In Search of the Killer 5G App

AT&T and Comcast joined the 5G Open Innovation Lab, a venture that has been funding start-ups and others working in 5G research. Along with looking to improve 5G edge technology, a primary goal of the OAI Lab is to search for killer apps for 5G. The group hopes that adding the large carriers will help to continue to support the 118 start-ups that have already been funded by the organization which has raised over $1.5 billion. I always find talk of a killer app to be interesting since that was never the real goal of 5G. Carriers implemented 5G because 4G networks were headed toward a collapse. The carriers needed to spread cell traffic over new spectrum to keep networks functioning. The big carriers are finally starting to implement some aspects of the 5G specification that are aimed at further improving the network. For example, network slicing will right-size the bandwidth used by every customer transaction—a change that will allow many more people to use a cell tower at the same time.