• Imagine , Waking up in the morning every drop of water you use, electricity , consumables and cooking gas that you use in getting ready for work is instantly accounted for
• Imagine, Online Gaming and Schooling co-exist with devices being light and mobile to reach any corner of the country
• Imagine, Work – Play – Partying all become virtual with collaborative immersive experience and continuously learning beyond a 7D movie we experience today
• Imagine, every human being, animal, vehicle, transport , borders are video monitored to ensure compliance to health, rules, boundaries and priorities
• Imagine, Education is practice based with virtual reality and real life scenarios and in line with the acumen of the individual – making active learning for life a reality

The above 5 and many more which each one of you can think of can be applied to the above eco system of the subject. While 5G is just the beginning of enabling that process through the new architecture, the initiative has to be taken by the innovative start-up’s to capture the enormous marketplace created.

Surely, regulation and enablement by government and authorities to make the above real is having a massive business case

What is fascinating is the foundation will continue to evolve and it is time that the Digital players take the learnings from evolution of Earth and accelerate to ride what will be a definitely roller coaster ride but full of fun, pains and money

Cloud operators like AWS with their Wave Length offering are already establishing them in that direction and we can clearly see their marketplace getting filled up , not by the Fortune 500 but innovative start-up’s. Current focus is gaming and IOT but the above examples will soon catch up and I will not be surprised if they are not already being piloted or used in real world today which I may be ignorant about.

While most of the following is supported by 5G but with containerization through Docker / K8 , 100% opensource , REST API’s and Microservices the cost to build such application has not only become open to all but agile and comfortable the battle hardened IP guys

Examples of Core 5G Start-up’s

UNMANNED LIFE – Also part of a recent crop of startups to receive backing from T-Mobile, Unmanned Life is already a force to be reckoned with in its own right. One of the world’s leading 5G AI startups, with a focus on automation, the London based startup is a pioneer of Autonomy as a Service, which allows for the deployment of large, interconnected and fully-autonomous teams of robots and drones for industrial and smart city applications.  

GHOST ROBOTICS – A potential competitor to the iconic Boston Dynamics, Ghost Robotics is another member of Verizon’s first generation of 5G Studio startups working at a state-of-the-art campus in Brooklyn. Ghost Robotics is using 5G to further improve robot-to-robot communications between its legged robots, allowing for true autonomous performance, while also improving reliability and efficiency by means of 5G’s ultra low-latency connectivity.  

PHANTOM AUTO – Also part of Verizon and NewLab’s 5G Studio, Phantom Auto is using the low latency and high bandwidth provided by Verizon’s own private 5G network in order to develop a remote piloting solution for autonomous vehicles. The startup has garnered a great deal of attention over the past few years as it has scaled up its automatic custodial services for autonomous cars. The idea is that, if a self-driving vehicle experiences a malfunction, 5G will allow a human operator to take control remotely, preventing accidents or delays.

GARRISON TECHNOLOGY – Based in the UK and backed by KPMG, Garrison Technology is working on an innovative way to reduce cyber threat in a 5G connected world. The company uses its platform to offer enterprise customers ultra-secure browsing by converting “risky content” – like HTML, javascript, PDFs, etc. – into raw pixels to sanitise it, before converting it back. As 5G drives an explosion in net traffic, security functions like Garrison’s may become essential to resisting a global spike in targeted cyber-attacks. 

MOVANDI – One of the major barriers to 5G adoption at the moment is the fact that higher frequency (and therefore higher speed) signals have limited range and are often blocked by walls and other obstacles. California-based startup Movandi has had a guiding hand in the development of other radio frequency technologies and is now turning its hand to boosting the performance of 5G equipment. 

FOAM – Part of a new 5G Studio incubator based in Brooklyn, operated by NewLab in partnership with Verizon, FOAM is a blockchain-based location mapping and tracking startup, which is using 5G to help authenticate locations of various objects on blockchain in near-real-time without sensors while addressing privacy concerns by utilizing 5G mobile edge compute to run an Ethereum client that connects to the blockchain.

PENSANDO – Based in California and backed by Qualcomm, Pensando is working on delivering distributed computing solutions for the edge, combined with customer hardware. The company’s edge computing innovations will supposedly help enterprises better handle the increased volumes of data generated by 5G adoption, as well as AI and IoT loads. 

EDGEQ – A lot of the 5G chip manufacturing conversation has been focused so far on applications for smartphones. EdgeQ, which has a veteran team led by ex-Qualcomm exec Vinay Ravuri, is building a chipset with the connectivity of 5G but the computing power necessary to support AI workloads.

HOMEBASE – Based in Kansas City, Missouri, Homebase is one of a recent batch of startups to receive backing from US telecom T-Mobile. The company was founded in 2016 and offers one of the only hubless smart building solution, build for a 5G and IoT capable world, allowing building operators and tenants to manage everything from building wide wifi connectivity, to smart access control and other smart building systems as a 24/7/365 managed service through the Homebase.ai platform. 

INCEPTIONXR – Backed by Swedish telecom giant Ericsson, InceptionXR is using the potential of 5G to deliver augmented and virtual reality solutions for entertainment and education purposes. The company has two main offerings so far. Bookful uses augmented reality to create accompanying AR and 3D animations for books. The service has already received a Parents’ Choice Award and its 3D books have had success in improving children’s focus, engagement and creativity. The other product is Inception VR, which is developing engaging experiences in music, art and culture, with original content.