Driverless car with 5G now a reality
SHAHED SIDDIQUE from Barcelona
Imagine you want to drive your car from home and your car is driving itself just with your commands being sent from home or industries are being run by robots, which in turns are being controlled using high speed bandwidth supported by 5G technology.
Yes, such innovations like driverless cars are now virtually possible as shown in the Mobile World Congress-MWC 2017, the worlds largest gathering for the mobile industry, organised by the GSMA in Barcelona of Spain.
The MWC has brought a demo of driverless cars controlled by 5G signals staged by Telefonica, Ericsson and Swedens Royal Institute of Technology KTH.
At the Congress, the companies showed how they could control driverless cars on a test track 70km away in Tarragona.
Ericsson Engineer Thomas Magnussons told reporters at the Congress that driverless cars were now reality as the innovation uses 5G signals combined with interconnected cameras, both on board a car and at the home of the owner, which stream seamless signals through high-speed bandwidth.
A driver can move the wheel from home looking at the road direction with the help ofd the cameras and the car takes the directions in a 40 milli-second speed upload and down load facility, Magnussons added.
You believe it or not, it is practical. I can tell you that driverless cars are now possible by using 5G technology but I dontknow if it will be legally viable, said Adrian Matie from Ericsson. There is a huge debate on who will be liable if an accident occurs involving a driverless car, Matie added.
Ericsson officials said no date was fixed yet to unveil the 5G technology.
The hype about the potentials of the next generation of mobile networks has reached new heights, with every major company exhibiting at the event.
Japanese giant NTT Docomo showed 5G-based robots and claimed that those robots can achieve miracles.
Experts said it was still a dream for middle-income counties like Bangladesh to embrace advanced 5G technology as the cost factor will be very high.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) Chairman Shahjahan Mahmood leads a team to the WMC to have firsthand experience of the latest mobile technologies.
The world is moving forward and we have to move towards the new developments. What we are planning is that we will roll out the 4G spectrum, which is 2100MHz, through an auction, Mahmood said while talking to this correspondent on Tuesday.
We are drafting the guidelines on this issue and we hope to complete the 4g spectrum rollout this year, he added.
In March, 2008, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) set standards for 4G connectivity, requiring all services described as 4G to adhere to a set of speed and connection standards.
For mobile use, including smart phones and tablets, connection speeds need to have a peak of at least 100MBPS, and for more stationary uses such as mobile hotspots, the speed should be at least 1GBPS.
What do you think the 4G will be viable for the operators as all the operators except Grammen phone are in a loss .
When asked whether the 4G connectivity will be viable for the telcos in Bangladesh as all but Grameenphone are running in loss, Mahmood said the BTRC knows the revenue situation of the operators.
We are also deeply concerned that only one operator dominates in revenue of the sector and that should not be scenario. So, the BTRC will be doing something for the lose making operators, said the BTRC chairman.
However, the main challenge will be to satisfy the customers as we still are getting huge complaints about the services provided by the telcos, he added.
For better services, some operators need additional spectrum but they are not buying it. So let us see what we can do for the customers, Mahmood added.
Bangladesh is the sole country in South Asia that is yet to offer 4G services. The country has more than 120 million mobile subscribers and 66.96 million internet subscribers.
