Huawei is already aiming for 5.5G technology by 2025, amid the world still rolling out 5G.
The telecommunication player claimed it will take three to eight years only to upgrade from the current 5G connectivity.
According to the President of Huawei’s Data Communication Product Line Kevin Hu, 5.5G will be vital in the few years to come when businesses will be run by data centers and also the number of running apps online will be high.
He noted sectors like financial services and energy sectors depend on high technology and hence will require fast connectivity.
“This near future will have more devices with larger applications connected to the Internet and thus at all times, financial services systems such as Safaricom’s Mpesa coupled with Kenya Power’s technology-driven national energy grid will gain critical national importance. We will need wireless technologies that are more capable than 5G within the next 5 to 10 years as more intelligent applications emerge,” said Mr Hu.
Mr Hu urged companies to invest more in their connectivity citing 5.5G as capable of powering the Intelligent Internet of Everything (IoE).
The network is predicted to play an important role in digitizing the economy as it has already been defined to support 100 billion connections and ubiquitous 10 Gbit/s connectivity.
“In the Net 5.5G environment of the Internet, big data, IoT, remote sensing, radar, and drones, it will be possible to build a comprehensive monitoring system supported by ‘space-air-ground’ integrated monitoring networks.”
This system helps to monitor key locations around the clock including road entrances and exits, wildlife habitats, and road nodes in protected areas, to gain real-time knowledge of human activities and ensure that the ecosystem isn’t disturbed.
Drones and autonomous vehicles are said to work and respond better for larger and more complex tasks with 5.5G.
“In this future, the data center network has become the infrastructure for operators to provide IT services and now moves towards an all-Ethernet converged architecture where the quality of the connectivity is higher, and it meets the interconnection requirements of backbone networks in industries such as financial institutions that require reliable, secure services for applications including credit card processing, file sharing, data backup,” Said Mr Hu.
He urged other players to join and contribute towards 5.5G development.
“We will work with customers and partners together to promote industry consensus and related standards, make key technology innovations, accelerate the pilot of business scenario innovation, and continue to explore new business boundaries.”
Recently, Safaricom which the largest service provider in Kenya launched 5G network in the country.