5G is coming. Will it really take away the jobs of WiFi?

The statement that "5G is coming and Wi-Fi will disappear overnight" is once again making headlines. Of course, this is not the case.

The concept of 5G is no longer unfamiliar. According to the industry consensus, 5G will begin orderly testing in China from 2017 to 2018, and pre-commercial use will be carried out in 2019. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has previously stated that China will launch 5G commercial use in 2020.

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For ordinary users, the most intuitive feeling brought by 5G will be a significant increase in network speed and a smarter and more convenient life, while also triggering the birth of more new technologies and new applications. To this end, global telecom operators have begun gearing up to try to attract users by launching "wireless traffic packages".

At the same time, the saying that "5G is coming and Wi-Fi will disappear overnight" has once again become popular. Of course, this is not the case.

It’s too early to say Wi-Fi will disappear

With the continuous improvement of network services, launching *** data traffic has become one of the competitive means for telecom operators, especially in the US market. Mainstream operators have launched *** data traffic packages to varying degrees, but such packages still have many restrictions and are somewhat useless for consumers.

For example, Verizon sets a monthly data limit of 22GB, and the data shared with partners is also set at 10GB. After exceeding the limit, the mobile hotspot will be downgraded to 3G network. In addition, it is not easy to watch high-definition videos, such as T-Mobile and Sprint.

In China, under the pressure of increasing network speed and reducing fees as well as canceling roaming charges, operators have also taken measures to carry out the "Internet +" transformation, including the "*** traffic" package. The three major domestic operators all launched the "*** traffic" package last year.

For example, Beijing Unicom, Shanghai Unicom, Henan Unicom and Guangdong Unicom have also launched "ice cream packages" with 100% traffic and calls, with a 50% discount on monthly fees, starting at 199 yuan. These also have restrictions.

If the data usage of China Unicom's "Ice Cream Package" exceeds the data included in the package, the mobile Internet speed will be reduced to 2G mode with a maximum speed of only 128Kbps. Although it can be used 24/7 without additional charges, the speed of the part exceeding the package has been strictly limited, and the Internet experience is very poor.

China Mobile and China Telecom soon followed suit with a 46-yuan local maximum data package. China Telecom launched the Pangbo card in Beijing, which allows users to enjoy 2GB of local 4G network speed data. After exceeding 2GB, local data can continue to be used for free, but the speed will be limited to 3.1MB (downlink speed is about 384K). Beijing Mobile launched the unlimited data card, which allows users to enjoy local data at a maximum speed of up to 128Kbps for free after exceeding the 1.5G package data.

It can be predicted that in the coming era of traffic competition, major operators will launch an all-out competition for "*** traffic".

However, the reason why *** traffic is difficult to achieve is that wireless frequency resources are limited, which is different from fixed networks. Industry experts pointed out that the transmission of wireless data depends on bandwidth, and the frequency resources of each of the three major operators are even more precious resources. At present, the traffic that a base station can bear is several hundred megabytes, and the number of access users of each base station is also capped. If more users have preferential access, it will affect the Internet speed of all users. Therefore, the network quality of operators continues to decline as the number of users increases.

From the perspective of network evolution, even if 5G is truly commercialized in 2020, it will not be able to achieve full and seamless coverage in the initial stage. It will require a relatively long construction cycle to gradually and slowly replace the coverage process. According to the law, the existing 4G LTE will continue to evolve and become an important part of the 5G platform. Moreover, after 5G is commercialized, 4G, 3G, and 2G networks will continue to work.

In addition, it is still hard to say whether the 5G era can break through the technical bottleneck of scarce wireless frequencies, which means that it is still doubtful whether *** traffic can really become a reality in the 5G era. All of these require technological breakthroughs and time to polish.

In this case, some office buildings or homes with no or unstable mobile phone signals still need Wi-Fi to supplement. Therefore, in the 5G era, users still need to do some data-intensive tasks such as downloading videos in a Wi-Fi environment as much as possible to save higher data charges.

So, in general, 5G will not exist independently, and Wi-Fi will not disappear so quickly, at least not in the short term. In fact, the real impact of 5G is not to replace Wi-Fi technology, but the business services based on it.

Recently, 16Wi-Fi, a well-known free public transportation Wi-Fi provider, announced that it would stop operating in more than 20 cities including Tianjin. As the largest public transportation Wi-Fi operator in China, 16Wi-Fi will stop serving Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Foshan, Fuzhou, Tianjin, Changsha, Hangzhou, Haikou, Shaoxing and Kaifeng, leaving only Beijing and Kunming "as model cities". This means that more than 200,000 buses will no longer be able to enjoy free Wi-Fi services.

Industry analysts pointed out that the high-speed network promoted by operators is a good thing, but due to the continuous downward trend in market traffic charges and the difficulty in obtaining support and subsidies from local governments, Wi-Fi has gradually become a public welfare activity that relies on single-handed efforts of enterprises and is bound to face the pressure of high costs.

Qiu Chaomin, founder of 16Wi-Fi, revealed that the company has signed contracts with nearly 70 cities in China for 200,000 buses, and the hardware equipment investment for each bus alone is about 2,000 yuan (the scrap cycle is 3 years). Based on this calculation, the company has invested at least hundreds of millions of yuan in hardware.

Where are the business opportunities under 5G?

Zhang Feng, chief engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, previously introduced that China's 5G basic research and development testing will be carried out from 2016 to 2018, and will be divided into three phases: 5G key technology test, 5G technical solution verification and 5G system verification.

Tencent Technology learned from the 5G Promotion Group that China will gradually launch the second phase of 5G testing this year and is expected to complete it by the end of the year. After completion, large-scale test networking will be carried out in 2018.

At present, the three major operators and domestic telecommunications equipment companies will work together to steadily advance various tests, including laboratory tests, small-scale field tests and subsequent large-scale network tests.

The industry generally believes that once 5G networks are officially commercialized, in addition to ushering in a new round of development for the communications industry, they will also drive a number of emerging industries with a scale of trillions of dollars. Many market institutions predict that typical IoT sub-industries such as Internet of Vehicles, big data, cloud computing, smart homes, and drones are already quite mature in terms of technology and application, but the communication capabilities of the existing 4G networks have greatly restricted the development of the above industries.

At the recently concluded Mobile World Congress (MWC), 5G was the hottest topic. On the opening day, many global mobile communication companies announced that they would jointly support the acceleration of the 5G New Radio (5GNR) standardization process to promote the large-scale trial and deployment of 5G New Radio as early as possible in 2019.

With the official commercial use of 5G, network problems will be solved, the above-mentioned industries will usher in a period of rapid development, and industries such as artificial intelligence and intelligent manufacturing will also rise accordingly.

At this year's two sessions, 5G and artificial intelligence have become keywords in the government work report. In fact, the term "artificial intelligence" has been written into the "13th Five-Year Plan" outline, and its development is "promising." It is predicted that the scale of China's artificial intelligence market was less than 30 billion yuan at the end of 2016, and by 2018, this scale is expected to exceed 38 billion yuan.

The era of "AI+" is coming. "In the next 5 to 10 years, AI will be as ubiquitous as water and electricity, and can enter almost all industries such as education, medical care, finance, transportation, and smart cities," said Liu Qingfeng, deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of iFLYTEK.

All of these are based on 5G networks, whose high speed, low latency and low power consumption characteristics have led to the rapid development of the above industries. In addition, the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain such as chips, electronic components, software, and smart hardware will also enter an upgrade period, and their venture capital opportunities are also unlimited.

It can be seen that the macro-industry market under 5G is booming. If we focus on 2B business, which one will become the killer application?

Live streaming and short videos are widely recognized as the next hot spot for content entrepreneurship. According to statistics, by the end of 2016, the number of mobile users in China who watched mobile live streaming videos had reached nearly 340 million, generating a market space of US$5.9 billion.

However, the existing network is most likely to experience unstable and slow network connections during the live broadcast of large-scale events. A good cellular network is very important for the network platform. Surveys show that more than 50% of anchors have been forced to give up live broadcasts due to poor network connections.

5G technology has tested a connection speed of 30Gbit, which is 1,000 times faster than 4G technology. 5G can provide a peak rate of 10Gb/s, thus supporting services such as high-definition video and satisfying an immersive user experience. Recently, Japanese mobile communications company DOCOMO and Nokia have successfully completed a real-time 8K video transmission trial using the wireless access technology of the 5G mobile communications system.

Brian Daly, AT&T's head of wireless standards, has said that 5G will be 10 to 100 times faster than 4G. 5G's faster speed will also increase the network's capacity, allowing more users to log on to the network at the same time.

For example, thanks to the ultra-fast transmission speed of 5G signals, Samsung recently demonstrated the wireless transmission of 4K ultra-high-definition video to a moving vehicle. With the development of autonomous driving technology, in-car streaming entertainment will become more and more popular.

With the network capabilities of the 5G platform, content providers can explore more advanced applications and new business models. 360 video and virtual reality may be the killer applications of 5G.