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5G将如何在3个行业中增加Wi-Fi
Despite the 5G hype, Wi-Fi and 5G together will play an important role in enterprise use cases, including remote patient care and smart manufacturing.
技术专业人员可能会发现在这些天的任何早晨，就很难扫描技术头条新闻，而不会遇到关于5G的故事。与AI和区块链一起，5G是当今技术中最嗡嗡的趋势之一。
Much of the5Ghype is deserved, but it's important to remember that 5G is still a very nascent technology. Beyond faster speeds, once 5G truly comes to fruition, it will offer low latency, increased capacity and higher data rates, and it could open the door to entirely new applications. Overly dramatic claims that 5G will replace Wi-Fi are baseless. Can you imagine a college campus or hospital ever ripping out all of their wireless infrastructure and all of their Wi-Fi devices and shifting everything to 5G? It's not feasible today.
The reality is Wi-Fi and cellular will coexist for the foreseeable future, with each serving different use cases and working in tandem to provide the best possible user experiences. Here are three examples across different industries to demonstrate how5G will augment existing Wi-Fi部署。
通往智能工厂的道路经历了5G
Few sectors stand to be as受5G作为制造的影响，蜂窝技术的一代可能刺激下一次工业革命。尽管大多数工厂继续在Wi-Fi网络上运行，但由5G技术支撑的一波智能工厂已经开始出现。机会很大；根据Capgemini Research Institute报告“ Smart Fortories @ Scale”，到2023年，聪明的工厂每年可能每年增加1.5至2.2万亿美元。
5G offers numerous benefits to the manufacturing industry. It can power mobile devices and robotics, which will lead to automating more manual processes and improving production efficiency. For example, Ericsson's smart factory in Lewisville, Texas, uses 5G connectivity to enable agile operations and flexible production. In the facility, time-consuming processes like assembly, packing and product handling can be completed by drones and autonomous carts.
John Deere also just invested $500,000 in private 5G licenses to improve its manufacturing plants. The company is looking to deploy 5G in order to make its production lines more flexible than they are with traditional wired networks. Additionally, the company is using 5G for a smart vision system to support worker safety.
As of now, asking manufacturers to rip and replace all their existing wireless infrastructure and equipment with 5G is a tall order -- not to mention, it's unnecessary. Wi-Fi is a viable option to suit many of the needs inside today's factories. The most likely scenario is factories will have a combination of both Wi-Fi and 5G equipment, where different wireless technologies are deployed for different use cases and applications, depending on specific bandwidth needs.
5G will create entirely new, immersive learning experiences in classrooms
尽管学校将始终依靠Wi-Fi技术来连接计算机和平板电脑等设备，但教育是与5G相关创新的成熟领域。上学日通常由白板，投影仪和小册子定义，这与世代相传的学校相同的工具。但是，想象一个教室，可以将学生运送到地质地点或空间站。他们可以四处走走并探索这些环境，而无需离开教室。
The high bandwidth and low latency of 5G unlocks the power of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology, which can make these experiences possible and provide entirely new ways for students to engage with their curriculum. For example, Entrepreneurship Preparatory School, a K-8 charter school in Cleveland, was thefirst school in the U.S.要从Verizon接收5G技术，这是Verizon计划到2021年为100所学校提供先进技术的一部分。该学校的实验室配备了VR和AR站，使学生可以看到丰富的计算机生成的图像，并进行诸如近距离检查明星之类的事情或在人体内部旅行。
Few schools today are equipped with this kind of forward-looking technology. But as 5G continues to mature and become more accessible, this kind of hands-on learning could be the norm.
5G可以扩大医疗保健中远程医疗和远程监控
Thecovid-19-大流行在医疗保健方面加速了大规模转变，促进了远程医疗和远程监测的广泛采用，以确保尽可能多地远离医疗病毒患者。Wi-Fi已成为卫生服务提供的关键途径，因为现在患者比以往任何时候都使用自己的家庭无线连接来沟通和接受医生和护士的护理。
5G could be a game-changer, expanding remote healthcare in areas that need it most. Though the industry has had a surge in telemedicine over the past several months, rural communities often don't have the same access to virtual care because of a lack of reliable broadband. By expanding 5G into rural areas, millions more patients will be able to access critical treatment. This is important during the pandemic, but telemedicine also holds long-term benefits for rural communities, due to the lack of provider options in those areas. In the last decade alone, more than120个农村医院已关闭, creating a pressing need for accessible remote care.
尽管它永远不会在医院校园设置中取代Wi-Fi，但5G在通过医疗物联网设备进行实时远程监控方面具有巨大的潜力。缓慢的网络速度和斑点连接通常会阻碍远程监视。由于其容量较高和延迟较低，5G-enabled IoT devices and wearables可以帮助医疗保健提供者确保他们实时接收数据，以便他们提供最佳的护理并做出快速决策。
需要5G和Wi-Fi
5G holds immense potential and will play a key part in elevating and transforming connectivity moving forward. What gets lost in the hype, though, is the almost impossible-to-overstate role that Wi-Fi currently plays in holding together our institutions and systems, as well as how strong and reliable Wi-Fi technology is. Wi-Fi is here to stay, but over the next few years, 5G will start to be integrated across a variety of industries to supplement and improve user experiences.
About the author
Giacomo Bernardi is distinguished engineer within the Office of CTO at极端网络. He plays a key role in setting the company's overall product strategy and roadmap and how to innovate within emerging technologies. Giacomo's research interests focus on machine learning and wireless networking. Previously, he was he was CTO of a privately held startup telecom service provider with a value of over $1 billion where he built one of the largest software-defined networking deployments. He got his doctorate from the University of Edinburgh in the U.K. and a Master of Science at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland.
