Canada to have 5G, 6G within 20 years

We’re not far off from an era of “6G”—in which wireless technologies, devices, and applications will try to anticipate our actions and habits. Adam T. Drobot, chief technology officer and president of New Jersey-based Advanced Technology Solutions at Telcordia Technologies, told The Wire Report in an interview that Canada will see 5G and 6G wireless technologies within the next 20 years. Drobot described the evolution of wireless technology as a story. Canada is now in an era of HSPA networks, which will be followed by LTE and 4G, then a digitization stage, followed by the 5G era, and finally, 6G. “HSPA is actually pretty fast. If I was to look at Rogers, Bell Canada or Telus, that’s starting to get up there in speed. I would say we’re on the right track,” he told The Wire Report. Ibrahim Gedeon, Telus Corp. chief technology officer, said the transition to LTE networks will be fairly easy for those with HSPA+ networks, but it is being held back by a lack of devices. “The technology, more or less, is here, but there are no devices. In terms of national LTE, I wouldn’t say it’ll happen until 2012, 2013. But you will have instances of LTE, for example, for data only,” Gedeon said in an interview. Duncan Stewart, technology, media and telecommunications director of research for Deloitte Canada, estimated it will take about two decades for LTE to be deployed on an international scale. “We currently have 3G and 3.5G networks deployed over much of the world, between 30 and 40 per cent penetration,” he said in an interview. “Eventually, three years from now, we will start having a good number of 4G networks passing 10 and 20 per cent penetration. By 2020, more than half of the world will have access to 4G networks, specifically LTE and WiMax.” Drobot said wireless technology will cross a “magic threshold” once the higher speeds of LTE networks and the convenience of Internet protocol (IP) technologies begin to interact over the next few years. “LTE will deliver more bits per second than anything we’ve experienced so far. It essentially crosses a magic threshold. When you look at LTE as infrastructure, it lowers the latency of that information coming to you,” he said. “The second part is IP, once you put something on the Internet or enable it to function on the Internet, it’s a lot easier to integrate things. The number of applications that you get and the number of things that you can do just grow incredibly. You put those two together and all of sudden the services that you can use explode.” Drobot said once wireless technology has gone the way of LTE or 4G, communications companies will concentrate on building up the availability of content and applications. “In the next five years, most of the developed countries will be covered by 4G technology, a lot more stuff will be IP-enabled, and there will be a lot more consumer electronics that talk to the 3G and 4G world,” he said. Drobot said that, to increase the amount of information available online, communications companies and governments will move to digitization. “The first step is digitizing everything and making it available anywhere,” he said. A digitization stage will make content fully searchable and interactive. When a patient sees a doctor, the doctor’s note can be digitized through a scan. But full digitization will require that the scanned material be converted to searchable text. The text of the note can enter a database of millions of other medical notes, helping health authorities see whether other people suffer from the same conditions and how to treat them. “What you find with digitization is, the deeper you do it, the more you can do with the objects you’ve digitized. It’s no longer passive information. It’s information that can be acted on,” Drobot said. Gedeon said that a lack of funding is holding back digitization programs in Canada, like other jurisdictions. “In terms of intellectual property, we are doing quite well. We have great plans. we are struggling a little bit in terms of national investment in this area,” he said. “I think the key is to start. The issue is that nobody is ready. We need massive transformations in that area, in particular with what’s happening with the National Library’s .” Drobot said that following digitization, a new era will dawn in which anything can be done online on various devices, likely spurring competition and convergence between telecommunications companies and content creators. “The people who do the pipes say, ‘All the profits will go to the guys with the content, and we won’t be able to build the infrastructure. We want to play the content game.’ The content providers say, ‘These old stodgy guys are just terrible at it. I’m Google. I’m going to build my own network and my own phones, and I already have the content, so I’m going to try and wipe those guys out. There’s real competition,” Drobot said. “It’s a big battle and they’ll have to compete.” Stewart said the advent of LTE has the potential to seriously disrupt the existing business model for telecommunications companies. “Historically, phone companies have been able to differentiate between themselves and other competitors through a couple of things. They could have faster technology, more reliable networks, or better coverage. The problem is that, by 2020, when all wireless carriers have 4G where it makes sense to have it, how do these companies compete against each other?” he said. “The problem with LTE is that, if phone companies, wireless and wireline companies become big dumb pipes, and Google provides all the services, there will be not much money in it for the phone companies.” To compete, telecom companies will have to focus more on offering personalized services to customers and less on selling data plans for the lowest prices possible, Stewart said. “The fact that it runs the risk of commoditizing your business is not something you have a choice in. You still have to ,” he said. Drobot described the coming 5G era as “convenience-driven.” The goal will be to provide all digitized information to consumers as conveniently as possible through content aggregators like Google and Yahoo. “I think the 5G world has sort of snuck up on us. All the information systems built on top of the communications systems provide you with useful information,” he said. “Maybe we’re at the five or 10 per cent point. Over the next 10 to 20 years, you’ll see that all fill in, essentially.” Gedeon said Telus is now working on 5G mobile applications that will keep track of user preferences. “We are talking about it. We believe in the that it’s all about your content … We want our to be totally enabled and automatic. That’s 5G and 6G. We put some real dollars behind it,” he said. “We’re planning to have pilots by the end of the year.” These new applications, he said, will be developed in collaboration with various organizations, such as universities and hotels, to share information with Telus on user preferences. “If the government does not take proactive action, you’re talking 10 to 20 years before we actually start doing ,” Gedeon said. One of the main challenges to convenience-based 5G applications are privacy concerns. Gedeon said Telus’ 5G applications will be opt-in, but that government must do its part to address privacy concerns and contribute to the sharing of information. Drobot said 6G—which will follow 5G—will introduce an era in which technology will anticipate the needs of users. “Not only am I going to give you what you want, when you want it, I am going to anticipate things that will happen in the future,” he said. Drobot used a “connected vehicle” as an example. The car will anticipate problems or dangers and could be able to correct situations ahead of time. “It will be an era when we pay a lot of attention to how to anticipate things and put it into computing and data platforms to make that possible,” he said. “It sort of becomes part of the fabric of everyday life.” kfournier@thewirereport.ca

Canada to have 5G, 6G within 20 years

News | May 14, 2010

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