Besides offering faster speeds, increased reliability, and greater capacity to move more data across more devices than any cellular network before it, what makes 5G so powerful is it allows businesses to reimagine and optimize how they do business. Here are just a few examples of 5G use cases—with many more cutting across industry verticals.
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Better experiences and outcomes in healthcare
Healthcare is one of many industries where bringing information to people instead of having people go to the information can have dramatic impacts on productivity and efficiency.
Today, digital health platforms from companies like Zyter can offer secure and highly-reliable telehealth, home health, and remote patient monitoring to more people in more areas using T-Mobile’s 5G network—which can free up both patients and providers to get more done in their day. 5G also acts as a force multiplier when deployed within healthcare facilities such as T-Mobile’s installation at Miami Veterans Affairs (VA) Healthcare System—untethering doctors and nurses from workstations so they can spend more time treating patients and less time hunting down information. They can view data-intensive files such as imaging results, lab work, and medical charts on portable devices from anywhere in the facility—including their patient’s bedside.
Ultra-capacity 5G enables terabytes of health data to move around healthcare facilities with unheard of speed and reliability, opening up a world of collaboration and machine-to-machine communication that will help save lives and dramatically increase the efficient use of caregivers’ time. And combining 5G with other technologies, like XR headsets, opens up a whole new world of possibilities for medical professionals and their patients. Instead of looking at individual data points in isolation on a series of disconnected charts and images, doctors can use computer-enhanced visualizations, fed by data sources from around a hospital. This will allow doctors to achieve a holistic view of their patients to diagnose conditions and devise treatments more efficiently.
On the other end of the spectrum, 5G-enabled solutions will eventually improve paramedics and first responders’ ability to interact with ER doctors in real-time to deliver critical patient care, whether in the field or in route to the hospital. With 5G-connected ambulances, it becomes easy to imagine an ER physician guiding a paramedic wearing augmented reality goggles to perform a life-saving procedure.
Enabling a paradigm shift in education
Like healthcare, higher education also responded to the massive disruption of the COVID pandemic by enabling students to learn remotely. As colleges and universities transitioned to virtual classrooms, the experience highlighted pervasive challenges—but also universal opportunities.
Fisk University in Nashville worked with HTC VIVE, T-Mobile, and VictoryXR to create an interactive 5G-powered VR human cadaver lab for students in pre-med and biology-related majors. Unable to purchase and store human cadavers before the pandemic due to cost and facilities limitations, Fisk can now not only provide students with immersive lessons but also attract prospective students with an entirely new way of learning.
In the future, the ability to slice the 5G spectrum into dedicated channels aimed at specific data types, geographies, or activities will prove very beneficial to making 5G available across sprawling campuses. Use cases beyond campus walls—for instance, athletic events—could also benefit from network slicing. Different functions such as drones for stadium security and broadcasting the event, point of sale network for vendors, and coaches on the sidelines could all benefit from dedicated network resources provided by 5G networks.
Pre-COVID-19, providing cutting-edge digital experiences like these to students and faculty was not a priority for many institutions—but it is now. According to Aberdeen Strategy & Research, the No. 1 technology to promote student success is 5G, with 83% of respondents to a recent survey of higher ed institutions saying 5G is very or extremely important to their IT modernization plans.
These institutions need to retire aging and redundant wireline infrastructure, develop exciting new digital services for students and faculty, and attract Industry 4.0 research dollars. They also need to entice new students with interactive campus environments that facilitate continuous learning using XR technologies. Immersive, 5G-powered XR solutions make it possible to re-envision the classroom from a place you go to an experience you can embrace anywhere. By combining 5G with other high-speed networking technologies such as Wi-Fi 6, colleges and universities will be able to disrupt thousands of years of linear knowledge transfer from teacher to student—instead, creating immersive, experientially-driven learning that engages students as active participants.
How Manufacturers, field services, and construction benefit from 5G
5G-enabled XR technologies are being used today by field technicians to troubleshoot equipment problems, perform routine maintenance, and quickly train new hires. A real-time, live-feed option allows a supervisor to see what the technician sees so they can guide them through unfamiliar processes and help solve problems without having to be anywhere near the job site.
For instance, 5G is poised to make construction robots more versatile and useful. Currently, Sarcos’ Guardian XT lines of humanoid robots are controlled by operators connected via wires. Initially, 5G will be used by human operators for remote viewing. But in time, 5G will remove the need for operators to be anywhere near the robots they control. These robots will then be able to handle higher-risk activities, allowing companies to both protect workers and deploy them more strategically.
Older generations of cellular and Wi-Fi were too limited for such data- and device-intensive operations. With 5G, manufacturers can link thousands of devices together and move terabytes of data around on a single network without having to settle for bulky wired connections throughout the factory.
The ability to run massive numbers of devices on the same network without data throttling is one of the reasons the construction industry is so interested in 5G. Today, the use of 5G in construction sites is still in its infancy but that will change. It is easy to imagine a connected job site that uses real-time tracking technologies to keep workers safe and to know where equipment is at all times.
Drones flying overhead can monitor the job site for dangerous situations, perform inspections, and provide site security—all while feeding data to AI models running on-site (via the network edge) that can alert operators and project managers to potential problems in real time. As in other industries, XR goggles can be worn to help workers learn new skills and execute unfamiliar tasks with precision.
No longer just the art of the possible, the future of 5G is now
Once firmly in the realm of science fiction, use cases like these and many others are either happening today or just over the horizon. Businesses’ imagination and ingenuity is already creating a world where 5G-enabled devices—be they sensors, robots, or connected machines of all sorts—exist side-by-side with humans to make the world a safer, more reliable, and far more efficient place.
See how else 5G is changing the game for business at 5G HQ by T-Mobile for Business.
5G: Capable device req'd; coverage not available in some areas. Some uses may require certain plan or feature; see T-Mobile.com. 5G use cases are still emerging and new devices being created; see details on current 5G capabilities & services.
