How 5G capacity can boost businesses, improve global economy

By Oluwaseyi Precious

There is no doubt about the great impact the 5G technology would have on business across the world and contributions to the global economy.

In fact, industry experts believed that the 5G technology which is currently being deployed around the world has a huge capacity of boosting business efficiency in the global economy

This forms part of discussions when the leading technology giant Huawei recently held its 5G+, Better World Summit, where various operators and industry partners shared their experiences of how 5G applications can drive significant business and industry efficiency.

According to Bob Cai, Huawei Carrier CMO the 5G technology development has entered a new phase as it now has “Over 80 5G networks commercially available worldwide, determining how to leverage 5G to create more value is currently a topic of great interest within the industry.”

Speaking further, Cai stated that “Currently, 5G for business is still more of a branding concept and more solid work needs to be done. To build a positive business cycle, work should be done in four aspects: technology, ecosystem, standards, and business model.”

Similarly, according Dimitris Mavrakis, research director of ABI Research, highlighted the new ‘G’ technologies have historically offered major benefits to consumers.

5G, however, is likely to be most beneficial to the commercial sector.

By 2030, Mavrakis predicted that 5G’s impact on the global GDP will be over $7.5 trillion – compared to the $5.1 trillion 4G contributed in 2019.

“We expect that 5G will transform businesses in the same way 4G transformed consumers,” said Mavrakis.

However, he cautioned that it could take several years for the manufacturing world to adopt the technology.

Mavrakis also implored governments to provide opportunities for 5G to flourish within their countries, and highlighted ways that this is already being done, such as in the provisioning of free 5G spectrum and the reduction in taxation of carriers.

Several Huawei partners also highlighted the different industries that are already getting great benefits out of 5G.

Xu Mengqiang, General Manager of China Mobile Ningbo, highlighted that several 5G implementations have resulted in substantial benefits to a Ningbo port.

These according to him include 5G-powered self-driving container trucks, remote-controlled cranes, and backhaul HD video streaming – which shows key cranes in real-time.

In the agricultural sector, Dr Thomas Anken, head of the Digital Production Federal Department of Economic Affairs Education and Research in Switzerland highlighted that 5G is enabling a variety of smart farming methods that have a significant impact on the yields of farms in the country.

Citing instances, he said “Multispectral imaging of wheat fields by drones resulting in a 10% decrease in fertiliser usage, and also tractors with an automated hoe that recognises plants and eliminates the weeds around them.

“Again, the swift delivery of important intelligence to the cloud which ensures that automated robots receive data to update their machine learning capabilities, while farmers also receive insights into how they can optimise their processes.

In another development, it has been reported that hospitals in the Henan province in China have implemented a variety of impressive 5G-powered functionalities to improve their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

These systems were installed within 82 hours and involved the building of remote systems for 147 hospitals in 18 cities within the province.

Features that were available to these hospitals included, Remote surgery guidance, Robots through which doctors can talk to patients.