weeks for a message to cross the
Atlantic today takes a blink of an eye
I’m here to talk to you about the
evolution of telecommunications Talay
meaning long-distance communications
I’ve been studying and working this for
ten years until this day when I think of
that instantaneous connection among
continents
I think it’s magic I’m sure you have a
smartphone with a fast internet
connection
that’s called 4G LTE LTE stands for long
term evolution
it was the core of my PC series and it’s
two days latest cellular technology
now I’m working on 5g the next big
wireless thing and when I get asked what
is it what is 5g it’s faster Internet I
usually say get read because it’s much
more than that which is why I’m here
today I want to take you on a journey a
wireless journey towards this 5g and its
impact on society the very first mobile
phone call was made in 1973 by Martin
Cooper he was an employee at Motorola
and that day he was in Midtown New York
and decided to call the Penn lab his
competitors saying hey guys I’m calling
you from a cell phone a real handle
portable cell phone can you believe it
that prototype wait more than two pounds
you could store up to 30 numbers and it
had a stellar battery life of 20 minutes
it was sold in the 80s for $4,000 that
was 1g all about phone calls and then we
got to G a smaller phone with a nice
digital interface where you could send
and read messages you could also play
games like snake to remember snake I
love that I love that and now we got 3G
and 3G triggered the real mass adoption
of these devices
full touchscreen interfaces with this
Internet connectivity the most important
thing which triggered our telecom
engineers to bring faster and faster
internet connection into your phones so
it’s how we got here today 4G LTE the
whole internet fast and seamless at your
fingertips so what is 5g what is ahead
of us but before I jump there I want to
explain you how it’s even possible that
today we can send a message from here to
the other side of the world in a blink
of an eye literally it’s even faster
than that the core of connectivity of
global connectivity is the Internet and
in spite of what many people think it’s
not based on satellites and space
communication it’s based on real
tangible cables the internet runs over
cables terrestrial
underground and underwater thick
underwater cables the very first attempt
to deploy an underwater cable happened
in 1850 trying to connect England and
France over the English Channel but that
was a failure that the wire was so thin
and light that couldn’t even sink into
the water it was just floating miserably
but eight years in 1858 they were able
to connect Europe and North America this
was the electric telegraph the first
miracle of communications it was the
very first time in history where you
could send messages across continents
over wires fastly
instead of walking or riding a horse
like Pony Express or crossing the ocean
on a ship so it was it was a
revolutionary moment he was seen as the
herald as the instrument of world peace
because of this first-of-its-kind
capabilities to connect continents and
remote locations fastly it was so
revolutionary that tiffany’s the New
York jewelers they bought the remainder
of that cable they cut it into four
inches position they saw
the souvenirs today we have over half a
million miles of cables all around the
world connecting the planet but 10 years
ago the only way to access this
beautiful hyper-connected thing called
the Internet was only from home from
your computer or if you were outdoors
you had to walk into an internet cafe so
that motivated an engineer’s obsessed
with optimization and efficiency to say
come on
that’s not very ideal why don’t we bring
the internet connectivity into your
pockets into your phones your portable
device so mobile phones became
smartphones we simply connected the cell
tower connected over the telephone
network 10 years ago to the Internet so
the mobile internet infrastructure that
we are working on it’s simple it’s 2
components is wires the Internet
backbone and the wireless the cellular
access the connection between your phone
and the nearby cell tower that’s sitting
somewhere around here and that’s the
core of my research information travels
at nearly the speed of light
150,000 miles per second meaning that in
a blink of an eye information can travel
around the planet five times but what
really defines a connection whether it’s
a cable or the radio the wireless link
its capacity its how much information we
can squeeze into the pipe and that can
travel at the speed of light so we can
look at the connection as a highway with
lanes of information so in the Internet
these cables underwater and underground
then the capacity is massive you can
send a lot of information the bottleneck
the problem is the wireless link between
your phone and the nearby cell tower in
2g the first phone that we connected to
the Internet there was a small highway
where we could only exchange texts and
emails we made a better job with 3G we
built a better infrastructure where we
could brow
the internet with images and was good
but still pretty limiting so 4g was the
real game change today technology where
you can also stream your video download
and upload any type of digital content
but because of this because of these
capabilities we’re generating and
exchanging a lot of data in 2020 it’s
expected to reach the equivalent of
twenty thousand billion videos and it
turn out to take 200 million years to
watch so all of a sudden this great 4G
LTE capacity might not be enough to
carry around all this data right so 5g
in 5g we’re building a bigger highway
but if AG was all about that it would be
disappointing you could expect this 1g
to 4g was all about phones and smart
phones and internet so 5g is way more
than this this is a big challenge it’s
my daily job but 5g is more than that in
5g there will be new players connecting
wirelessly to the Internet and to each
other
of course which safe and regulated
radiation levels so there will be
sensors for example connected sensors in
the smart society concept also known as
massive Internet of Things like for
example in the future smart city we
might have a lot of sensors used to
measure water energy or monitor
pollution and temperature control city
lights and transportation and then cars
will wirelessly connect to each other
and to the Internet to better sense the
environment exchange information and
navigate more safely and probably
realize the fully driverless car
paradigm the same technology can be
applied to drones autonomous drones that
will deliver boxes and packages at your
door but not only sooner than you expect
they might fly as humans or
thanks to 5g and these wireless
connectivity capabilities and then
robots controlled wirelessly remotely
instantaneously imagine a firefighter
operating from a safe location from his
office a robot in a dangerous and
otherwise inaccessible area watching
what the robot sees through his
surrounding and immersive cameras in
virtual reality maybe and then moving is
his arms I’m mapping these movements
miles away instantaneously to move the
robotic arms and try and save a human
life
so 5g is like an invisible fabric which
will wirelessly connect all these
players and enable all these futuristic
scenarios but how why do we need fight
you there are four main reasons why we
were able to better exploit the wireless
link the first one is a wider Highway
more capacity which is needed because
for example cars will generate a lot of
data to sense the surrounding and be
safe and navigate safely will sense
through cameras and leaders and Raiders
and then they need to exchange this
information to help nearby cars to sense
potential danger so we need a lot of
wireless capacity to enable all this and
that the second reason is much more
responsive 5g will be instantaneous why
to let cars and drones react promptly to
any potential danger approaching you and
imagine remote surgeons thanks to
instantaneous responsiveness they can
operate with extreme time precision
wirelessly and miles away then we have
reliability 5g will be much more
reliable we need stable and constant
connectivity in 5g we cannot tolerate
pixels while you watch a video those are
fluctuations in quality it means that
there’s some interference or congestion
and you see and your video
the caves the quality decays or your
calling and the cult freezes we cannot
tolerate that in 5d because human lives
are at stake here and then finally
security advanced security and privacy
which is core given the amount of data
sensitive data that need to be protected
so these are some of the key ingredients
of 5g and some of the potential examples
of how 5g might look like but what’s the
social impact of mobile technology let’s
start by looking at today how these
devices smartphones and mobile
connectivity have has had an impact on
our lives today both on a personal level
and on a collective level so on a
personal level I know we may be over
using this technology sometimes I do the
same but it’s a new technology thing its
infancy it’s less than 10 years old and
it’s engaging and pretty amazing it’s
normal that we get overwhelmed it’s
already happened in the past as soon as
we get something new means using and
abusing that technology is part of any
major change it happened when we got
newspapers or TV will adapt will get
better will improve will learn like in
an evolutionary process mistakes are
part of that process and we’re already
changing this technology software
engineers and interface creators are
already proposing and introducing new
solutions to make these devices less
addictive and less invasive more
transparent a simple example is the way
we will interact with this technology
more naturally like for example for
voice this is already happening voice
commands or gestures to avoid this
constant engagement with the digital
interface and then on a global and
collective level how mobile wireless
networks have has had an impact on
society it’s for example by building
like in the Arab Spring movements
against dictatorship leaderless
revolutions where people were able to
communicate organize and coordinate over
networks outdoors wirelessly it also
helped building empathy like Pablo Rhys
Martinez a young man that shared is
battle against leukemia from his
hospital with his over a quarter of a
million followers able to raise
awareness about the importance of
donating bone marrow he’s going to reach
a million donations and he’s already
triggered thousands of them so these are
some examples of how today men have
harnessed the power of mobile technology
but my question now is how about
tomorrow how about this 5g this new
thing sure thanks to robots and cars and
environmental sensor everywhere we might
be living in a safer society more green
and more energy-efficient but beyond
that what 5g will truly unlock on a
human to human and on a global and
collective level is still unknown to us
just like in 4G and 3G we built the
infrastructure the technology but we
didn’t know harness so we didn’t predict
awareness and empathy now is the same
thing 5g is the pillars the foundation
for the next societal transformation we
will see how we’re going to harness the
power of a faster more reliable more
secure wireless technology I
I personally imagine a world where fast
and ubiquitous connectivity will
democratize the access for example to
health and education by remotely and
distant aeneas lis connecting teachers
and doctors with people in
underdeveloped countries or in
underserved locations and I am vision a
global network we’re on top of
information we’ll be spreading
and expanding empathy getting us closer
to distant strangers stimulating
creativity or moving compassion I
imagine a network that will be able to
spark our curiosity foster openness and
create a social glue for radical change
where we can all play a role and make a
difference but before I leave the stage
I want to share with you a quote from
1858 that inspires why I do what I do in
telecommunications and the future of
connectivity if I quote from her e field
speaking about the electric telegraph
the first Atlantic cable connecting
continents he says it brings the world
together it joins the sundered
hemispheres it unites distant nations
making them feel that they’re members of
one great family thank you [Applause]