5G Spotlight #3: Metaverse, and 5G - A New Synergy for the Future

When Facebook changed its name to Meta, it started what could prove to be the first iteration of a metaverse. While the technology behind a metaverse has been talked about to the point of becoming buzzwords, what does it mean? Why is a metaverse important?

And, keeping in line with the DNA of V&D, how will 5G help? In the third edition of 5G Spotlight, we dive into the virtual world of metaverse - the internet of the future.

The Tech Behind Metaverse

First things first, since metaverse promises to be such a breakthrough, the technology has really been talked about. 5G, AI, ML, AR, and VR, have become, as I mentioned before, buzzwords, however, each of them plays a crucial role in making it possible. Here are some of the components of a metaverse, in no particular order.

Artificial Intelligence

Currently, AI has many roles to play. The world has been harnessing its ability to ease complicated tasks by taking "shortcuts" as humans would do. For instance, a smartphone chipset usually has an AI core now, to help with repetitive tasks, saving energy and time. However, AI does not just limit itself to that. AI has an array of "tools", that can help the metaverse take shape. All through the metaverse, from its infrastructure to its implementation, AI will be at or around the core of it.

Companies delivering metaverses will look to deploy AI at the Edge - taking the vast amount of data generated there and delivering the best value for the customers. Deploying Edge Computing will allow companies to make the most of data - the new oil. AI will also allow decentralization of everything that goes into making a metaverse. With open networks, open RANs, and open APIs, AI will enable decentralization, and ensure maximum uptime, while delivering the best service quality at all times. With decentralization, AI will also allow smart control over the metaverse for the administrators, which is just as important in a successful implementation.

However, apart from the enabling role of AI, it will also help shape the metaverse.

Using AI, developers have been creating the "avatars" within the metaverse; it will help create photorealistic representations of real users. More specifically, companies are using AI to reduce the time it takes to make a photorealistic model of a person. Along with this, since a metaverse will allow people to interact with the objects inside it, developers are using AI to optimize interfaces. From Elon Musk's Neuralink to eye-tracking technologies, AI will help create ultrarealistic environments within the metaverse.

One of the last stages towards perfecting a metaverse would include merging language and vision. Right now, AI-powered language processing models are not visually-aware; they don't know what they're looking at. Soon, though, they will become a reality, and therefore, it will lead to even more realistic AI storytelling, creative partnering, and machine understanding.

The Devices

The only way people are going to interact with a metaverse is via devices. XR devices such as smart glasses, and immersive headsets, are something that tech giants like Meta and Qualcomm are riding hard on. Meta has already had its own VR headset, called Oculus. What's more, Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipset powers Oculus, and thus, the chipmaker has reasons to believe that metaverse will become big over the next few years.

VR headsets for metaverses are not the only gadget Qualcomm makes; it also makes equipment for drones, wearables, smart city operations, industrial sensors, and others. However, the smartphone business remains the most important devices business for Qualcomm. Incidentally, mobiles would become the first devices used to access the first metaverses. However, Cristian Amon, the CEO, said at a recent event, "there's more to Qualcomm".

Because of the metaverse, the demand for devices will grow, and Qualcomm has one of the largest stakes in consumer devices. Therefore, according to the CEO, the company is looking at a $700 billion opportunity.

The Next Generation of the Internet

"If you're going to spend time in the metaverse, Snapdragon is going to be your ticket to the metaverse," Amon added. Since many large tech companies are planning their own metaverses, Qualcomm's interest comes as no surprise. A metaverse represents a great monetization opportunity for everyone involved - from device makers to telcos.

The conversation is not limited to just headsets. Companies such as HaptX have been developing VR gloves, which will use haptic feedback to allow people to "touch" things inside the metaverse. Equipped with a headset and a pair of gloves, users can pretty much interact with objects inside the metaverse, for a truly immersive experience. There is virtually no limit to what devices can do, all we have to do is wait.

Extended Reality Technologies - AR and VR

In essence, Metaverse will use AR and VR as user interfaces, albeit nothing of the sort we see right now. We already know the potential of AR/VR. However, right now, it has limited application outside of games such as Pokemon Go. In a metaverse, the developers will use AR/VR for spatial computing, or, to render the space around a virtual person, an avatar inside a metaverse.

Spatial computing, in essence, is something that RPG games have been doing. However, with a metaverse, that experience will become a first-person experience, rather than the third-person experience a video game provides.

Spatial computing proposes hybrid real/virtual computation that erodes the barriers between the physical and the ideal worlds. … Wherever possible the machine in space and space in the machine should be allowed to bleed into each other. Sometimes this means bringing space into the computer, sometime this means injecting computation into objects. Mostly it means designing systems that push through the traditional boundaries of screen and keyboard without getting hung up there and melting into interface or meek simulation.

- Simon Greenwold, Spatial Computing

Since Greenworld first published his work on spatial computing, the world has seen rapid developments in the field. We have already discussed the hardware side of things, and AR/VR enables the software aspect of the metaverse.

Here, the software will allow for the following:

• 3D engines, to display geometry and animation. Game studios, with their expertise in worldbuilding and rendering, will play a critical role in the beginning.
• Mapping and interpreting the inside and the outside world. This includes geospatial mapping and object recognition.
• Data integration from devices and biometrics from people.
• Voice and gesture recognition, to allow for better interactions within the metaverse.
• Next-generation UIs to support multiple, simultaneous information streams and analysis.

With extended reality technologies, there is no limit to what a metaverse can do.

5G - The Bedrock of the Future

With its low latency, high speeds, and high capacity, 5G will become the first generation of networks to properly support a metaverse. A metaverse, as we have discussed, will be the next-gen way of delivering the internet experience. Right now, our internet experience comprises of opening multiple tabs on our browsers, using apps, and so on. On the other hand, within metaverses, we will get everything in a single place. All of this requires a network that can support huge data traffic that these metaverses will generate.

AR and VR have been around for years now, but with 5G, companies can deliver high-quality content with better latencies and network qualities. Telcos need to partner with companies in the field, develop use cases and look to monetize the network further. VR will benefit the most from 5G’s network capacity and speed. Since VR service providers can stream ultra-high quality content. This can be used at museums and sports arenas, for example. This can also translate into an ARPU rise of 4-5%, per McKinsey.

These use cases might appear niche, with only as much as 30% of users going for them. However, these use cases can increase telcos’ ARPU by as much as 9.5%. For telcos to succeed, they need to develop an ecosystem, so they can provide a catalog of user experiences. 4G saw the telcos being reduced to just CSPs, with no role in the value chain. Even though 4G transformed how people work and developed new habits, telcos were more or less left out of all the value that followed. Since 5G offers more use cases, it offers telcos more headroom and allows them a better place in the value chain.

A few years ago, pre-4G, customers valued simplicity. This reflects upon the evolution that 4G sparked, and 5G would carry forward; customers now are adapting more to immersive experiences. The metaverses will only represent the move towards more immersive internet experiences.

When Will It Be Actually Relevant?

The devices are going to be the way how people interact with the Metaverses of the future. I say Metaverses because every company would want their own take on it. Meta has already started on the path and will trailblaze for companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft to follow up.

Why those three?

The three tech giants have the largest ecosystems with devices and software solutions in the world. Therefore, if anything, these companies will bring out some iteration of their own metaverse down the line. And why not? A Google metaverse, let's say, as an extension of its Android Ecosystem, looks like the next logical step. There are literally hundreds of millions of Android-powered devices across the world, if not billions; Google has a huge opportunity. It's the same for Apple and Microsoft; they, too, have large device ecosystems, and moving on to a metaverse, integrating every device and service in one place, has to be the next evolutionary step.

But then again, we're getting ahead of ourselves.

According to a Qualcomm report from last year, XR devices will follow a similar trend as that of mobile phones. Therefore, if we are talking about a truly immersive experience, it will take time. Mobiles took some 30 years to develop to the form factor we are familiar with; expect a similar, although steeper, trajectory from AR/VR devices.

Therefore, for at least the next decade or so, metaverses will remain experimental at worse, and a novelty at best. However, this is not to undermine the potential of the technology. As I mentioned in the beginning, metaverses are going to be the future of the internet. The way we interact and ever perceive the internet will change radically over the next few years.

Needless to say, exciting times are coming.