How IOT, 5G, And Edge Computing Are Changing The Wireless Landscape

IOT is driving the need for new networks and computing on the edge.

5G is important to low-latency, high-bandwidth applications, but competitors such as LoRa may dominate smart homes and other low-bandwidth uses.

Competition will determine who wins the new network race, and I expect some surprising candidates will emerge for your investment dollar.

I recently attended the NextGen Wireless Networks Summit in Dallas, where executives discussed their upcoming plans for their networks. I have come away from the conference with a lot to share about the upcoming 5G and Edge Computing initiatives and how the various network players are aligning themselves in the space. Let’s get into the details and see who is doing what.

5G wireless service has been heralded as a game changer in the wireless industry for the speed and connectivity model it proposes. The ideal model for 5G is connecting thousands of IOT and mobile devices together in dense urban areas. Use cases include increasing the multimedia experience for retail wireless users in addition to helping businesses solve their automation and data monitoring challenges for warehouse, workflow, and industrial equipment.

5G has also been billed as a solution for the connected smart home, though some of the industry experts I talked to challenged the viability of applying 5G in that use case. Where 5G promises both high bandwidth and low latency, smart home equipment like temperature sensors work just fine in the kbps speed range and aren’t largely latency dependent.

Plus the power requirements of 5G don’t fit in well with many IOT needs for long battery life, such as smart home devices. Other solutions, such as LoRa, are being developed are cheaper and perfectly adequate for example mining, farming, and university use. As Medium notes:

So think low bandwidth and power for sensors, and higher bandwidth, higher power for video- and data-intensive apps, along with low latency applications such as remote surgery and other automation tasks.

In addition, while 5G has most often been associated with millimeter wave spectrum in the 30-300 GHz range, Dish (DISH) VP of Technology Development Mariam Sorond believes centimeter wave (3-30 GHz) offers better propagation characteristics than millimeter wave for suburban and possibly rural deployments.

I have long wondered how companies would extend 5G out of the denser urban areas and into the suburban residential centers. Given that the carriers are seeing roughly 85% of demand from residential customers, solving this problem is key to the wide adoption of the standard that companies will need to pay back their investments in the technology.

Each of the main players has their own license spectrum and models for implementing these various wireless technologies. And once things are connected, the plan is to move the compute power to the Edge enabling on-demand access to data. There will be challenges in each implementation that competitors are taking different approaches to.

Fixed wireless application allows companies to use their spectrum to extend broadband internet into suburban and rural areas where wireline technologies were uneconomical. Executives reported that about 30% of cable customers are switching to fixed wireless where available due to frustration with their existing wired service.

Boston startup Starry, for example, has implemented networks covering Boston and LA, with New York and DC locations in the build-out phase. Starry is focusing on the urban market because of demand and the profit potential. CEO Chet Kanojia noted it only took 16 sites to network all of Boston and cost only $5.5 per home passed to setup.

The low cost resulted from crowdsourcing the sites needed with private local real estate companies, bypassing local municipalities and their paperwork process. In addition, the company builds its own equipment including integrated circuits to avoid vendor dependencies.