While the rise of 5G has captured the imagination and attention of consumers and businesses, it is part of a broader technological evolution of new technologies driving higher broadband connections to the end users. Additional last-mile high-speed access technologies include fiber, satellite and Wi-Fi 6, described as ‘frontier technologies’ in a McKinsey study An Evolution In Connectivity Beyond the 5G Revolution.
As our world is increasingly defined by speed and the pace of change, these new technologies will inevitably impact every organization. Wi-Fi 6 offers speed increases of up to 40%, delivering greater acceleration for businesses. These increases enable mobile enhancement and enhance efficiency, quality and performance in business systems.
5G is vital to support this expanding connectivity and as the roll-out of Wi-Fi 6 becomes the norm, satellite ensures additional ways to make certain connections are maintained when access to fiber or infrastructure is limited. ‘Space 2.0’ satellite technologies have emerged from innovation in this key area.
Faster, global connectivity also places more demand on the cloud infrastructure, where scalability, security and ability to handle the vast amount of data that is generated is of utmost importance.
Enhancing Connectivity in Data Centers
To keep pace with the bandwidth demand emerging from these frontier – and advanced – technologies, we are seeing the datacom and telecom industry moving towards faster networking speeds and capabilities. This is achieved by, for example:
Deployment of 400G in Data Centers:
As cloud data center customers look to next generation networks to address their need for increased bandwidth and faster data processing, we anticipate an increase in the deployment of 400G. Networks require much greater bandwidth to meet the data growth that we are seeing globally. McKinsey’s research predicts that the advanced connectivity that relies on 5G mobile networks could reach up to 80 percent of the global population by 2030. Online video alone is also expected to exceed 80 per cent of internet traffic – up to 20 times more data than at present.