5G only revolutionizes teaching if it reaches students, say experts

5G solutions can revolutionize virtual learning and, by extension, education. The way technology spreads around the world, however, is uneven.

This was the topic of one of the debates held this Thursday (2) at the Mobile World Congress, the world’s leading technology fair, focused on the telecommunications sector, which takes place this week in Barcelona.

The pandemic was a good demonstration of this with countries around the world closing their schools and needing to hastily organize a scheme for students to learn remotely. “It was a huge challenge in emerging markets,” said Rob Shuter, CEO of BT Enterprise, a British telecommunications company.

“There are three problems to solve. People need the skills necessary to use the technology, they lack connectivity — something we take for granted in developed markets — and they needed solutions and services, such as Zoom or cloud technology”, he analyzed. .

Shuter compared the African and Asian markets, where a third of the population has access to the mobile internet (and, there, almost all access happens through the cellular network) to European countries, where it beats 90%.

“I think 5G can be transformative, but the industry needs to work on these issues,” he said.

APPLICATIONS

​Mazen Mroue, head of technology at MTN group, tele from South Africa, listed some benefits of technology to solve problems in emerging markets. One of them is the possibility of connecting students to better teachers through the internet. The measure, she believes, would serve to tackle the lack of qualified professionals in certain markets. In addition, 5G can be an easier alternative in places where the school is difficult to access, or unsafe.

In these cases, what appears to be a differential for 5G is the speed and stability of the connections, which allow you to attend classes remotely even in places without landline telephony.

The possibilities with 5G, however, do not stop there. Its higher speeds allow the use of immersive technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality.

In virtual reality, users are fully immersed in a digital world. For this they can, for example, use specific glasses. In augmented reality, digital elements are added to the real world. It can be with glasses or even through the cell phone screen – like in the game “Pokémon Go”, in which the little monsters appear through the camera as if they were physically there.

Such technologies demand a lot from internet connections, so current standards may not keep up with the demand. There, 5G appears as a potential solution.

A classroom could be equipped to take students from a remote location to an immersive experience that allows them to see animals from a distant region in real size, for example.

Rob Shuter, from BT Enterprise, cited a study by Stanford University in partnership with the Technical University of Denmark that points to a 76% gain in efficiency to remember content when using immersive technology.

In other words, the applications of technology are not restricted to connecting students to classes, a factor that had its importance catapulted by the pandemic, but also to what can be done within schools.

“I still imagine seeing 20 children in a room interacting. It’s not putting each one in their own bubble with virtual reality glasses”, says Irene Pipola, from the EY consultancy. “A technology differentiator is, for example, when studying geography, seeing a country on an immersive 360-degree screen instead of reading about it – but with all the students together.”

And these benefits don’t just appear in traditional education. To illustrate, Pipola cites a technician performing maintenance in the middle of a railroad. An augmented reality solution can help you visualize the procedures required for the operation – 3D objects showing which screw to tighten, for example. “In this case, the only alternative is 5G, since that person would be in the middle of a railroad”, he evaluates.

Leilani DeLeon, from Qualcomm, a company that produces chips, also cites benefits for the school’s operation. 5G promises to connect many other types of devices, such as cameras and sensors.

A smart camera at school, for example, could check if students are missing classes and take the need to make the call out of the hands of the professional.

ACCESS

Brazil appears as an example of countries that lack internet for students. The country entered the pandemic with 4.3 million students without internet access.

This is one of the issues to be tackled in the coming years with the implementation of 5G in Brazil. The auction of the fifth generation telephony frequencies in Brazil raised R$ 3.1 billion to connect public schools. According to an estimate by the Ministry of Communications, the fifth generation of mobile internet should reach 85% of schools by 2028.

A study by the GSMA, the entity that brings together telecoms, released this Monday (28) points out that the total number of 5G connections made in the world should reach the symbolic mark of 1 billion by the end of this year, doubling the mark reached in 2021, and reaching 1.8 billion by 2025, equivalent to one fifth of global connections.

There is great inequality in the distribution of technology, however, which appears strongly in South Korea, China and the USA. It only reached all regions now, three years after the start of implementation, with the arrival in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa.

Differences happen even within geographic areas. By 2025, the GSMA estimates that 64% of mobile connections in developed Asia will be via 5G, 63% from North America. For comparison, rates should be 8% in the rest of Asia and 11% in Latin America.

The hole is not so much in the roof. Of the 3.7 billion people disconnected, only 500 million are in areas where the signal does not reach, points out Mats Granryd, director general of the GSMA. The rest are offline for other reasons, such as cost — both in the purchase of mobile devices capable of connecting to the network and in the plans themselves.

In Brazil, the expectation is that “pure” 5G (in networks built exclusively for this technology) will cost R$250 per month upon arrival in 2023.

So far, twelve capitals are ready to receive 5G, according to the Ministry of Communications. Coverage already reaches 15 cities with Claro and 8 with Vivo, according to the GSMA report.

The journalist traveled at the invitation of Huawei