Chinese telecom giant Huawei doesn\u2019t believe current telecom infrastructure is enough to cope with the needs of the Metaverse, adding that 5G and 6G networks just might. <\/p>\n
The comments came from Huawei\u2019s Middle East region’s Chief Expert on Business & Strategy Consulting, Abhinav Purohit, who published a three-part blog series on Dec. 20 focused on the potential of the Metaverse sector and where telecom companies will fit into the picture.<\/p>\n
Describing what the Metaverse is, or what its actualization will look like, Purohit outlined that a \u201cmetaverse is a collective virtual shared space\u201d which will \u201callow geographically distant participants to enjoy realistic, spatially-aware experiences that seamlessly blend virtual content in a user\u2019s physical world.\u201d <\/p>\n
He also added that the notion of an open Metaverse is closely tied to the Web3 movement as inbuilt economies will be enabled by \u201cdigital currencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).\u201d<\/p>\n
To realize such a vision, download speeds, streaming quality, mobile devices and Metaverse hardware \u2014 among other things \u2014 will likely need rapid improvements to enable a smoothly operated virtual sphere, he said. <\/p>\n
Purohit said delivering a fully polished and immersive experience, requires a host of tech advancements to take place, commenting: <\/p>\n
\u201cDelivering such an experience will require innovations in fields like hybrid local and remote real-time rendering, video compression, edge computing, and cross-layer visibility.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He also believes there will need to be changes to cellular standards, network optimizations and improved latency between devices and mobile networks. <\/p>\n
Purohit said that latency (responsiveness of a network), symmetric bandwidth (the speed in which data transfers) and quality of experience (network throughput) are the key issues currently holding back metaverse networks.<\/p>\n
He ultimately asserts that large scale adoption of \u201c5G networks will dramatically improve bandwidth while reducing network contention and latency, while 6G will increase speeds by yet another order of magnitude.\u201d<\/p>\n
To put 5G network speeds in to context compared to a fixed wireless broadband scenario, 5G can reportedly hit speeds of 1,000 Megabytes per second (MBps). These speeds make it much faster that the national average internet speeds in the U.S. of 119.03 MBps as per High Speed Internet data. <\/p>\n