USA TODAY International Edition
5G is coming, so what the heck is 10G?
You were just starting to get your mind around the concept of emerging 5G wireless networks, and now the cable guys are banging the drum at CES for something called 10G. The claim is that this is the speedy new “next great leap in broadband.”
Sound familiar? You hear much the same from the many companies pushing 5G, notably the likes of wireless carriers Verizon and AT&T.
Before we plunge too deeply into this latest round of geeky gobbledygook, know that the Gs here represent two different naming conventions, and they're confusing: 5G stands for next-generation wireless; 10G, on the other hand, connotes cable's ramp up to 10 gigabits per-second speeds. And while overlap and competition exist between these two approaches to broadband – the former is wireless tech, the latter wired – the technologies are also complementary.
“The naming convention to me is a bit of a sideshow,” says former FCC chairman Michael Powell, now president and CEO of NCTA – the Internet & Television Association, whose members include cable companies such as Comcast, Cox and Charter, as well as media giants like Disney, NBC Universal and Viacom.
NCTA, along with CableLabs (the R&D lab for the cable industry) and the Cable Europe trade association, announced cable's ambitions for 10G at CES this week.
U.S. cable operators behind the 10G initiative include Comcast, Charter, Cox, Mediacom and Midco, with several more international operators on board.
Meanwhile, Intel plans to deliver 10gigabit ready technology to support the rollout, which will take a bit of time: field trials begin next year; commercial deployment likely comes 12 to 18 months later.
Competition or a complement?
People like to equate this to “'Game of Thrones,' and somebody is going to be vanquished by the other,” Powell said, in response to a question about 10G being the cable industry answer to 5G. “The reality is the country and the world will always have and always need both a really powerful wireless network and a really powerful fixed network. I think we often segregate the two more than we should. They really work in tandem with each other to deliver consumer experiences.”
What the cable industry is promising with 10G are speeds that are 10 times faster than today's fastest networks, along with low latency or network responsiveness. And the fast speeds apply to both uploads and downloads. The backers of 10G also say this futuristic broadband will be more secure and reliable; time will tell.
And 10G promises to disrupt many of the same areas as 5G, including smart cities, health care, gaming, video streaming, virtual and augmented reality, and education.
CableLabs president and CEO Phil McKinney says that if you look back to the dawn of cable modems and broadband, people didn't immediately know how they would take advantage of what were the blistering speeds of the day. “Without that investment in the broadband network, we would not have YouTube, we would not have Netflix, we would not have video collaboration technologies like Zoom," he says. "The network had to come first . ... We want to create the best platforms for others to innovate on top of.”
Powell adds that while homes today might have a dozen or so connected devices in them, many analysts are predicting that we'll eventually have more than 50 devices, all “trying to compete for capacity” in our houses.
Of course, 5G also has a place at home, with Verizon, in particular, focusing its early 5G efforts on so-called fixed wireless.
To take advantage of 10G when it finally does arrive, you'll almost certainly need a new cable modem and other electronics gear.
But Powell says the rollout of 10G does not require digging up the street or any kind of massive reengineering. “This is something we can do with the guts of our existing networks,” he says.
The foundation is already in place. Cable networks currently offer 1-gigabit service across 80 percent of the U.S., up from just 5 percent in 2016, with similar gigabit services available by cable operators across the world.