3G is gone. Largely replaced by its faster, more reliable, 4th Generation cousin, 3G provided a brief but essential steppingstone in the development of connection infrastructure. With a near 500x increase in speed, 4G brought on rapid access to a world of information for people on the go – introducing the continuously connected human. Perfect for web-browsing, video streaming, music listening, email sending, and restaurant finding people who spend less-and-less time tethered to a computer, 4G gave humans access to more data than we could possibly consume.
Where 4G falls short is in continuously connected, automated systems. Due to latency and reliability issues, mission-critical processes and procedures that need near real-time data were forced away from 4G, relying instead on localized compute power to complete automated tasks. While this provided reliability and reduced system latency, it limited the capacity to grow into fully realized digital organizations. 5G solves these issues. With a staggering 100x increase in speed over 4G (that’s a 50,000x increase compared to 3G), 5G provides the connection speed necessary to offload compute power to the unlimited scale of a cloud while enabling a higher uptime rate compared to legacy connections.
Let’s consider a few practical examples. Up first – autonomous vehicles. Terabytes of sensor data alone make this task unmanageable with 4G connections. Now consider a mesh of connected vehicles where your car is not only talking to its master database but to every other vehicle on the road, to a DOT-based system for monitoring road conditions, to a real-time weather tracking platform, etc. This requires throughput capabilities that weren't possible before 5G. Now they are.
Smart electrical grids also come to mind. With geographically disparate assets and a need for real-time load demand response, the idea of a smart grid has been a fantasy. Now the combination of access to massive amounts of real-time data via 5G connections and widely adopted virtual power plants capable of responding to load demand makes this fantasy realistic.
Apply this same principle to water and wastewater systems, smarter buildings, smarter manufacturing, and any other system requiring stable, high-throughput connections. Processes previously landlocked by the latency of a 4G connection are now migrating to the cloud, unlocking data-driven insights fueled by AI and machine learning. 5G provides speed and stability. Tosibox provides the cybersecurity and scalability. Together, you have all the infrastructure pieces necessary for ongoing Digital Transformation. All that’s left is the doing.
And if you are wondering, how it is done in Tosibox-way? Contact us and let´s plug and go!
Blog post is written by Skylar Dhaese - OT Network engineer helping integrators and manufacturers monetize their digital transformation.