Rethinking mobile: the implications of 5G

The future is nigh, however we are not quite sure exactly when. That is the message being preached by the driving forces of the forthcoming wave of 5G.

The major mobile network upgrade is promising to be the most revolutionary thus far, with improvements in speed, latency, network resilience and electricity consumption.

And, news reports are consistently claiming, the ability to download and stream videos in seconds.

In layman’s terms, 5G is the next big stage in the evolution of wireless connectivity, John Lillistone, head of product, telecoms and M2M for telecoms firm Arqiva tells EGR Technology.

The 5th generation network will send shock waves through even the most resilient WiFi users.

Lillistone says the movement will be split into two major strands, an evolutionary piece focused on forging ties between all mobile technologies, and a revolutionary piece, which will power network improvements in speed and reliability.

“The demand for data is growing and will eventually be too much for 4G networks to sustain, particularly as the demands for video data grows,” says Lillistone.

“We need to invest in the next generation of network technology which will be robust enough to download larger data packets at superfast download speeds, benefiting businesses in particular.”

During the recent UK Autumn Budget, Chancellor Philip Hammond pledged a government investment of £160m into the development of 5G to help Britain become a vanguard of the technology.

In his speech Hammond told the House: “It’s refreshing to see government investment into connectivity, but 5G will take several years to become mainstream. While it may one day meet expectations, we need a solution now.”

“Our big cities urgently need networks that can support the world class infrastructure that the government wants to build, so instead of holding our breath for 5G we should invest into WiFi technology for a simple, cost-effective solution,” Hammond added.

But the next generation mobile network will also bring about the latest upgrade in WiFi connectivity via 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), which promises to improve how connectivity-dependant organisations work by allowing greater capabilities and further productivity.

Trialling for the future

Arqiva is driving Europe’s work in this area through its partnership with Samsung in trialling a 5G FWA between Arqiva’s London offices in Percy Street and Newman Street.

Launched in July, Lillistone says the trial has already gone a long way to proving the FWA concept by establishing a stable downlink in excess of 1Gbps during the summer months.

“5G FWA looks set to exceed current speeds comfortably, with trials pointing to bandwidths of 1Gbps and above. We also expect latency to drop to around 1ms, compared with 4G’s average of 45ms, creating a host of exciting new opportunities.

“These improvements are drastic enough for 5G FWA to not only surpass existing standards but also to beat the likely evolutions of its fixed-line counterparts,” Lillistone adds.

According to statistics platform Statista, a surprisingly low 53% of total web traffic came from mobile devices in August this year. But from experiences in the egaming industry, we know that mobile usage accounts for a much higher percentage of gambling consumers.

Mobile-first operator LeoVegas reported 70% of its player deposits in Q3 2017 were placed via mobile devices, and CEO Gustaf Hagman has been particularly outspoken about his views on the future of mobile and mobility, recently telling EGR: “The future is mobile, whether it is smartphones or something more modern, it doesn’t matter, we believe the mobile approach is the future.

“We have to be very adaptive to what’s round the corner.”

John Lillistone, Arqiva

The next phase

It is quite possible that 5G, if it is as revolutionary as techies are professing, will change the face of mobile gambling and usher in a new era for mobile.

Co-founder and CEO of egaming consultancy firm Revenue Engineers, Jasper Hoekert, believes it will cause momentum for gambling operators, enabling them to increase the quality of mobile products, which is undoubtedly relevant to the growth of the overall industry.

“You see a lot of games struggling in getting the quality of their desktop products out to mobile, simply because it doesn’t always work on 4G either due to speed or the quality of the network. 5G will change some of that,” Hoekert says.

5G could certainly be an entryway for a number of leading operators to take a more mobile-first approach, but Hoekert also believes it could give way to the industry adopting a mobile-only approach.

“Of course it’s not just the entry of 5G, mobile is growing in general. Realistically there will be operators in the next couple of years that will do 80% on mobile,” he adds.

“Mobile-first, which has always been a gimmick more than anything else, will actually happen. And some might even move from a mobile-first to a mobile only solution.

Even game developers, and we work with a number of them, we see them changing the way they develop games from a desktop targeted environment to a more mobile-focused environment.

“This is a combination of everything, from larger screens to the entry of 5G.” Another major advantage 5G will bring to egaming is in the realm of advertising. Hoekert, who specialises in assisting operators with their market-ing strategies, says most mobile ads are presently targeted at WiFi users.

“Mobile advertising campaigns with budgets of €50k to €100k are being held back by the fact that we exclude 4G from the reach of our campaigns.

“Sometimes we see a lower conversion rate on 4G because either it’s an unstable connection or the speed is too low.

“So we often go with WiFi as the channel of choice because we are driven by KPIs and KPIs are driven by giving the user a nice experience, and 4G doesn’t exactly offer that.”

Although it hasn’t been widely publicised yet, Hoekert believes operators are already looking in the direction of the next major move in mobile’s evolution.

“Especially the more mobile-focused ones,” he notes. “They are frustrated by 4G, it’s very old and the instability of 4G networks is not an ideal situation. Mobile is organically growing [as] consumers are moving to mobile, and not necessarily operators.”

Improved speeds and network efficiency will truly allow users to send VR and 3D 4K HDTV clips to mobile devices, which may make room for virtual reality to move into the mainstream of egaming.

Hoekert agrees the new network system will certainly have an impact in helping the technology be more readily available to consumers, but he claims VR is a product users are more likely to play in the comfort of their own home where they are usually attached to a secure WiFi connection.

“It’s the overall technological innovation that really drives [that sort of stuff]. Consumer perception is, especially in a gaming or gambling experience, that there is not a lot of innovation.

Innovation is driven by consumers being willing to adapt to change and in egaming for some reason consumers are not really as willing to adapt to change as in other industries.”

What’s the roadmap?

The UK government first set its sights on the technology three years ago, when the then Mayor of London Boris Johnson promised a widespread adoption of the world’s first 5G network across the capital city by 2020.

A major part of this movement has been in the UK government’s partnership with a handful of leading universities, including Surrey University’s 5G Innovation Centre, headed by Professor Tafazolli.

“We are developing end-to-end 5G networks, which means the wired parts as well as the wireless parts of the network.

“We’re developing some applications on top of that that require high bandwidth, low latency and high reliability,” the professor reveals.

“We are providing such a capability to the rest of the UK stakeholders, and people interested in different use cases, using our facilities.”

Professor Tafazolli is of the opinion that 5G will be available commercially from 2019, although he says the testing and trialling phase of the technology should be available by March 2018.

However, Lillistone says there is still much to be done in formulating regulation and standards for widespread 5G adoption.

“It’s important to remember that 2020, although it’s cited by so many as the estimated arrival date, isn’t the pinnacle of this new connectivity era – it’s just the start,” he adds.

Professor Tafazolli, University of Surrey