Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 77 | Page 76

FINAL WORD
Such benefits are huge for individuals , communities , and businesses . Whether that ’ s being able to access services online , stay in contact more easily with friends and family – or run an efficient business from home or a corporate headquarters .
Mike Wolfe , CTO , Outdoor Wireless
Networks , CommScope
And , while some may downgrade or cancel their plans , others will upgrade to new devices to gain access to the benefits of improved digital connectivity that come with 5G . Furthermore , 5G is used to enhance the mobile broadband user experience and to enable competitive FWA , fixed wireless access services . But , in the next year , 5G will need to expand into more user cases and applications .
For this purpose , the industry will selectively implement 5G standalone capabilities to unlock the full benefits of 5G technology , including support for latency sensitive , high reliability , and extended Internet of Things , IoT service capabilities .
Additionally , from a business perspective , in the last year we have seen applications such as the metaverse , web3 , artificial intelligence , AI and machine learning drive data centre providers to focus on edge capabilities to provide low latency access to data anywhere , at any time ; a critical change in supporting the transition to 5G .
So , as we head into 2023 , we will see how more and more data is latency-sensitive and requires faster access . Which , therefore , will continue to push the migration from large core , small edge data centre architecture to smaller core , larger edge architecture .
As of now , the development of future networks is years away and the industry is focused on developing 5G across the Middle East and Africa . Since the introduction of 5G , there have been numerous elements that have interrupted its deployment , including talent shortage and supply chain issues .
That said , in 2023 , the focus will be on making the existing networks stronger for both consumers and businesses . In the past , 5G ’ s focus has been on delivering faster wireless in a more flexible setting , but to showcase its capabilities , 5G will need to expand . Meaning , 5G is a long way away from its goal of being a standalone monetizable network .
With that , public and private organisations have already begun suggesting how they believe 6G will differ from existing networks . Some have predicted that 6G will be AI native , focusing on machine learning , compared to existing cloud-native 5G networks .
We are only at the stage where public and private organisations are just starting to conceptualise the technology necessary for demonstrating this in 6G . Who is to say in the future we will not be able to reconfigure our networks to improve optimisation through AI ? Will the introduction of networks being able to sense their environments become a reality ? Only time will tell .
And , while we wait , companies will continue to plan and look ahead so that when the future network is near , the roll out will happen seamlessly . But , as we are years away from introducing said network , we will focus on monetising and expanding 5G so that more people can have access to a high-quality , highspeed network . p
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