5GForum: the revolution is here

The mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre; the Minister of Employment, Business and Commerce, Javier Carnero; and the General Director of Red.es, José Manuel Leceta, inaugurate the 5GForum.

He 5GForum It started this Wednesday at the Digital Content Pole with the visit of the Mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre; the Minister of Employment, Business and Commerce, Javier Carnero; and the General Director of Red.es, José Manuel Leceta. Together with other Authorities, they visited the Demo Area of ​​the 5GForum, where they could see the connected car of the Automotive Technology Center of Galicia (CTAG) and the 360-degree video capture experience transmitted in real time presented by Nokia.

Francisco Hortigüela, director of Institutional Relations, Communication and Corporate Citizenship of Samsung Spain, was in charge of opening the sessions of this great event focused on 5G organized by Medina Media, which has Panorama Audiovisual as a media partner, explaining the importance of 5G for unlimited data and even for driving a car in the immediate future.

For his part, Jorge Alberto Jiménez, Executive President of Axion, a national wholesale operator of telecommunications infrastructure and services, has made a comparison between 4G and 5G. Jiménez stated that “The Fourth Generation still has life left, however, the one that is yet to arrive will live with us much more than its predecessor, since its possibilities are practically unlimited.”

Inés Sanz, Head of Customer Engineering at Hispasat, for its part, provided its interesting vision: "5G requires the inclusion of satellite to achieve internet for everyone and anywhere. And the satellite is wireless, just like 5G."

Óscar Pallarols, Director of Innovation and Product Strategy at Cellnex Telecom -the main wireless telecommunications infrastructure operator in Europe-, has highlighted the need for fiber to be able to use 5G and points out the speed of the technology: “When we see the first 5G in Spain, we will already be talking about 6G,” he stated.

And the world premiere at the 5G Forum was given by the President of Nokia in Spain, Ignacio Gallego. Attention, because it is not wasted: "We are going to leave the Earth. We will cover the Moon next year, in collaboration with NASA"… Wow! And 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo XVII space mission. What better than to celebrate this historic anniversary like this.

Javier Gutiérrez, director of Network Strategy and Development Telefónica, has explained how they are facing the arrival of 5G. The Spanish operator has been preparing for the jump to the new generation for five years. Because we must remember that the change in technology is going to be much more radical than previous transitions.

Fourth Industrial Revolution

Samsung returned to the stage in the afternoon, led by Daniel Borrás, Director of Marketing and Business Strategy at Samsung Networks Europe, to say that: “5G will mean the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

Tomás Alonso, Head of Product Engineering at Orange, has surprised everyone by stating that: “If today I want to see my daughter, who is hundreds of kilometers away, with 5G I will be able to see her and talk to her in real time through a hologram.”

On its first day, the 5G Forum also covered the application of 5G Technology in emergency services. Samur presented the “Intelligent Shirt” or Smart Shirt. designed to save lives in emergencies thanks to 5G technology. This “Smart T-shirt” measures the heart rate through sensors that notify an ambulance in the event of an arrhythmia, through the mobile phone using Bluetooth, and in turn communicates the ambulance's warning to the nearest or most convenient hospital for the patient, without having to go through a command and control center.

Manuel Ortigosa, General Director of Telecommunications and Information Society of the Government of Andalusia; Mario Cortés, Councilor for New Technologies at the Malaga City Council and Baldomero León, Innovation Delegate at the Marbella City Council spoke about what are known as Smart Cities. Although there is no agreed definition of this, both companies, institutions and experts agree that they are those cities that are committed to improving the lives of their inhabitants and, at the same time, to sustainability. And the province of Malaga is at the forefront of this concept.

Narcís Cardona, professor at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), explained in his presentation the application of 5G in biomedical engineering. “Imagine a surgeon remotely operating on his patient from the other side of the world.” This will soon be a reality with 5G.

The first day of the 5G Forum was closed by Juan Olivares, director of SVA and Business Development for Europe at Onmobile Global Ltd. Olivares is committed to mobile video games as a great source of income for companies in the sector. He has reasoned the infinite possibilities that video games will have with the arrival of 5G.

Today the 5G Forum continues with presentations from RTVE, Vodafone, Ericsson and SEAT, among others.