Peter Clemons discusses 5G’s possible impact and the factors that must be considered by the critical comms industry and society as a whole if we are to realise its full potential
In just over a century we have discovered how to harness the power and value of the electromagnetic spectrum – just as we did in bygone eras with fire, agriculture, domesticated animals, steam and fossil fuels. And yet, in spite of our growing list of achievements, each generation forgets at its peril the fragile nature of our continued existence on Earth.
There are clear signs that the established order is breaking down; terrorism, national financial crashes and increasingly polarised politics to name a few. We struggle to find the right answers to crises because we are asking the wrong questions and still using an analytical framework that no longer serves us in these times of change.
We need a new way of thinking and a new way of seeing the world. People looking for simple yes-no values for their big data experiments and concrete answers to justify clean-cut hypotheses will be disappointed. We need new conceptual tools to manage the data that we are being bombarded with.
We are moving through an uncertain present towards a future that is still far from clear. In the area of mobile communications this period coincides with the move from a relatively stable 2G (GSM/TETRA) world of the early 2000s to an end-game 5G world by the end of the 2020s, passing through a very messy 3G/4G (UMTS/LTE) world where different technologies collide, producing friction.
We stand on the edge of a new era – the 5G era of smart cities, smart grids, Internet of Things, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and Blockchain – where ubiquitous networked sensors, actuators, algorithms, robots and other devices embedded with powerful capabilities will demand new ways of creating, distributing and storing value. We will have new methods of organising ourselves, and new legal and social norms for dealing with a contemporary generation of conflicts and co-ordination problems.
Can we cope when we are forced to compete against alternative forms of intelligence, created by us, but in many ways much more powerful than ourselves? Who will get to play God in the 5G era?
What will 5G bring?
Although we have no clear idea yet what the 5G era will look like (and there are bound to be infinite surprises along the way) a growing number of players are beginning to articulate likely scenarios. The Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance published a whitepaper last year detailing a number of use cases that highlight the major challenges facing governments, developers, operators, investors and potential users. These groups are all required to deliver and embrace a holistic 5G vision within a reasonable timeframe, based on the hard realities facing all stakeholders in 2016:
- Broadband access with peak data rates of 10 Gbps and an average of one Gbps in dense urban environments to allow “pervasive video”.
- Broadband access everywhere with speeds of 50 Mbps and up.
- Higher user mobility, especially on transport such as trains and aeroplanes.
- The massive Internet of Things – sensor networks with millions of nodes within a single square kilometre; massive capillary networks with no single point of failure and no single point of security weakness.
- Extreme real-time communications. Tactile internet with haptic feedback for remote control.
- Lifeline communications for public safety, emergency services and natural disaster relief operations.
- Ultra-reliable communications for emergency calls, e-health, mission-critical operations, automated industrial procedures, and connected cars.
- Broadcast-like services – immersive experiences that enable “being there” without being there, virtual and augmented reality without the motion sickness.
There is no way that we will be able to deliver this vision by building 5G networks based on a single air interface, a single architecture and particularly not on an ageing internet based on TCP/IP and other current protocols. This society will require critical communications all the way to its edge. We will need new mechanisms to deliver universal coverage, or else this ambitious vision will fail.
A global 5G research programme is a noble endeavour and we cannot turn away from following this path, but we need to start taking a longer-term view of what can be achieved and how long it will take to arrive, rather than setting unrealistic deadlines that will lead to poorly-designed systems.
New answers to new questions
The recent ETSI Summit ‘5G: From Myth to Reality’ on April 21 raised a lot more questions than answers about the why of 5G. During the opening policy session, European Commission representatives talked about a new wave of innovations lifting Europe out of recession and creating a new dynamic economy. However, the speakers in the rest of the sessions were fairly evenly split. On the one hand are non-technical people focusing on the all-singing-all-dancing new applications that will transform society. On the other are the more technically-minded presenters who clearly understand the enormous challenges and the huge amount of work that will need to be done to convert the current plethora of ‘nice toy’ solutions into fully secured, affordable, useful services.
Where do we start when building a full list of the serious challenges facing our community?:
- The need for adequate, available, harmonised spectrum on a global scale;
- The need for global standards for the next-generation, secure and private-by-design internet that must replace the current one being constantly patched up from crisis to crisis. This will allow the fully secured smart cities and smart grids that will drive future societies;
- The new governance models, business models, legal requirements and consensus protocols that will underpin this new society;
- The re-structuring of education and healthcare systems to prepare the current and future global workforce for a world populated by autonomous vehicles, machines and robots;
- The 100 per cent geographical coverage required to deliver the full 5G era vision;
- Sub-millisecond latency for more advanced applications such as tactile internet.
Have governments started a serious debate with their citizens about how we are going to organise ourselves in a better way as a global society to make sure we iron out inconsistencies and minimise the chances of something really bad happening on a global scale once everything is connected? Of course not.
We can’t stop the 5G era from happening and even if we could, we should not. However, we do need to educate the public about the challenges and opportunities of moving to this new world. We must also study all the possible consequences of embracing these new technologies.
In a complex, contradictory world we cannot leave the messy decisions to robots, algorithms, governments or technology companies. We all need to have a say, using new tools to enhance our intelligence, but definitely not to replace it. The 5G era is approaching and an open, honest, public debate needs to start now. We cannot allow the usual suspects at the top of our current social hierarchy to play God in such an interconnected world. We need to find the right way of engaging society in this conversation.
All communications become critical
The critical communications sector has traditionally been focused on building private, highly secure, robust and resilient networks for government, public safety, transport, utilities, oil, gas & mining and other industrial facilities, that required ICT networks separated from the public. During the 1990s and 2000s global standards such as TETRA, P25 and DMR were developed to cater for the needs of these highly-demanding users, who pay a certain premium for greater control and special services beyond that offered by commercial operators.
However, each generation of mobile communications technology requires greater investment, as well as a global standards approach to achieve the faster speeds and the evolved form factors desired by a global user community.
Following the financial crisis governments have been looking for ways to reduce spending on public services, including critical communications networks for emergency services. This has led to the development of public safety LTE by 3GPP, the global standards body that has adapted, enhanced and hardened commercial solutions within its latest releases to incorporate some of the functionality required by emergency services and other professional users.
Governments and emergency services around the world have now started the long process of switching to new critical communications solutions. In the United States the government has assigned 2x10 MHz of spectrum and $7 billion for the development of a new nationwide broadband network – FirstNet - dedicated to public safety. In the United Kingdom the government has decided to replace the existing dedicated national TETRA network with a commercially-sourced, LTE-based solution with no dedicated spectrum.
Europe is taking a sensible, long-term approach by renewing TETRA networks and testing hardened LTE solutions until global standards and harmonised spectrum allow the next generation of solutions to emerge. The rest of the world is looking at options ranging from dedicated and/or commercial spectrum, publicly- and/or privately-funded, publicly- or privately-operated models and everything in-between. Over the next decade or so each country will try different models to see which ones work and which ones don’t.
As if the current situation were not complex enough, society faces ever greater disruption at ever higher speeds as the 5G juggernaut appears on the horizon. But just what is 5G? And do we really need it? Can we define it and explain it more clearly to a sceptical public and move beyond bits and bytes, speeds and gimmicks, to focus on real products and services that people can understand and accept?
How do we make sure we get it right?
How many steps are there from 2G to 5G? As many as necessary with an honest, comprehensive evaluation of progress at regular staging posts along the road to make sure that 5G is as inclusive and useful as possible to the maximum number of people.
Quixoticity has recently joined ETSI and 3GPP to play a greater role in the critical work that is underway globally to define this exciting 5G era. We must move forward carefully and conscientiously, but also firmly and resolutely, identifying the real problems facing society and starting to address them before the cracks that have appeared in our current system become too large to be filled in. This will require unprecedented global effort because of its size and scope, based on new design principles, new governance principles and new ways of collaborating and working together. We must have flexible, agile ecosystems based on robust, resilient infrastructure with security and privacy baked into the fundamental fabric of the system from the very beginning. We do not have a lot of time, but we have enough to make sure that solid foundations are in place for a new society and economy that can be more resilient than the imperfect systems we currently have.
This new world will require a Global Critical Alliance that will slowly emerge from our current structures and organisations. Quixoticity is also developing a Global Critical Index that will map out the steps required by critical infrastructure and emergency communications providers to get us from where we are now to where we need to be. Such an Index – built on new principles and radically new criteria and variables than the reports and indexes of recent times – will focus on the search for best practice in a common-sense framework. We will have to take into account sensible timeframes and adequate business and operational models that keep us safe by combining the best of old and new, public and private, commercial and critical and that provide a basic, universal service to all global citizens wherever they are and however rich or poor they might be. The Global Critical Index will be explained in greater detail in future articles.
We must use all available talent, skills and experience to ensure we make the right choices. We cannot leave them to a traditionally narrow dominant class within a traditionally hierarchical global society. In the 5G era there must be no sun gods who decide the winners and losers. It requires greater accountability and transparency. The 5G era also needs a new way of distributing wealth so that everyone can participate in the global society. It requires humans to rediscover meaning and significance within their lives and for everyone to receive the tools they need to reach their full potential for the collective good.
This world will not arrive in 2020. Not even in 2030. The future stretches out ahead of us and there are many forks in the road. Which path will we follow? Will we rush into the 5G era without thinking carefully about the global society and economy we wish to create, and pay a heavy price? Or will we all become more engaged in a long, stimulating, evolving process of discovery where we lay the foundations of a safe, secure and richer society where the possibilities are limitless and we are all allowed to succeed and fail without fear?
