5G: How next generation mobile technology will transform the world of work

Inside an immense Bosch factory on the edge of Worcester, 400 machines and 1,200 people assemble the intricate pipework and circuitry of more than a thousand boilers each day before shipping them off to households across the country.

When machines on the manufacturing line break down, production can be halted or significantly delayed while a new part is found. Now, though, engineers are being helped to predict and pre-empt those failures by a network of sensors that provide what they call a “machine heartbeat” – 5mb of real-time data per sensor per second on everything from cog wear to overheating.

This is Britain’s first 5G manufacturing facility, a government-backed testbed for a technology that Barclays says could boost British business by £15.7bn annually.

Previous networks like 4G have struggled on such factory floors, because they offer neither the bandwidth or responsiveness to stream huge quantities of data from moving machines at millisecond accuracy.  

5G can. And that means it is certain to disrupt many more sectors than manufacturing. Indeed, the chipmaker Qualcomm suggests that by 2035, 5G connectivity has the potential to generate up to $12.3 trillion (£9.3 trillion) of goods and services in industries such as retail, healthcare, education, transportation, entertainment and more. 

One of the most significant changes 5G is expected to bring about for business, however, is through true remote working. Take healthcare. 

The doctor won’t see you now

Surgeons looking to operate from afar, wielding “virtual” scalpels that direct real blades in operating theatres elsewhere, have long been hampered by data barriers which delay transmissions or reduce the resolution of imagery. 5G promises to do away with such barriers. 

Indeed, forecasts suggest the telemedicine market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17pc over the next 10 years, and could reach $64bn by 2022. Demand is expected to be driven by healthcare systems struggling to deliver improved services on reduced budgets.

Hospitals are already starting to use the technology. In January this year the first remote surgery over 5G networks was performed in China, with the surgeon citing the reduced latency of the connection as the reason he was able to complete the operation. Ericsson recently released a report claiming that 5G would be “mandatory for remote robotic surgery”.

“If you’ve got widespread use of robotic surgery in hospitals, and you’ve got the facilities to do it at the community hospital, then it could give the community hospital surgeon confidence to start doing the procedure knowing that if something sticky happens, an expert at the main hospital can step in and help, providing advice or taking over control,” says Luke Hares of healthcare company CMR Surgical, a Cambridge-based firm which has developed a surgical robot.

More likely, at least in the short term, are connections that allow a surgeon to perform several procedures around a large hospital from one central location. “You could certainly imagine a surgeon in the same hospital doing surgery hundreds of metres or thousands of metres away,” says Hares.

That could not only transform individual operations, but surgery itself, as hospitals learn a “huge amount more” from the data gathered during remote procedures. 

“We want to gather information about how the arms are moving, how the surgeon is operating the console and then see how that affects patient outcomes,” Hares explains. 

He is not alone in seeing this potential. Ericsson reckons 5G will essentially convert hospitals into data centres and doctors into data scientists. 

5G, it says, will allow doctors to remotely monitor blood sugar levels, track implantable medical devices, and even use in-house monitoring devices in patients’ homes to check their wellbeing – all done because 5G has much higher data processing power, so can allow for a constant stream of almost real-time personalised information to be collected. 

Data, data, everywhere

Remote working potential extends much further than healthcare. Mining, an industry which still suffers thousands of fatalities each year, is experimenting with the use remote-controlled and fully-automated machinery.

Just this year, telecoms company Telia announced it was entering into a partnership with Volvo and Ericsson to use 5G at a research and development facility in Eskilstuna, Sweden, allowing them to loop up and connect more devices and control them from outside the mine.

“We can see that the industry’s interest in 5G is considerable,” claims Anders Olsson, chief executive of Telia Sweden. “Automation of the entire flow will mean new ways of working and greater gains from efficiency. But to connect business-critical machines and vehicles requires a solution that is able to handle the massive amounts of data with guaranteed connection. That is what 5G can give us.”

Remote working could go even further. Microsoft’s Hololens augmented reality (AR) goggles are already capable of overlaying detailed holographic information on the world around us. The latest version has an improved field of view and brightness, as well as the human machine interface and eye-tracking needed to help people complete tasks effectively.

At $3,500 a pair, they have been designed not for consumers but for workers – beaming instructions say to those inexperienced staff in remote places, allowing them to repair equipment or train new personnel on the job without the need for them to attend workshops. 

It doesn’t run on 5g – yet – but it points to an immersive, data rich industrial future. A 5g equipped Hololens 2 is widely expected.  

A lot of noise but no substance… yet

But should executives take the plunge and invest in 5g? After all, the Hololens doesn’t require 5G to work. Recent figures show investment from many businesses has yet to arrive – consulting firm EY found that less than 10pc of companies were investing in 5G technologies.

And a report from the government-backed Digital Catapult last year suggested business leaders were waiting to see whether 5G lives up to the hype before committing cash to the technology.

It is a sentiment Felicity Burch, director of innovation and digital at the Confederation of British Industry, agrees with. At the moment, she says, 5G is “more opportunity than mainstream reality”. She suggests companies do not want to scrap legacy systems that still fulfil their purpose. 

Meanwhile, businesses in rural areas will be forced to wait simply because the network will not be available where they are. Those in old-fashioned buildings, or even surrounded by trees, will suffer from 5G teething problems because 5G’s short wavelength can be easily be blocked. 

But legacy systems don’t present an insurmountable hurdle. “5G can be applied not just to brand new factories, but also all the factories that have come before them,” says Craig Hayman, chief executive of industrial software giant Aveva. “Those factories that have been built over the last 10, 20, 30 years? You can put this amazing connectivity into those existing infrastructures.”

Companies, he says, can fit things such as “lick and stick” sensors like the ones at Worcester Bosch, which will then start transmitting data through 5G access points, providing companies with oceans of data about their factories. 

Jobs on the move

If factories can adapt, people will have to as well. Around 1.5 million British workers are at high risk of losing their jobs due to automation, figures released earlier this year by the Office of National Statistics suggest. Alongside the shelf-fillers, cashiers and valets at risk are weighers, graders and sorters employed in many British factories.

While Andrew Stephenson, minister for business and industry, says he is “optimistic” about automation, he concedes that there will be a “displacement of workers”. 

Stijn Broecke, senior economist at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), is already seeing the effects of this phenomenon. “We see that there has been enormous growth in high skilled jobs in OECD countries,” he explains. “But if you’re a low skilled person, you’re going to struggle to get these high-skilled opportunities. The people who are most affected by the changes are the people least likely to benefit.”

Today food retailer Ocado’s plans for distribution centres run entirely by thousands of robots, capable of putting together 50 grocery orders in five minutes, are no longer seen as futuristic. 

But it isn’t all bad. Just as Hololens’ AR technology is aimed at bolstering workers, not replacing them, automation can and, in some cases does, create jobs. In Spain, which has one of the highest robot density levels per worker in Europe, figures compiled by VoxEU show that companies which brought in robots between 1990 and 1998 saw jobs in their companies boom by more than 50pc between 1998 and 2016. More generally, companies which adopt robots are thought to increase job numbers by an average of 10pc. 

And in Worcester, staff certainly aren’t panicking. The 5G factory trial is about “allowing that piece of equipment to speak to us and interact with us and inform us of its condition,” says Andy Bentley, production systems manager at Bosch. 

“People can plug in and get a full diagnostic with the equipment so we can react quicker and smarter. Things will always break. But if we reduce the time it takes to do it or pre-empt them, the proof in the pudding is that we can react to it quicker and have less downtime.”

The effect, Hayman says, provides more information and, essentially, “more capability to the people who operate within that factory”

Part one of our 5G series explains how the new network will shape all of our lives for years to come. Part three of the series will look at​ transport and smart cities, and goes live next Monday, July 22 at 6am.

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