As the NBN continues to disappoint Australian consumers and businesses, a mobile alternative is on the horizon, and it’s likely to be a game-changer for Australian businesses. State-of-the-art 5G mobile technology will deliver speeds, availability, and reliability on par with the best wired broadband services, unleashing businesses from wired connections and letting them take full advantage of the mobile revolution.
Mobile is the way of the future; wired connections may soon become irrelevant. When it becomes available in 2020, 5G promises to deliver unprecedented mobile broadband speeds and quality as long as the required infrastructure investments are made. The use cases are incredibly exciting and offer significant opportunities for businesses to innovate in ways they may not have even considered yet.
According to Deloitte, 5G isn’t just about speed but, rather, it’s about enabling more industrial applications, automating business processes, and changing and transforming activities. Potential use cases for 5G could include:
- Driverless cars: the low latency and high availability offered by 5G means driverless cars are less likely to lose contact with control systems, making driverless cars safer and more reliable.
- Remote, robotic surgery: Australians in remote and rural environments may not have to travel to urban centres for lifesaving surgery in the future. Reliable and low-latency 5G connections can make it possible for surgical robots, which are already being used in some places, to conduct surgery even in remote locations.
- More eCommerce: as websites load faster and look better on mobile devices, people will likely spend more time using them for information gathering and purchases, creating additional demand for products and services.
- Virtual and augmented reality classrooms: enriching the learning experience will create a new generation of Australians with a unique perspective and advanced understanding, paving the way for even more innovations in the future.
- Automated business processes: the Internet of Things (IoT) will deliver information and automated decision-making that will streamline operations and let the human talent in organisations focus on innovation and providing outstanding customer service.
These are just examples of how 5G could revolutionise the way businesses operate and the services they can offer to their customers. Australians have well and truly embraced mobile communications, so the business potential is limited only by imagination. If a company can dream it, then 5G can probably deliver it. Sometimes the use case only becomes apparent after the upgrade has occurred; businesses should stay alert to their customers’ behaviour and identify opportunities for investigation.
Right now, organisations should start talking to their telcos to find out when 5G will become available to them so they can begin to plan how they’ll leverage this remarkable technology for business growth.
William Sitch, Director of Industry and Solutions, Keysight Technologies
