Next-generation 5G technology helped enable the current digital transformation at work and home, but now everyone just wants to return to in-person events.
Mobile World Congress, the mobile and telecommunications industry's premier conference and expo event, was back on during the week of Oct. 25 after a COVID-19 hiatus, but the mood around the possibility of virtual worlds and digital interactions had clearly shifted. Eighteen months ago, companies and consumers began moving their working relationships, social interactions and entertainment out of the physical world and into the digital. By the time of the event, speakers either said outright or implied that the world is exhausted with virtual interactions.
"We as consumers have become increasingly cognizant of the ways the last five to 10 years have not been healthy for everyone," said Matthew Ball, technology and media investor and former Amazon.com Inc. executive, said during an MWC keynote. "Do we want a society premised upon virtual and remote interaction? COVID-19 made it very clear where that is inadequate."
Schools, for example, have not transitioned to online-first education and "we as a society have largely resisted it," Ball said.
Instead, high-speed, low-latency 5G is being adopted more inside the classroom. For example, medical students are able to work with virtual cadavers instead of physical bodies, conducting virtual surgeries and medical examinations collaboratively and in real time inside the classroom, said David Christopher, AT&T Inc.'s head of 5G ecosystem development. In a physics lab, students can take fundamental principles off the page and apply them to real-life situations in virtual environments, even learning how the principles of physics apply on the moon or Venus, Ball offered.
Still, event speakers stressed that the COVID-19-era shifts to remote working and socializing are in some ways permanent.
"Distance learning and remote working are here to stay," said Sampath Sowmyanarayan, Verizon Communications Inc.'s chief revenue officer for its business unit.
Despite acknowledging a more remote future, Sowmyanarayan highlighted 5G's value for in-person events. He discussed how its Multi-View product with the NFL augments the in-stadium experience for football fans. He also highlighted the company's deployment of a 5G network on passenger boats entering the popular Port of Southampton in England to enable tourists to plan their visit without clogging up the mobile network. He went on to discuss how 5G can enable internet of things solutions for business and enterprise.
"Sports, boats and IoT. We are standing at the precipice of a fully connected economy," Sowmyanarayan said.
As a new normal emerges that combines in-person and remote events, QUALCOMM Inc. Chief Marketing Officer Don McGuire said his company is being hired to solve problems with on-campus or intercampus interactions just as often as it is to deliver remote solutions.
"Building the VPN capabilities and on-network capabilities becomes more demanding, and special computing more demanding, as we get to a new normal," he said.
Many of the comments associated with the importance of returning to an in-person world came from speakers attending the conference virtually. But those that spoke in-person on stage repeatedly offered a kind of knowing relief.
As Rakuten Symphony CEO Tareq Amin put it at the opening of his keynote address, "I must start to tell you how delighted I am to be here with you physically today. My only worry was: Will my jacket actually fit me today? It's been a while."