5G – “Mädchen für Alles?”

Listening to Sara Mazur (head of Ericsson Research) at last years Johannesberg Summit really puts the spotligth on the main dilemma in 5G: I should do this, and that, and also this etc, in an almost endless “wishlist”. Other constraints are lower cost, lower energy and that it creates (more) new business for the existing operators. The discussions seems to have matured somewhat now and at this years edition of the Summit we should make it beyond the wishlist. Is 5G a “Mädchen für alles”, solving all problems with “more of the same”, an improved “4G” (cloud-servers and best-effort IP-capacity), or are some of the applications so demanding (e.g. the ultra-reliable machine communication) that they require separate technical solutions. Does the latter bring us back to the days of the hated “killer app”, i.e. the single application that will pay for these infrastructures? In any case, at the end of the day, it’s the one that “foots the bill” that will have a final say on what’s important on the wishlist, and what is not.

Check out this years live talks on May 11-12, on the Summit WebsiteJohannesbergsummit

About Jens Zander

Professor Jens Zander is professor in Radio Communication Systems at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. He has been among the few in Swedens Ny Teknik magazine's annual list of influential people in ICT that have been given the epithet “Mobile Guru”. He is one of the leading researchers in mobile communication and is the Scientific director of the industry/academia collaboration center Wireless@KTH. His research group focuses on three main areas – the efficient and scalable use of the radio frequency spectrum, economic aspects of mobile systems and application and energy efficiency in future wireless infrastructures.
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