Huawei’s W. Genovese on 5G, Its Value and Potential

Healthcare, Technology, Financials Author: Beier Kan Editor: Luke Sheehan Jun 05, 2020 06:40 PM (GMT+8)

“An umbrella term, 5G is a basket of technologies. What is driving the adoption, investment and deployment of 5G is the higher bandwidth and low latency that other technologies are requiring for optimal usage in mobile and smart devices.”

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EqualOcean held an exclusive interview with William Genovese, Vice President of Corporate Strategy Planning for Banking and Financial Markets at Huawei. We discussed the status quo of the fintech industry, the promise of the new generation of wireless technology and how the Chinese electronics juggernaut is leveraging the latter to disrupt the former. Below are the key insights from our conversation.

In this chapter, we touch upon 5G, its value and potential. Check out the rest of the interview: 

The User’s Perspective, Fintech and 5G
COVID-19 and 5G
5G and Fintech
Huawei and 5G


What is 5G?

“If you ask different people about 5G, you will get a bunch of different answers. 5G is not one single product, solution or technology. The same with blockchain, for example: you cannot point at something with blockchain and say that is a blockchain. Instead, that it is a basket of technologies. 5G comprises infrastructure, hardware, software, business and operational support systems, amongst other aspects of the telco.

But generally speaking, it's the next generation of the mobile network in terms of wireless connectivity and usage. It is a new global wireless standard. Other reference points are 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G and LTE.

5G is going to eventually be available mostly everywhere. It is not just wireless communication or connectivity to your phone. There is a real differentiator versus previous network generations because 5G is going to bring together machines, objects and smart devices in terms of the Internet of Things, also enabling convergence of AI, IoT, big data and blockchain for intelligent connectivity.”

What is driving the adoption, usage, development and investment in 5G?

“What is driving 5G to make things happen is the higher bandwidth and low latency that is required for applications in a mobile setting that are leveraging and using video, AI, IoT, and big data. Thus, the performance boost, compared to other standards like 3G or 4G, will be drastic, and users will be able to connect more devices and things. That is one of the key differentiators.

When we go into 6G, the impact will become even more dramatic. For example, theoretically, many schools will not only connect machines but present the surface, so students can see things 360 degrees around them. You will be able to interface with several devices, which could be your bathroom mirrors or refrigerators. You will be enabling different types of information that are brought to you.

The keywords here are peak data speed, ultralow latency, connection reliability with more devices and massive network capacity.”

Go mobile or not?

“Investing in wireless technology, along with the mobile strategy, is a double-edged sword. In the past, many industries did not go down the path of a mobile strategy because the performance was not that great. For example, Why am I going to have video streaming or multi-dimensional dashboards from a mobile device? If I cannot use it, the service and the performance are horrible. So, it is a hand-in-hand thing for a company to have a mobile strategy in an industry. Will companies want to experience 5G in the same way? We are finally at a crossroads with that right now. Companies’ mobile business strategy, content and edge computing business strategy will influence 5G investment and adoption to a large extent.”