Are driverless cars, smart homes, telemedicine, etc. all dependent on 5G?

1. As for the reason why 5G was over-promoted before, I guess everyone in the communications industry knows who started it. It was not until some companies' revenues declined and marketing expenses were cut due to well-known reasons that the publicity for 5G declined. In addition, when former Finance Minister Lou Jiwei spoke out, more rational opinions on 5G emerged.

Of course, 5G technology has made progress and can provide faster wireless data services; however, the disadvantages of 5G technology are also very obvious. The huge investment amount has led to the inability of operators to build as quickly as in the 4G era. The number of 5G base stations built in more than two years may be equivalent to the number of 4G base stations built in the first year of the 4G era.

The operation and maintenance costs of 5G base stations are extremely high. The most obvious cost is the electricity cost. It is estimated that it will cost more than 200 billion yuan in electricity costs for operators to build a nationwide 5G network. As a result, the huge electricity bills caused by the limited number of 5G base stations have forced operators to shut down 5G base stations during idle periods.

2. Do driverless cars, smart homes, and telemedicine require 5G?

This is actually a wrong concept. Some of the technologies for driverless cars are already in use today. For example, Tesla has already put its autonomous driving technology into use. American consumers often post photos of car owners sleeping on the highway and being taken to their destination by autonomous driving technology. The United States currently mainly uses 4G networks.

What is hindering the use of driverless technology today is not mobile communication technology, but the fact that autonomous driving technology is far from mature. The industry believes that current autonomous driving technology can only reach the L2 level.

If the technology of smart home and telemedicine is mature enough, it can actually be realized with wired broadband. Because the machines and equipment used in such technologies need to be driven by electricity, they naturally need to be connected to wires. Therefore, it is not a problem to connect these devices with wired broadband to make the related technologies a reality.

Compared with 5G, wired broadband has higher reliability and lower latency. For remote surgery, wired broadband is much more reliable than 5G. Can you imagine that even though 5G is said to have millisecond-level latency, even a difference of a few milliseconds can cost a person's life.

The impact of latency on autonomous driving technology is actually similar. They promote the importance of 5G to autonomous driving technology as low latency, using ultra-low latency and cloud computing power to ensure driving safety. However, this is actually very dangerous, and the time extension in the middle may also lead to fatal accidents.

Therefore, for autonomous driving technology, relying on the computing power of the on-board machine to handle emergencies during driving more quickly can better ensure driving safety. If relying on the computing power of the on-board machine, the ultra-low latency requirements for mobile communications will be weakened.

Therefore, rational discussions on 5G by all parties can help everyone have a deeper understanding of 5G technology, rather than linking everything to 5G. It is more appropriate to slow down the development of 5G, allowing all parties in the communications industry to further improve 5G technology, reduce costs and improve reliability, which may be more conducive to the development of 5G.