Why 5G and the Edge Could Be the Keys to the Metaverse
Why 5G and the Edge Could Be the Keys to the Metaverse
Since Facebook’s rebrand to Meta last year, the hype around the ‘metaverse’ has been full steam ahead. Countless articles about what it is, what it isn’t, might be, or could be, have touched all corners of the internet. The term may be new to many, but the concepts and technologies involved in augmenting or replacing our day-to-day reality with a digitally enabled virtual world have been around for years.
In 2021, it was estimated that the global metaverse market size stood at $39 billion and in 2022, this is expected to rise to $47 billion, before surging to $679 billion by 2030. While much of the attention is focused on the cloud aspects of a ‘metaverse,’ let’s not forget that it will not get off the ground until underlying telecoms networks can support it — not just for a few of us, but on a national and global scale. Access networks allow us to connect to the cloud, bringing the metaverse to wherever we are.
A greater emphasis needs to be placed because it is higher bandwidth and lower latency in tandem that are crucial to any concept of a metaverse. The big question is whether our current network infrastructure can offer the high bandwidth and low latency required, at scale.
Read why 5G should be able to offer the necessary bandwidth for the success of the Metaverse.
Read also why the continued evolution of Edge computing will help to become the ultimate enabler of metaverse use cases.