MTN gave a nail-biting demonstration at the Gerotek race track yesterday of the possibilities of 5G in the real world. In case you haven’t been paying attention, 5G is the next evolution in mobile data. We had 2G, then 3G, then 4G/LTE (though this one was a bit contentious, with the two becoming synonymous, even though LTE didn’t necessarily achieve textbook 4G speeds) and now we have 5G. In short, it’s a faster standard that will let operators move more data between our devices and their infrastructure more rapidly.
MTN’s demonstration focused on an automotive use case. They strapped a VR headset to a race-car driver, put him in an SUV with blacked out windows, and made him do donuts on a skid pan in Pretoria via a live feed of cameras and sensors around the car and the track. That sounds like a man with a death wish, or a man with way too much trust in tech.
‘Driving around blindly’ has never been a more accurate statement. The idea around this real-world test, was to demonstrate the minimal latency in the 5G network — the driver was able to navigate the track using the live feed from the 4K video camera to the VR headset in real-time.
The industrial and medical applications — like a doctor in Singapore doing brain surgery on a patient in South Africa without any latency (for obvious reasons) — are myriad.
Another key application for 5G is going to be the various connected devices — from cars and phones to smart appliances and sensors — collectively called the internet of things (IoT). You can bet MTN’s rivals Vodacom, Telkom Mobile and Cell C are also testing their own 5G solutions, but MTN definitely wins points for the most novel 5G demonstration we’ve seen yet.