The game of 5G and geopolitics: What’s at stake?
The world’s most promising technology platform has become the grand prize in a game of global trade war. As China seizes prime platform territory, US allies find themselves caught in the crossfire. ZDNet’s Scott Fulton sits down with TechRepublic’s Karen Roby and shows us how anyone wins a game like this. Read more: https://zd.net/2WYnbBj
The success of 5G Wireless as a communications platform, as well as an incentive for device manufacturers and software developers to keep improving the systems we use for mobile functionality, depends on whether the standard applies to a global market. If the market becomes subdivided, and pockets of intellectual property become scattered throughout the planet like a connect-the-dots puzzle, engineers and developers will lose the incentive to continue fueling the standard’s growth.
Suddenly there’s a great deal of pressure on countries that have yet to be considered pinnacles of technology on the world stage, to make critical decisions that could shift the balance of power. 5G was initiated in large measure by China, whose engineers found a method to make smaller transmitters and base stations in greater numbers that could still be less expensive in the long term. But much of the world’s ongoing efforts to improve telephony are now centered in Scandinavia. There, Nokia maintains Bell Labs — the crown jewel of all telephony — and Ericsson continues pursuing an ambitious effort to radically reduce transmitter power consumption, by increasing the gaps of time transmitters are allowed to enter sleep mode. Test results released last week, depicted below, show power consumption reduced by nearly two-thirds as 4G LTE transmitters become hybridized with 5G New Radio, and by three-fourths as LTE is replaced entirely with 5G.
(Image: Ericsson)
One place where Ericsson has been conducting 5G tests is Warsaw, Poland, where the government is backing joint experiments by Ericsson and commercial telco Orange Polska (majority-owned by France-based telco Orange) to facilitate 900Mbps connections in the 3.4 — 3.6GHz band. During a high-profile meeting last Sept. 2 between Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and US Vice President Mike Pence, the two countries entered into an official agreement that effectively codifies Ericsson’s relationship with Poland as its 5G equipment supplier.
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