5G TO MAGNIFY IOT USE CASES

When I first heard about 5G, I thought, “oh cool, another G to make my cell phone experience better!” 5G is so much more than that. It’s going to transform so many industries and ways of working. Given my passion for IoT, I started to think of what can 5G bring to IoT.
5G can be the answer to so many new IoT Use Cases.  It can transform cities by deploying smart lights, drones for public safety (not sure I love that), smart parking solutions to name a few. It can also change rural areas and help our farmers globally through crop yield monitoring, milk preservation, soil sensors, weather integration and much more.  
Why: 5G uses spectrum within three frequency ranges -sub-1 GHz, 1-6 GHz, and above 6 GHz- to deliver high speed and widespread coverage across urban and rural areas. It offers speed and scale when it comes to IoT devices. Service Providers need to make the best use of the performance characteristics (such as peak rates, traffic capacity, and latency) of each band to enable the diverse needs of varied use cases.
Benefits: With 5G, the greatest impacts will be on

  • reducing operational costs
  • automating workflows
  • accelerating decision-making
  • flexible support of prototyping phases
  • work better with partner ecosystems

With IoT deployment comes ginormous amount of data which must be analyzed for insights and be compliant with privacy and security regulations. Edge computing can come to life with 5G as it supports improved security as sensitive data can be analyzed at the edge and doesn’t need to be sent over the core network to a central cloud; limiting the amount of data stored in any one location.
Partnering across companies who can bring good AI solutions, flexible Cloud options and Secure IoT platforms will be key for IoT providers to bring integrated value to their clients across cities, rural area and around the world.