How non-cellular 5G is paving the way to a more sustainable future

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The technology arrives at a critical intersection (iStock)

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In July 1991, a world-changing phone call was made in the small city of Tampere, Finland. It was no ordinary call, but next to the big, dramatic events that year saw so many of, such as the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Gulf War, it didn’t attract much attention.

But sometimes tiny things can have big impacts. This phone call was one of those. It was the first GSM phone call, representing the beginning of the digital cellphone revolution, which led us to today when we think of mobile handsets as a necessity rather than a luxury.

Last year, something quite small happened again in Tampere, and it could have the same kind of retrospective significance: the demonstration of the world’s first non-cellular 5G network at a meeting of the DECT Forum, the non-profit organisation behind a non-cellular 5G standard called NR+.

Yet another development or standard in mobile communications might not sound like a big deal. We’re now in the fifth generation of cellular communications. And because your phone plan bill says 5G, your subscription provider can charge a bit more than they used to. But that’s not what we’re talking about when we talk about non-cellular 5G. Why should it be a big moment when 5G is already here?

Here’s why. Traditional 5G comes with subscriptions, just like your phone plan. The biggest difference between non-cellular 5G and the 5G you know is that non-cellular 5G is made for small amounts of data on a massive scale multiple times a day. In contrast, your 5G is made for massive amounts of data on a small scale, such as video calling someone a couple of times a day.

What’s even better, the technology does not need infrastructure other than the devices themselves. Non-cellular 5G is a purpose-built connectivity for devices to talk to each other on a scale of hundreds of thousands, millions or even billions of devices in one network. Imagine, for example, your town’s city lights all operated via a cellular 5G network subscription. That would be a waste of money, energy and resources. But with non-cellular IoT, those city lights could connect to each other and be turned on and off as required.

The implications are enormous

This technology arrives at a critical intersection, where climate, economic and supply chain crises have resulted in a general need to work with fewer resources. Imagine if we could decrease national healthcare budgets without reducing the level of care provided – not by laying off staff, but by reducing the time they must devote to menial tasks when they could be treating patients. For example, NHS nurses in the UK currently spend up to two hours per week just looking for items of equipment.

The use cases don’t stop there. Imagine if we didn’t have to throw away tons and tons of food before it goes bad – something that often happens before products even reach the aisles of your local grocery or supermarket. Imagine if we could save energy without no one having to think about switching off lights or heating: it would be done automatically when no one’s around.

We waste so much on things that simply aren’t being used. And it’s not just about the money. It’s about wasting resources in general. Imagine if we could streamline even the basic components of our modern infrastructure to ensure minimal wastage by adjusting things remotely. This is the true power, and value, of the internet of things: not just a way of connecting your fridge or your robot vacuum cleaner to the internet, but by linking industrial devices to save resources and cut waste on a massive scale.

The above are just a few real-life examples of what’s already being done, but we can do much more. IoT, run by non-cellular 5G, can make the world a truly better place, enabling us to optimise systems without having to cut corners. Companies can reduce waste, cities can save energy and countries can remove unnecessary steps in infrastructure logistics.

Together, all these add up to huge savings: in energy, material resources, and time itself, giving the opportunity to build a world that’s more sustainable and liveable for future generations. That’s what we all want. And although it might sound like a huge challenge, the steps we need to take are small.

At Wirepas, we’re looking to the future already and trying to help organisations get better at saving their resources, whatever they happen to be. The first NR+-compliant product has now seen its first public demos. It’s been well taken by our market and the ecosystem.

It’s a great start but we can’t do it alone. We need our ecosystem of hardware and solutions providers. What we need most is the will to make the changes toward a data-driven world with massive IoT.

We’re getting there. Are you?

Read more about our non-cellular 5G at wirepas.com/products/wirepas-5g-mesh.