Power of 5G Demonstrated With First Live Hologram Call

There is a lot riding on 5G networks as telecoms, enterprises, consumers, content producers and others around the world eagerly await the capacity and speed this technology will provide. For service providers, 5G will deliver Web-scale networking that will allow them to create and launch next generation services to market faster and compete with OTTs that have been taking increasingly larger market shares, especially with SMS. The capability of 5G was just demonstrated by Korean Telecom (KT (News - Alert)) and Verizon with the first hologram call over the network using next generation connectivity.

There is no question 5G will transform the mobile and digital landscape with blazing fast speeds of up to 10Gbs or more depending on different factors, and latency rates of one millisecond. Being able to access data at such a fast rate with imperceptible latency is going to make real-time technologies such as self-driving cars, Internet of Things (IoT), Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and others possible. Web-scale networking will be integral in delivering the high capacity services.

The hologram call was an important milestone because it requires high data, huge traffic volume and, of course, low latency to make the communication seamless. The call was made between Seoul, South Korea and New Jersey, USA by holding a meeting between employees of both companies. The employees in New Jersey appeared as holograms at the KT headquarters as Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam (News - Alert) and KT CEO Hwang Chang-gyu participated in the event.

This is the type of Web-scale networking connectivity operators are looking for to deliver next generation communications services globally. While it will be some time before 5G networks will be available for everyone, for developed countries that are laying the groundwork, there are huge opportunities for monetization and new streams of revenue.

South Korea consistently ranks in the top three when it comes to mobile technology speed and services, and it will be one of the first countries to deploy 5G. The Korean Herald quoted a KT spokesperson saying, “The 5G network is commercialized, 3-D hologram video calls will be available as one of the representative 5G-based services. Through a complete hologram video call, users will be able to meet a person in a remote area in a real size in real time.”

In addition to hologram calls, 360-degree Live VR is another technology that is highly anticipated by service providers and consumers, especially as it applies to gaming.

The testing also included interconnection of their orchestrators to determine the viability of their virtual infrastructure resources based on SDI, or software defined infrastructure. As more companies deploy this technology, Verizon (News - Alert) and KT have proposed and want to establish specifications of the orchestrators as an international standard to eliminate the compatibility issues that affected previous generation networks.

Verizon's CEO McAdam said, “The collaboration under the current partnership of Verizon and KT has been very productive as shown by the demos we have seen today. We will continue to work together to lead the global 5G business by developing innovative technologies and services.”