5G -- it's not about phones

Earlier this month, Frank Fitzek of the Dresden University of Technology spoke about 5G technology at SEMICON Europa 2015. 

Here's a bullet-point summary of his report:

• 5G is not an incremental upgrade of 4G for phones
• It provides infrastructure for management and control of Internet of Things devices
• By 2020 there will be 50-500 billion(!) IoT devices connected -- most of these won't be smartphones
• Today's interconnections are too slow, insecure and unreliable
• 5G will require:
• Software Defined Networks
• Software Defined Storage
• Software Defined Radios
• High throughput
• Unbreakable security
• Low latency

Fitzek believes that all of these can be done, but it will require serious coordination. 

Here's a link to the article from EE Times. http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1327901

5G Architecture diagram courtesy of Ericsson.