If you’ve watched a science fiction movie, played a video game with a similar setting, or read a similar book lately, you’re likely familiar with a number of tropes that were once thought to be strictly in the realm of imagination and are now starting to become reality. Many of those advances, like augmented reality overlays and real-time mobile virtual reality, are coming quite soon and could be powered by 5G. T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray made a point of saying that other carriers’ dreams for 5G, like powering just about every IoT device under the sun or allowing users to ditch traditional broadband, are, in short, boring. Instead, Ray lays out a fanciful 5G-powered future that jives nicely with a video that the Un-Carrier produced to show off some advances that future networks could power.
The video goes over a number of possible new technologies that 5G could power in real-time, such as augmented reality overlays for bicyclists to help them avoid cars and obstacles, or audio technology that translates speech back and forth in real time. These exciting technological possibilities aren’t all that the Un-Carrier has to show off, of course. Neville Ray goes on to talk about how T-Mobile has been building their 4G and 5G networks from the ground up, and 5G technologies currently in testing have managed to blow away anything on the market at the moment. Technological pushes in 5G like 8 x 8 MIMO, 4 simultaneous 4K streams, and even 12 gigabit per second speeds in a lab setting with only 2 millisecond network latency.
He went on to say that T-Mobile is in talks with the FCC over acquiring and licensing the right spectrum for the job, and that Magenta has been working alongside big names in wireless like Nokia, Ericcson and Samsung on network solutions to help build out and take advantage of 5G as quickly as possible. He did note, however, that the standard is still being worked on by the CTIA, which hampers carriers’ movements in regards to 5G. Ray openly criticizes other carriers that are promising and not delivering with 5G, or simply stalling or grandstanding on rolling out the technology. This is, of course, a bit on the hyperbole side of things; Verizon has been actively testing 5G, Verizon is already working on a small-cell rollout, and AT&T’s 5G tests have been hitting decent speeds in lab settings. He concludes the press release by emphasizing that part of T-Mobile’s 5G merit will be how the new networks are used, rather than their raw speed and power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK5GExR1IjI