Not sure what the point of 5G is going to be outside of super fast speeds? Video and augmented reality will play a big part.
With 5G well and truly arriving this year, it can be a little difficult to know what to do with all that bandwidth. After all, the fifth generation mobile network technology delivers faster connections to mobile devices, and that means speed is the name of the game, but what do you do with all of that speed?
You could surely download movies and TV shows off your favourite streaming network in a higher definition than normal, and there’s an abundance of cat videos and massive games to check out as well, but what else?
According to the people building the networks and the devices that will talk to 5G, you might be doing more video calling and interactive conversations using augmented reality.
This week, Oppo and Optus showed what 5G could do with an augmented reality video test call made between test devices in Australia and Singapore, showing that a 5G phone can be used for more than just high speed web access.
Worked on with Ericsson and Singtel, it’s another step in Optus’ 5G rollout, which began recently with talk that it would be launching 5G mobile home broadband first, testing it in select suburbs around Australia.
“Once again Optus has proven our 5G agility, working collaboratively with our colleagues in Singapore to successfully land a ground-breaking 5G inter-country AR video call,” said Allen Lew, CEO of Optus.
“Just last month we achieved another first, with the launch of our plans for our 5G Home Broadband product for Australian consumers and today’s announcement is another step in our commitment to lead 5G delivery in Australia,” he said.
So what does this mean for you?
Well it suggests the first 5G phones that will come to Australia (and indeed the rest of the world) will be able to use the 5G networks for more than mere high speed web and media access, with actual conversations taking advantage of the technology, too.
How this will be realised and when it will come to fruition are other matters entirely, and ones that don’t exactly have dates, but they do suggest they are coming, and with more devices then the one 5G phone Australia is now confirmed to get.
As for Oppo’s 5G phone used in the test, little is known about them at this time, but with Mobile World Congress just around the corner, there’s a good chance we’re going to learn about them shortly.
