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Surgery is scary at the best of times, but what if your surgeon was controlling the scalpel from halfway across the world?
This could be the new reality within a matter of years as technology companies look roll out 6G networks worldwide, according to a senior figure involved in its development.
6G’s nanosecond fast speed could now make ‘online surgeries’ possible for the first time.
What will make 6G unlike any other previous mobile networks is its latency, which is the time it takes for data to travel from a device to the network.
‘6G is a game-changer,’ said Greg Flak, a senior manager in networking and planning at tech company AWTG.
AWTG were instrumental in the implementation of 5G across parts the UK and are working alongside universities in the testing of 6G.
Flak added: ‘6G will be ten times faster than 5G and have fifty times lower latency.’
6G will be as close to ‘real time’ you could get, as the latency will be nanoseconds, compared to the 10 milliseconds it is with 5G.
‘It would not be detectable for the user, that is a massive amount of time for equipment,’ Flak told Metro at TechEx Global Technology Conference in London.
The results could be revolutionary for the health industry, argues Flak, and could even lead to the very first ‘online surgeries’.
‘The doctor is remote somewhere in India, and doing the surgery in the US with a robot’
‘This requires no delay. A surgeon will have to react in real time, every single millisecond from machine to machine counts. That is why it is possible with 6G.’
The latency of 6G could also make automated, or self-driving cars, ‘way safer’ because it allows for faster decision making and environment analysis.
Flak says that 6G could hit our devices by as soon as 2026, or 2027, even though the technology ‘is not ready yet.’
In order to transmit larger amounts of data, the frequency at which the data travels will have to be higher.
The equipment needed to transmit this higher frequency is yet to be manufactured.
Flak said: ‘For a ten times higher frequency for 6G,the antennas will start to be really microscopic.
‘It’s very hard to manufacture the transmitters that will be generating those kinds of frequencies.
‘Consumer equipment still needs to be manufactured and tested.
‘There is no 6G network already populated in the world. There are only test networks in the lab.’
The higher frequency will also mean a shorter range 6G can reach, limiting how effective the coverage can be.
‘‘I don’t think that we should expect 6G to be widely populated, because of the higher frequency,’ added Flak.
‘It will first only be used in small areas where there is high demand.’
An equally ambitious vision of care in England was channeled by Jake Parkinson, Intelligent Automation Lead at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Speaking at the TechEx Conference in London, Parkinson said his ‘utopia’ vision was for clinical decisions in the NHS to be ‘AI-driven’.
He said he hopes an ‘automation-first culture’ would allow doctors to focus on care.
Yesterday a senior Samsung research declared the company are ‘intensifying our 6G research efforts, focusing on AI-enabled communication technologies and sustainable networks.’
Samsung published a new 6G white paper, outlining the importance AI will play in supporting the transition to 6G.
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