible.
Security is an important consideration when it comes to 5G and the possibility of vulnerabilities in applications like IoT and AI.
“Physics is physics,” Madkour says. “5G is actually more secure than previous systems. But the surfaces are more exposed, so hackers can get into systems via a variety of ingress points.
“But the standard is very clear about splitting the security risk across different domains, and managing it in different ways.
“So we advise that security becomes part of the day to day activity: it needs to be taken care of normally.”
Madkour adds that Industry 4.0 won’t happen unless there is healthy collaboration among all stakeholders: industries, government, operators, vendors and third-party partners.
He points out that government needs to set the policy, he adds, and this should be designed to support a futuristic framework, and should be able to include all industries – no longer just telecommunications.
Currently, 5G commercialisation is accelerating around the world, with 35 operators already live, he says.