OSPE - The Voice - Fall 2020 - 13

ADVOCACY IN ACTION

power. For consumers, this will enhance
security and monitoring systems, digital
assistants and the like, but in industry
this has infinite possibilities. These
changes will enable all technologies to
explode into new realms of automation
and control never seen or even envisioned
before for all levels of manufacturing,
operations, logistics etc. With all these
benefits, 5G is truly a game changing
enhancement and will forever change
the way we live and work in the future.

connectivity. This will enable 5G to
complete all functions that a wired
network can, with identical or better
results. The second major feature of
5G is low latency: the speed at which a
response will be available will now truly
enable real time cloud based computing
to be used. An example is in autonomous
vehicles, where getting a response almost
instantaneously is critical to safety and
operation. Previously, this required the
computing systems to either be on board
the vehicle, which is not always possible
(think of putting a supercomputer on a
drone), or locating it as close to the 'edge'
as possible (like having a computer on
every lamp-post to communicate quickly
with the car).
The third major improvement that
5G brings is using network slicing
to provide for massive simultaneous
communications (capacity) with
millions of devices at a low rate of

How do we get there?
Deploying a 5G network, like all previous
wireless network evolutions, is not just
about enhancing the existing system,
but requires building out an entire new
network from the core elements right
out to every cell tower and radio. Besides
core elements to provide 5G, there will
be requirements for greater density
of cell sites with backhaul capability
and advanced antennas transmitting
in specific frequency bands. While the
service providers will have to invest
massively to build the 5G network, they
will also require the bandwidth and
spectrum to communicate with the enduse devices - spectrum which is in very
short supply and must be managed in the
most optimal manner.
Traditionally, governments have
auctioned off the spectrum to the highest
bidders, and in the past few years this
has earned tremendous revenue for
the Canadian Government. However,
as equipment and expertise costs for
newer technology grow, while revenues
get squeezed due to competition and
regulation, providers globally are
increasingly challenged to finance
the upgrade to 5G. Governments are
recognizing that rather than squeezing
service providers to pay more for
spectrum, they should be aware of the
high expenditure for service providers

Fall 2020 THE VOICE

13
OSPE - The Voice - Fall 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of OSPE - The Voice - Fall 2020
