The 2018 Winter Olympics will be held in South Korea early next year. As always, the event will be an opportunity for some of the greatest athletes in the world to showcase their skills in the name of competition and global community. The entire world will be watching with baited breath, dreaming of their nation taking home another gold. But the events won’t be the only thing the world is watching at this event.
The 2018 Winter Olympics are expected to be one of the first real indicators of the potential power of 5G wireless services, as several companies will be using the event as a chance to show off their own individual innovations that utilize the increased speed and power promised by 5G. While wide-scale commercialization of 5G won’t become available until 2020, companies around the world have been preparing for the huge step forward, and many are prepared to showcase these innovations at the games in Seoul. It is estimated that 5G wireless speeds may outpace the current 4G standard by a hundred times over, which is the kind of development that catches the attention of companies, governments, and consumers the world over.
We’ve already spoken about how mobile carrier Verizon and Korean carrier KT has been experimenting with hologram calls and live-360 VR experiences, and how both will be available during the games thanks to a network specifically designed for the event. It is based on what is anticipated to be typical 5G specifications, by utilizing high frequencies in 28GHz. This is possible thanks to a partnership between KT and Samsung that will help maintain and support wireless capability throughout the event. By utilizing this technological update, KT promises to introduce live video to the games – allowing viewers to enjoy the mixed reality experience of seeing feeds directly from cameras attached to competitors. These experiences, which range from seeing the perspective of a torch bearer to the view from inside a bobsled mid-race, promise to offer consumers an experience unlike anything they’ve ever seen before.
But they won’t be the only group introducing new technology. SK Telecom – another major mobile operator in South Korea – is also intending to reveal some of their new 5G capabilities directly from their dedicated 5G R&D Department. Meanwhile, a coalition between companies and institutions such as France-based research center Leti, Korea’s Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Nokia, SK Telecom, and more will introduce 5G Champion, a joint venture which is geared towards improving latency and providing throughput in dense user environments. Leti announced the innovation, stating that “It will be the first time ever that terrestrial wireless communication, including enablers such as mmWave access, will be combined with satellite communication… This will form a 5G network with multi-radio-access technologies [multi-RAT] that is optimized to serve user equipment.”
The Olympic Games are typically some of the most watched events in any given year, and this year will be a demonstration of the technologies and capabilities that could be coming to your home soon thanks to 5G innovations.
