Getting a feel for the sweep of event’s biggest advances
LAS VEGAS — The only way to get a handle on a show as large as CES is to meet with as many folks as you can and hear the highlights of what’s happening from some of the movers and shakers in technology. So that’s what I did Wednesday. The following are some of my notes from the first day of the big show.
5G on the way: Even though you still can’t get 4G LTE service everywhere, the mobile industry already has a new version of wireless networking in the works.
Telecommunications equipment makers and carriers have been developing for several years a 5G — or fifth generation — standard that will eventually supplant LTE.
TROY WOLVERTON
TECH FILES
But they’ve started to go from development to actual tests.
Carriers are testing early versions of 5G in more than 10 spots around the world, including in Japan and South Korea, Hans Vestberg, CEO of Ericsson, one of the leading telecommunications equipment companies, told me in an interview at CES on Wednesday. The first commercial 5G networks should be up and running around 2018, he said. Previous wireless standards focused largely on increasing the speed at which data can be transmitted across the network. The new 5G standard will do that, too. Right now, the test equipment is supporting transfer rates of up to 5 gigabits per second, and Vestberg said Ericsson expects to boost that to 10 gigabits per second soon. (That’s the total amount of bandwidth the tower would be able to transmit; it would be divvied up among all the devices that connect to that tower.) Indeed, Ericsson had a 5G test system on display at CES that was showing speeds of up to 5 gigabits per second. But 5G will do more than increase speeds. It’s the first wireless standard that’s being designed with the Internet of Things specifically in mind. Each cell tower will be able to connect to tens of thousands of devices, compared with about 2,000 that can connect to an LTE tower, allowing whole homes full of connected devices or whole roads packed with connected cars to go online.
The standard is also being designed to have very low latency, which is the time between when a signal is sent and when it is received at its destination. Ericsson expects to have latency below 10 milliseconds; by comparison, LTE latency is in the neighborhood of 100 milliseconds. Having delays that short could allow remote operation of cars and equipment in nearly real-time.
Even though 5G networks will start rolling out in just two years, it will likely take much longer before the technology becomes the standard throughout the world. While 4G has taken off in the United States, it’s still being adopted in other countries.
Don’t expect Epix a la carte: Despite breaking up with Netflix and still failing to reach a deal with Comcast, Epix has no plans to go HBO’s route and offer its channel directly to consumers.
That was the word from Michael Greenberg, CEO of the upstart premium cable network jointly owned by Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn Mayer and Lions Gate Entertainment. Epix is content to stick with its business model. That involves licensing its movies to streaming providers like Hulu and Amazon and offering its channels as premium add-ons to pay TV bundles from both traditional providers like Time-Warner Cable and newer ones like Dish’s Sling TV.
“It’s a great business model,” Greenberg said.
Despite all the talk about cutting the cord and breaking up the cable bundle, Greenberg argued that consumers really do want a bundle of content, rather than having to manage and pay for a collection of different apps or services individually. He also argued that HBO and Showtime aren’t really offering their services directly to consumers because in many cases Apple or other companies are handling the billing relationship with customers.
Greenberg and Epix are betting that the company can make more money by offering content in more traditional ways. Time Warner added Epix to its lineup in 2014 and Dish’s Sling TV added Epix soon after it launched last year. Epix has seen a significant number of signups through both providers, he said.
To be sure, things can always be better. Epix is interested in signing a deal with Comcast, but hasn’t been able to reach terms with the company, Greenberg said. Epix’s deals with Hulu and Sony, signed in the wake of its breakup with Netflix, have almost made up for revenue lost from the deal with the streaming giant, but not quite, he said.
Indeed, Greenberg didn’t want the deal with Netflix to end. But Netflix wanted to have an exclusive relationship, where it would be the only streaming provider to offer Epix movies, he said. That was an arrangement the companies had in the past, but one that they had moved away from, and Epix wasn’t willing to go back to it.
Providing the tools for the Internet of Things:
The showpieces at CES so far have been all the Internet of Things devices, the everyday gadgets that are gaining new features thanks to embedded computer chips and communications.
But you can also find companies here in Las Vegas that have the less glamorous — but perhaps more important — job of getting those gadgets online. I met with a couple of those companies Wednesday.
Ayla Networks provides what goes inside the device, a cloud service that allows users to connect to it, and the technology underlying the apps that consumers use to interact with their smart things. The company is working with some 75 different companies, including Hunter fans, helping them get their devices online.
Ant Wireless, meanwhile, is offering a wireless communications technology that can link smart devices to computers and smartphones. The technology works in the same frequency band as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but it requires less power and allows devices to talk to each other without going through a central hub. Contact Troy Wolverton at 408-840-4285 or twolverton@mercurynews. com.
