Automotive

One of the main use cases for 5G is that of connected cars, vehicular communication services that include both direct communication (vehicle-to-vehicle, vehicle-pedestrian and vehicle-infrastructure) and network-supported communications for autonomous driving. In addition to this, the supported use cases will put the focus on safety and comfort behind the wheel, in aspects such as car sharing, route planning, coordinated driving and real-time traffic updates. This brings us closer to the concept of Edge Computing, a promising concept derived from cloud computing.

In the case of Edge Computing, the processing, decision-making and execution of actions is offloaded to the IoT devices, restricting the transmission of data in the cloud to those that are really important. These devices, called edge nodes, can be deployed anywhere a network connection is available: in a factory, on an electrical tower, on the side of a railway, in a vehicle, or on a oil company platform.  Any device with computing capacity, storage, and network connectivity is likely to be used as a border node. As examples we would have industrial controllers, switches, routers, embedded servers and surveillance cameras. 5G will allow border devices to communicate in a totally seamless way.

Industrial

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will be made up of a network of physical objects, systems, platforms and applications that will contain technology to communicate and share intelligence with each other, with the external environment and with people. The IIoT owes its rise in large part to the increased availability and affordability of sensors, processors, and other technologies that allow information to be captured, processed, and accessed in real time. 5G will not only offer a more reliable network, but it will allow extremely secure IIoT networks to be developed, integrating security into the backbone architecture of the network. One of the most common applications of private 5G networks will be private 5G networks.

Health

5G technology will allow the development of real-time networks necessary to revolutionize the health sector. Among its use cases, we will see live broadcasts and high definition video during surgical operations, which will allow remote monitoring. The concept of Telemedicine in real time will become a reality thanks to the increase in bandwidth. IoT sensors will be more sophisticated, being able to collect and transmit medical information with greater precision and degree of detail about patients on a constant basis. In this way, doctors could begin to examine and diagnose their patients during their transport in emergency vehicles, before arriving at the hospital, saving time that can sometimes make the difference between life and death. The 2020 pandemic has highlighted the importance of alternative channels for receiving medical care, and many companies have appeared that have developed applications to offer telemedicine services during this period. 5G is going to boost the use of these applications to make our visits to the doctor much more profitable, saving us waiting times.