We normally hear that 5G will bring ultra-low latency performance and gigabit access speeds to every connected device. What we hear less about are the potential implications for mobile phone battery life (33:22). In fact, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam believes that, in the 5G era, phones will go a month between charges.
He appears to base that expectation on big changes in network architecture. When 5G computing is largely conducted at the edge of the network (enabled by edge computing facilities and millisecond latencies), there will be less drain on mobile handset batteries, one might argue.
Some might call that a very-optimistic scenario, but the direction seems correct. In fact, there might be initial benefits of a very practical sort. When 5G launches, U.S. networks, for example, should be using radios using the non-standalone version of the 5G standard, which uses the 4G network for signaling and any data communications that do not require specific 5G speeds (gigabit), for example.
That means the 5G radio can be inactive most of the time, which saves power. Longer term, radios will be optimized to use not only any available network (including Wi-Fi, other local networks or the best mobile signal), but might also then be able to use the radio and modems in the most power efficient way, Qualcomm expects.
That is separate from the development of internet of things sensor batteries (33:22) that last ten years, and involves putting computing at the edge of networks, which also should alleviate the need for power to do local computing. In other words, operations that today happen on the phone could happen at an edge computing center.
McAdam also believes 5G will allow mobile service providers to support “1000 times more” devices at each cell site (31:53).
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