Everyone does not know that the Internet of Things is the king of 5G

4G has not completely occupied the market, and all walks of life have already rubbed their hands on 5G.

5G, the fifth generation mobile communication technology. Many experts once said to the author that China may play a leading role in the formulation of 5G technical standards. But recently, the new chairman of the British Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET), William Webber, in his first trip to China, called in several reports: 5G is not needed in the future, especially from the perspective of mobile phones, there are many reasons for 5G says "NO".

High speed is not the only one

William Weber is the youngest chairman in IET's 144-year history, and is also a member of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a global top expert in communications and the Internet of Things.

"The future of mobile communications should not be limited to the pursuit of speed. Only by expanding the deployment and application of the Internet of Things, improving the ability to control big data, especially in the cloud, and solving infrastructure problems such as signal coverage, will gradually" "Remote life" and "intelligent life" become reality, in order to truly create value for people. "William Weber emphasized in an interview with the author.

High speed is the biggest feature of 5G, and its highest speed can reach 10Gbps. This means that in a 5G network environment, a UHD movie can be downloaded within 1 second.

So why is William Weber so optimistic about the faster and faster 5G?

Each generation of mobile communication technology takes about 10 years. From 1982, the first generation cellular network mobile communication technology (1G) to 2G, 3G, and 4G, all followed this rule. William Webb predicts that by 2022, the 5G era will come. But from now on, mobile communication should not focus on the development of 5G research.

In theory, the fastest speed of a 4G network is 42Mbps. However, the current speed of 4G is around 20Mbps, and the mobile phone is in the Wi-Fi environment 80% of the time, and its speed is about 100Mbps. It only takes 1Mbps to watch movies on a mobile phone-sized screen. At this speed, downloading a 10-megabyte file only takes about 1 second.

"If the speed of 5G is reached, the 10-megabyte file download may only take 0.1 seconds, but is there a big difference between 0.1 seconds and 1 second? Is it necessary to spend a lot of energy to achieve a nuanced speed increase?" William Weber asked.

Moreover, in his opinion, even if it takes a lot of effort to achieve the "wind speed" of 5G, there are also mobile phone processors, mobile phone batteries, radio frequency spectrum and wireless access technology, telecommunications operators and cost issues.

If the speed of 5G is increased by 10 times than that of 4G, then the processing power of the mobile phone must also be increased by at least 10 times. However, William Weber pointed out that from 1982 to 2002, the transition from 1G technology to 3G technology, the processing capacity of mobile phones has also been correspondingly improved, but after entering the 3G era, the development of mobile phone processing technology has stalled.

The iPhone, the leader in the mobile phone industry, is a typical case. Mobile phones have evolved from traditional mobile phones to load more and more functions, and the iPhone has made many breakthroughs, such as the realization of touch screens to make human-computer interaction possible. But since then, whether it is an iPhone or other mobile phones, such as Samsung's latest S6, it just bends the edge of the screen, and there has been no more breakthroughs in the mobile phone processor.

"With the increase in speed, when more and more data comes in, the stagnant mobile phone processor simply cannot complete the task." William Weber said.

Multi-core and dedicated accelerators may solve the problem of mobile phones, but at the same time require a stronger battery to support. In the 2G era, the power of mobile phone batteries can barely be supplied for a week. Now, the mobile phone battery may be able to provide power for one day, but in the 5G era, it may only be able to provide power for a few hours at a time.

"Even if the battery life problem is solved-if you can use it for at least one day, you must wear gloves when using the phone, because the heat it generates is too high and will burn your hands." William Weber said.

For consumers, the speed of mobile Internet access is of course the faster, but not everyone is willing to pay for high speed. He believes that telecom operators may prefer technology that is not so fast but can attract consumers to pay for it.

The direction that should be more concerned than 5G

William Weber proposed that what is more worthy of pursuit than speed is the Internet of Everything and controlling life through mobile terminals. "The Internet speed of mobile phones will not become faster, but mobile phones may become more intelligent. It can help people perform multiple remote controls to achieve the effect of 'remote controller of life'. This is what I will develop in the future of mobile phones. Judge. "William Weber said.

In his imagination, through more intelligent operation, the mobile phone will contribute to the creation of a smart city. For example, mobile phones can let users know where traffic jams and make reasonable arrangements. He expects that the smart interconnection of mobile phones in the future can even replace personal assistants and comprehensively plan people's lives.

Now a step is urgently needed, "It should be that the mobile phone can be used in any building and in all weather conditions." To achieve this goal, the coverage of mobile phone signals must be improved.

However, it is confusing that 5G, Internet of Things, mobile phone signal coverage, etc. should belong to different levels of future communication. Are these really incompatible?

"Of course, it is not necessary to stop the research and development of 5G." William Weber clarified, "However, the utilization rate of the Internet of Things related to mobile phones is very low. In this field, a small amount of investment may be greatly improved and more technology will be harvested. There is a lot of room for progress. However, our investment in the 5G field has been for a long time, and it may take more investment to improve the speed a little bit, so I will prefer to use resources for things. Networked R & D. "

China will lead the Internet of Things

William Webb predicted that the key applications of the Internet of Things will first appear in the field that can greatly improve efficiency and achieve immediate results. For example, when the trash can is connected to the Internet of Things, an instruction will be issued only when the bucket is almost full, requiring a person to empty it, which can reduce costs by 20% to 30%.

A major breakthrough in the Internet of Things will occur in the medical and health industry. He believes that there will be more advanced and intelligent means to monitor personal health. "However, in addition to technical obstacles, there are many considerations about personal privacy and data security, so it may be some time before it is actually used." William Weber added.

He also found that the Internet of Things, which is closely connected with the "remote controller of life", is currently in a "bubble" of various concepts, and there are few Internet of Things technologies actually developed.

Therefore, William Weber proposed that we should pay attention to three levels closely related to the Internet of Things: first, sensor technology; second, the data collected by the sensor is transmitted to a reliable wireless network; third, the data is generated when it reaches the network side value. He believes that the development of sensor technology is now "almost", and it has also been used in the final processing and calculation of data, such as cloud computing. However, the key link of the second transmission is currently restricted, one is cost, and the other is battery life.

"The Internet of Things is a very novel thing. Every country is making its own experiments and is in its infancy. Compared to the United Kingdom, the Internet of Things is more valuable to China, because the key application of the Internet of Things is smart cities, and China The size of the city is much larger than that of other countries, which will bring greater benefits. Therefore, China may lead other countries in this field, and will be the first to show the case of smart cities built by the Internet of Things. "William Weber concluded .