The global 5G intense hype
 |
| Image for illustration only. For image text, go to https://pandaily.com/chinas-three-major-telecom-operators-confirm-5g-schedules-and-6g-in-the-works/ (China’s Three Major Telecom Operators Confirm 5G Schedules and 6G in the Works) https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d414d7a637a4e32457a6333566d54/index.html (China launches 5G network in Shanghai railway station) https://consumer.huawei.com/en/press/news/2019/huawei-launch-mate-x-5g-foldable-phone/ (Huawei Launches HUAWEI Mate X,the World’s Fastest 5G Foldable Phone) |
The global 5G intense hype
PORT MORESBY: As super high-telecommunications technology developed nations continue to claim to be the first to launch 5G, talk of 6G is already in the works.
It doesn’t matter whether one is the first to launch 5G because science and technology is ever evolving, improving or upgrading.
So, it is rather perplexing why there is now a global debate on who was the first to launch 5G.
At the end, it is not who was the first to launch 5G that really matters. It is which country’s high penetration in the use of wireless technology that matters.
Read on this Reuters’ report on the 5G global hype and other updates on 5G tech:
Who was first to launch 5G? Depends who you ask
TECH NEWS
Monday, 8 Apr 2019
12:19 PM MYT
by kenneth li and ju-min park
 |
| The intensity with which company representatives disputed each other's claims underscores the high stakes in the battle for supremacy over an industry that is expected to spend US$275bil over seven years in the United States alone, according to Accenture estimates. — Reuters |
Early April 3 in South Korea, Reuters published a story quoting South Korean officials declaring victory over the United States and China as the site of the world's first commercial launch of a fifth generation telecoms network.
They made their assertion on the basis that the new network connected to an actual 5G phone. US carriers disputed South Korea's claims to be first.
After the piece was published, AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc intensified their angry rejections of South Korea's boast in post-publication communications sent to Reuters on April 3.
Verizon, for its part, countered that it had come first. Hours after the Reuters report, it said it had already launched its 5G network and that it would be available on a new Motorola phone – though only in Chicago and Minneapolis.
"We stand by our story," a Reuters spokeswoman said.
The intensity with which company representatives disputed each other's claims underscores the high stakes in the battle for supremacy over an industry that is expected to spend US$275bil (RM1.12tril) over seven years in the United States alone, according to Accenture estimates.
The winner is seen playing a central role in helping to generate some US$12.3tril (RM50.37tril) in annual revenue across a broad range of industries by 2035, according to IHS Markit.
The technology, which can provide data speeds at least 20 times faster than 4G, will also underpin the great advances of the next era, from self-driving cars and augmented reality to smart cities and artificial intelligence.
"Being first is important in our industry and we want that recognition," an AT&T spokesman said, adding that the company spent US$130bil (RM532.41bil) over the last five years to upgrade its network.
Some experts point out that the jockeying will mean little to consumers. "The reason you're getting that reaction is this is a battle of marketing vaporware rather than real network evolution," said Craig Moffett, telecoms and communications analyst at MoffettNathanson.
"They're tripping over themselves to claim they have a 5G network," he said. "But we're years away from it having any impact on user experiences."
Bragging rights aside, being first is a matter of national pride. So excited was US President Donald Trump about dominating the telecoms future, he invented a technology that does not yet exist – 6G – in a Feb 21 tweet.
"I want 5G, and even 6G, technology in the United States as soon as possible. It is far more powerful, faster, and smarter than the current standard. American companies must step up their efforts, or get left behind," he tweeted. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Race to launch
South Korea's carriers had announced plans to launch their 5G networks by April 5.
But by 5pm local time April 3 word began to spread that Verizon was planning a surprise debut of its own 5G network as early as April 4, a full week ahead of its original intended schedule, an official at South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT told Reuters.
To snatch victory from the jaws of Verizon, the South Korean carriers raced against the clock and agreed to collectively light up the country's 5G networks just six hours after finding out about Verizon's plans, said the official, who declined to be named.
South Korean carriers including SK Telecom and KT Corp flipped the switch at 11pm local time (1400 GMT/1000 EST), nearly an hour ahead of when Verizon confirmed it had launched in the two markets in the United States at 10:55am EST (1455 GMT).
"It is a pretty big deal for every mobile carrier who can be called the world's first," the Ministry of Science official said.
On why Verizon accelerated its launch plan by a week, a Verizon spokesman said its network was ready. "Our customers were enthusiastic and ready to use 5G," the spokesman added. – Reuters/The Star
Securing the 5G future – what’s the issue?
TECH NEWS
Thursday, 25 Apr 2019
2:30 PM MYT
 |
| As 5G becomes embedded in everything from hospitals to transport systems and power plants it will rapidly become a part of each country's critical national infrastructure, making the consequences of the networks failing or being deliberately sabotaged in a cyberattack significantly more serious. — Reuters |
Britain's plan to allow Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies a restricted role in its next generation mobile networks is part of a heated international debate over the security risks so-called 5G technology presents.
Britain plans to allow Huawei access to non-core parts of fifth-generation, or 5G, networks on a restricted basis and block it from all so-called core parts, sources told Reuters.
The core is where the network's most critical controls are located and the most sensitive information is stored, while the periphery includes masts, antennas and other passive equipment.
The move comes despite calls from Britain's close ally, the United States, for countries to ban Huawei altogether from 5G networks because of concerns that its equipment could be used by Beijing for spying or sabotage.
But that dramatically increases the security risk, US officials say, because of the increasingly central role that telecommunications will play in our lives and the expected dramatic increase in connected devices in the network.
Critical infrastructure
As 5G becomes embedded in everything from hospitals to transport systems and power plants it will rapidly become a part of each country's critical national infrastructure.
This makes the consequences of the networks failing or being deliberately sabotaged in a cyber attack significantly more serious.
"5G will really start touching all parts of our lives because it will be the underlying infrastructure for so much of the critical services that are provided to the public," said Robert Strayer, the US State Department's lead cyber policy diplomat.
"So if a 5G network fails, there would be significant ramifications for all parts of society," Strayer said.
More connections
With much faster data speeds, experts predict there will be billions of connected devices.
These will include traditional mobile and broadband connections, but also Internet-enabled devices from dishwashers through to advanced medical equipment. Industry association GSMA forecasts the number of Internet-enabled devices will triple to 25 billion by 2025.
The larger the network, the more opportunities there are for hackers to attack, meaning there is an increasingly complex system with more parts that need protecting.
Distributed system
One of the biggest changes between 4G and 5G is the ability to take the advanced computing power usually kept in the protected "core" of a network and distribute it to other parts of the system. This will provide more reliable high-speed connections.
But it also means engineers will no longer be able to clearly ring-fence the most sensitive parts of the system, US officials say.
Some British lawmakers agree.
"Allowing Huawei into the UK's 5G infrastructure would cause allies to doubt our ability to keep data secure and erode the trust essential to Five Eyes cooperation," said Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of Britain's Foreign Affairs Committee.
The Five Eyes alliance is an intelligence sharing group that comprises the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
"The definition of core and non-core is a very difficult one with 5G," he added. – Reuters/The Star
US focus on blocking China’s 5G technology misses bigger manufacturing risk
TECH NEWS
Friday, 12 Apr 2019
3:00 PM MYT
by daniel bases
 |
| Fears that networking equipment manufactured by China’s national champion Huawei Technologies could offer Beijing a back door to spy on computer networks may not be as big a deal as China’s Great Firewall effectively dictating how devices connected via this new technology will be manufactured, said the investor. — Reuters |
Fears that networking equipment manufactured by China’s national champion Huawei Technologies could offer Beijing a back door to spy on computer networks may not be as big a deal as China’s Great Firewall effectively dictating how devices connected via this new technology will be manufactured, said the investor.
“By having a bifurcated Internet, it has created a very effective trade barrier for hardware. Everything that is being manufactured has to be for the China market and then the rest of the world market,” Sean O’Sullivan, founder of the US$650mil (RM2.68bil) venture capital firm SOSV, said on the sidelines of the 2019 China Institute Executive Summit in New York.
“The Great Firewall used to be just for software. Now the Great Firewall applies to all manufactured things just because the connectivity of manufactured things is being built into everything,” he said in an interview with the South China Morning Post on April 11.
O’Sullivan, a long-time investor in Chinese technology companies, has not been deterred by the spat between China and the US. He said Beijing’s support in the last three years for domestic start-up companies had resulted in some miserable failures because of “unskilled” VC funds. He said he had recently allocated 300 million yuan to scoop up assets that had fallen from “artificially inflated valuations”.
The US contends that back doors could be built into Huawei gear that could facilitate Chinese intelligence efforts, a claim that the company has vehemently and repeatedly denied.
The US stance has split many of its European allies. The UK’s foreign intelligence chief has said that an outright Huawei ban may be excessive while Italy’s deputy prime minister said that his country’s intelligence has no security concerns about the Chinese company. Germany’s economy minister Peter Altmaier has said that any restrictions cannot involve targeting specific companies but will have to involve security standards for all potential service providers.
While China has its 5G champion in Huawei, Finland has Nokia and Sweden has Ericsson. The US however, currently has no hardware maker ready to come to market with scale and depth.
Fifth-generation wireless networks are expected to revolutionise everything from the internet of things to autonomous driving, smart cities and virtual reality, with billions of dollars of economic benefit set to accrue to countries that are able to keep up with the technology.
The development and dominance of 5G technology has become a matter of economic and national security given that the data transfer speeds can be up to 100 times faster than those currently available, with ultra-low latency, meaning near instantaneous response.
The importance of 5G was highlighted by its inclusion in the December 2017 US National Security Strategy outlined by the Trump Administration.
“I think, as far as I know, [this was] the first time a telecom technology has been mentioned in the thing,” Adam Segal, Director of Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations told the Post ahead of the summit.
“I think we are moving towards a world where we will have systems that are separated. I don’t know how compatible they will be. We may end up in a world where 5G is the undergrid and we have services that are on top of it. Some of it may be incompatible,” Segal said.
While the US and China have clashed over who will dominate 5G technology in the short-term, the longer-term impact will be felt in third countries, those forced to choose between two competing systems of infrastructure equipment makers.
“The issue will not be so much China/US because those systems are already beginning to pull apart and separate, creating these security barriers. I think the issue is going to be more the developing third party economies,” said Segal. “They are being told to make a choice now and they don’t want to do that. They won’t or they will try to continue to play off both or they will choose China because it is cheaper.”
Analysts at Eurasia Group have said there could be some compatibility issues as a result of the division.
“There could even be some limited interoperability issues – for example, around low- vs high-frequency bands if the US and China push ahead with separate (radio) spectrum strategies,” they wrote in a November white paper. – South China Morning Post
Companies
Is 5G the ‘next big thing’ for investors?
· Gauge of China-listed 5G stocks shows 75 per cent jump in past 6 months
· Red flags include US-China friction, policy changes in Beijing, costs for companies
Yujing Liu
Published: 11:14am, 14 Apr, 2019
 |
| An illustration of the connections possible with 5G. |
As countries around the world race towards a 5G future of driverless cars and wired homes, Chinese telecommunications equipment makers and suppliers are scrambling to make their mark.
Chinese network operators are set to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on buying new 5G base stations over the next few years to build the next generation of telecom networks.
This means massive orders for main equipment vendors to build them, with the top players – privately held Huawei Technologies and Hong Kong-listed ZTE – set to snap up the bulk of them. The money will then trickle down to their suppliers of an array of telecom components.
The prospect drove a jaw-dropping 75 per cent surge in a gauge compiled by Wind of 76 China-listed, 5G-related stocks over the past six months. That dwarfs the 22 per cent rise in the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index over the same period.
Its rival Suzhou Chunxing Precision also has jumped by 194 per cent since October after making a similar announcement.
The market fervour in 5G has even led to mysterious surges in completely unrelated stocks. Shanghai-listed Eastern Communications skyrocketed 800 per cent from October to March, forcing it to make several warnings to say it was not involved in any 5G business.
Traders labelled it a yaogu – “monster stock” – meaning that the surge was entirely a result of speculative capital and deviated from the fundamentals.
But the real deals have plenty more room to climb, many investors and analysts say, with the market still not yet grasping what a massive growth driver 5G is to the telecom sector.
“We have only made 10 steps in a journey of hundreds of steps,” said Zhan Guoqiang, investment director of Yabuli Investment, a private equity firm focusing on telecoms based in Shenzhen. A seasoned stocks investor backed by his own capital, Zhan started investing in 5G stocks in June.
“From a long-term perspective, everything has only just started,” he said, adding that stock prices “could triple or even quintuple” for leading companies in the 5G era.
There are sceptics, who warn of the potential impact on companies and their share prices if tensions continue to flare between the US and China, Beijing changes its supportive 5G policies, and companies suffer from the massive investment costs of the totally new sector.
 |
But others say when all the investment and construction is done and the 5G networks are up and running, a host of new applications will spring up to revolutionise industries from autonomous driving to smart health care. New markets worth trillions of dollars will be created, and people’s lives will be completely changed, analysts say. - South China Morning Post
Comments
Post a Comment