For several years now, the telecommunications industry has been promoting 5G and its immense potential to turbocharge business and citizen activities. During the Nextgov 5G Futures virtual conference on Dec. 2, a couple of experts discussed where 5G technology is today and unresolved issues it raises in the national security arena.
[news release] Ericsson global insights reveal an almost 300-fold increase in mobile data traffic since 2011 – the year in which Ericsson Mobility Report was first published. The findings, based on current and historical network data, are included in the special ten-year edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report November 2021. The report looks back at some of the key trends and events that have shaped the last decade, as well as revealing the latest forecasts toward 2027.
Tom Marzetta is the director of NYU Wireless, New York University’s research center for cutting-edge wireless technologies. Prior to joining NYU Wireless, Marzetta was at Nokia Bell Labs, where he developed massive MIMO. Massive MIMO (short for “multiple-input multiple-output”) allows engineers to pack dozens of small antennas into a single array. The high number of antennas means more signals can be sent and received at once, dramatically boosting a single cell tower’s efficiency.
The European Commission has adopted a legislative proposal for the upcoming European partnership on Smart Networks and Services (SNS) towards 6G, writes Peter Stuckmann, Future Connectivity Systems head of unit at the European Commission in a blog post on the Europa website.
Telstra, in collaboration with Ericsson and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. today announced the successful completion of a new 5G maximum download speed record on a commercial network of 5Gbps for a single user. The 5G NR data call was performed at the 5G Innovation Centre on the Gold Coast using the commercial production network.
This week, my coworkers and I had an experience as common as it was disheartening: we tried to navigate Cisco WebEx. We had a meeting upcoming with government officials, who preferred not to use Zoom due to its security vulnerabilities. “WebEx is very minimalist,” my coworker observed wryly. That was an understatement. The platform lacked key features; it wasn’t a good faith alternative to Zoom.
Amid a 5G rollout that has faced its fair share of challenges, it might seem somewhat premature to start looking ahead at 6G, the next generation of mobile communications. But 6G development is happening now, and it’s being pursued in earnest by both industry and academia.
For all its promise, the rollout of 5G has also been fraught with rumors and conspiracy theories — most recently, a narrative spread on social media that the wireless network technology fueled the coronavirus pandemic.
[International Telecommunication Union] From cutting emissions in cities to natural disaster risk reduction, smart water management and precise climate monitoring, frontier technologies in fields such as artificial intelligence, 5G and robotics demonstrate considerable potential to support the battle against climate change, highlights a new ITU/UN report, “Frontier technologies to protect the environment and tackle climate change”. The report was released to mark the occasion of Earth Day 2020.