In the midst of its affair with Apple, Qualcomm planted the flag as the dominant force in the mobile processor market with the launch of the Snapdragon 855.The company, which controls most of the Android market, showed in Hawaii what will be its chip destined for the high-end smartphones of 2019, a generation that will be marked by the irruption of 5G technology at a massive level.
Cristiano Amon, general manager of the firm based in San Diego, was commissioned to do the honors and introduce the world the component, a SoC (chip that includes CPU, GPU and modem in the same structure) called to inaugurate the era of communications through fifth generation networks.
The announcement went far in the technical (for that they will allocate the second day of conferences) and much in the possibilities that this technology will offer to the whole society: from its impact on gaming, to its use in industry and Gigabit level speeds that the big telcos will offer from next year.
These new features have the potential to change not only telecommunications, but also the way people relate to technology.
The expression is not exaggerated: the deployment of 5G at a massive level is a bet that changes the way in which the society of the future is conceived, in which any device will have the capacity to be connected to a network.
In this sense, the low latency, the reduced energy consumption and the very high speed that augurs this development fit as a ring to the finger both at home and in the company and public areas.Because it is importantThe 5G networks are not simply a facelift for the current 4G. They are designed to provide significant increases in capacity (up to 100 times or "100X"), speed of response (10X), density (100X), maximum speeds (several gigabits per second) and reliability.
These drastic improvements in performance will not only impact on users' current experiences, but will also drive new use cases for wireless services.
Among them stand out the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Vehicle-to-Everything Cellular (C-V2X) or "connected cars" and extended mobile reality (XR) that will allow immersive environments to be enjoyed in real time from the phone . In other words, virtual reality and augmented directly from the cloud.
What seemed like science fiction, today is closer than ever to materialize. Even the operators have already put the start date: 2019 will be the year in which North America, Europe and much of Asia will assist in the activation of the first fifth generation services for private users.
Nicki Palmer, head of Wireless Networks of the first mentioned, said that the 4G will not be left to its fate.
"There is still a lot of innovation that is incorporated into the fourth generation networks, and this will continue to happen in the future, as work to provide the best in the whole service," he added.
For the executive, collaboration between companies was essential to accelerate the deployment of 5G, originally scheduled for the end of 2020.
The development as a whole allowed those dates to go ahead and today there are already tests in US cities such as Sacramento, Los Angeles, Houston and Minneapolis, in view of its general opening in just a few months.
Taking advantage of the "momentum" is key to this expansion. In Latin America, however, times are different.
Ignacio Contreras, global director of Marketing 5G for Qualcomm, confirmed in dialogue with iProUP that all the major operators in the region have shown interest in joining the new standard, but clarified that the times will depend on various factors that exceed the technology.TIM, in Brazil, is one of the main development partners for the region. It is estimated that, in Rio de Janeiro, the first commercial networks will be operational by 2020.
In Argentina, on the other hand, the panorama is diffuse. Movistar made progress on the issue, but for now it seems very far from facing a project of this kind in the local market.
Claro did not announce any plan in this regard and Personal, except for some isolated tests, does not have a confirmed roadmap.
The tentative date that was handled in the corridors of the event, which was attended by operators and manufacturers from around the world, is 2021.
Everything will depend on the improvement in the current network infrastructure and, from the government side, the bidding of the necessary spectrum so that the technical advances of those already available can be turned to the end users.The phones, ready for the 5G revolution
On the side of mobile phone manufacturers, what is the picture?
Fifth generation networks are designed to impact all types of areas, but mobile telephony will be the first to benefit.
The arrival of the Snapdragon 855 to the market is extremely important for a fundamental issue: it means, broadly speaking, that any Qualcomm partner that launches a high-end smartphone in 2019 will be ready for its team to be 5G.
The partners, of course, are true "heavyweights".
Qualcomm introduced the partners that make up the SnapDragon 855
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Samsung, the number one producer in the world, confirmed at the conference that it will present its first equipment prepared for these networks at the beginning of next year. Of course, everything points to what will be the Galaxy S10, the flagship of the South Korean brand.LG, Sony, Xiaomi, OPPO, Google and Motorola, just to name some of the biggest manufacturers in the world, will also launch products with the integrated Snapdragon 855, which guarantees a great variety of options for the final consumer.
This is also interesting for the Argentine buyer, since most of these units will have circulation in the local market. Thus, anyone who acquires an S10 will be prepared to enjoy the next era of communications.
For Alex Katouzian, SVP and GM of Qualcomm's Mobile division, 5G will be the feature that will define "which teams will be premium in 2019".
It will no longer be the storage capacity, the camera or the screen resolution.
In a world where users can connect in a fraction of milliseconds to the cloud and consume applications hosted on external servers enjoying the same speed of response as an app installed on their phones, whether or not it is adapted to the "gigabit" era "It will be what determines the survival of the fittest. Pure technological Darwinism.