If 5G really is a “quantum leap” over 4G, as Hans Vestberg, Verizon CEO believes it is, then the key differences will be qualitative, not quantitative. The best everyday examples are ice, water and steam. What Vestberg suggests is that the use cases and value of 5G will be qualitatively different from 4G and earlier mobile generations, as ice is qualitatively different from water, and water from steam.
That said, qualitative changes often result from an accumulation of quantitative changes. That might be a useful insight when considering the eight “currencies” of 5G that mostly represent quantitative changes (speed, latency, energy consumption, density, connectivity) that are expected to enable qualitative changes in use cases. One might argue that IoT is an outcome of the other currencies.
The eight currencies include:
- Speed: 10 Gbps
- Throughput: mobile data volumes of 10 terabits per second per square kilometer
- Mobility: connection at 500 km per hour
- Connected Devices: up to one million per square kilometer
- Internet of Things
- Energy Efficiency: 10% of 4G
- Service Deployment: rapid deployment of devices
- Latency: 5 milliseconds to network edge
- Reliability: more than 99.999% reliable
The thing about qualitative change is that it is discontinuous: incremental changes in volume eventually lead to a change of state. Ice can turn to water after a slow heating change; water can turn to steam after an incremental additional heating change.
Qualitative change is what some observers mean when arguing that brand new revenue sources will be driven by enterprise use cases, not consumers, as has been the case for all prior generations of mobility.
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