While Malaysia strives to move into the 5G era, the current 4G mobile network connectivity is still found wanting in many areas in the country, including the Klang Valley.
Mobile users in areas such as Taman TAR in Ampang, Jalan Damai Jasa in Alam Damai, Cheras Hartamas and certain areas in Subang, Selangor, face connectivity issues.
Wong Sew Kin, a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Engineering, Multimedia University, said there are areas within the Klang Valley that face a drop in network signals.
“Even places near my house in Bukit Beruntung, Rawang, have no signal at all let alone the internet,” he said, adding that more needs to be done for telecommunications infrastructure in Malaysia if it is to be on par with nations such as Singapore and China.
“We are venturing into 5G now but there are still problems with connectivity. We should address this to solidify our mobile network infrastructure so that we are able to make quick and steady advancement without having to worry about minor issues. It is important that we iron out the kinks.”
He added the lack of network signals can be attributed to the lack of base stations, or simply known as telco towers, in certain areas.
“As far as I know, the building of base stations has nothing to do with the government as it’s usually up to the telcos and they prioritise providing network connectivity in highly populated and commercial areas.
“However, the government can play its part by providing incentives for telcos to set up more base stations to ensure that we are fully connected,” he said.
Anusha Ravi, a resident of Alam Damai in Kuala Lumpur, told theSun she often has to direct her e-hailing drivers through the phone to her residence as the drivers are unable to use navigation apps due to the poor network signal.
A resident of Taman Billion in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur, said he has faced poor network coverage for years despite being close to commercial areas.
“I have complained about this many times but nothing has been done,” he said, adding that he has to walk some distance away from his house just to make a call.
However, another expert who declined to be named, specialising in base station construction and installation, said the government is already doing all it can to ensure connectivity.
“The government, through the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission’s Universal Service Provision fund, provides contractors and telcos opportunities to develop network infrastructure and connectivity in under-served areas, especially rural places.
“To my knowledge, sometimes we face issues such as a drop in network signals due to lack of base stations within a certain range. Sometimes there is no land to build base stations in between.”
Telcos sometimes face problems when planning to build base stations due to protests by residents in the area.
For instance, residents in Taman Sri Puteri, Bayan Lepas in Penang, successfully lobbied for the removal of telco towers in their area recently.
Among their reasons was that the towers were too close to their homes and thus were a health hazard.
Tutela, an independent crowdsourced data company, noted in its “State of mobile Networks 2019: Southeast Asia” report last year that Thailand beat Malaysia in a test where a mobile connection was good enough for basic internet usage.
The Philippines and Indonesia came out third and fourth.
“All four countries in the report are relatively close when it comes to basic quality. Thailand takes first place, with users able to make a voice over internet protocol call – a technology that allows you to make voice calls using a broadband internet connection or check emails at least 92.5% of the time when connected to one of the country’s networks.”
The battle over 5G network suppliers is part of a broader push by the Trump
administration to check China's rise as a global technology powerhouse.PHOTO: REUTERS
Has China surpassed USA in education?
https://youtu.be/FTndIELsh48
How China’s tech sector is challenging the world - Part 1
https://youtu.be/veEMMi9BCUE
Huawei CEO: "US companies will suffer the most"
https://youtu.be/MlZU3ktM95w
The Point: Does China need to teach the West lesson in 5G?
https://youtu.be/DTghfxg_DEE
LIKE it or not, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR4.0) is upon us.
Sure, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has shown political resolve in pointing Malaysians towards a new course in reaching higher levels of industrialisation. Lest we forget, IR4.0 simply embodies digitalisation. It’s powerful – where speed, sophistication and the profound impact of digital technologies are integrated into orthodox industries on a massive scale.
Frankly, I worry that – until now, as the process of digitalisation in Malaysia lags behind what’s happening around us – the lack of preparedness and of real resolve to act with clear plans and programmes will (unlike China) leave us further and further behind as domestic politics continue to overwhelm. Previous technological shifts followed the onset of the steam engine in the first industrial revolution; then came electricity, the internal combustion engine, the telephone and the light bulb which is the second; followed by the third which moved from analogue to digital (web 2.0) as reflected by the personal computer, networking, the Internet and data/IT.
Digitalisation
In the digital age, economic activity results from billions of online connections. They involve not just people and organisations, but also data, devices, systems and processes. Its backbone is hyper-connectivity. It’s where the effects of technologies and platforms (such as Internet, artificial intelligence (AI) robotics, 5G, computational biology, the Internet-of-Things or IoT, data analytics and computational analysis) give rise to whole new industries, creating significant massive shifts in productivity and jobs.
Outside Malaysia, the digital economy is taking shape and undermining conventional notions about how businesses and organisations are structured; how they interact; and how consumers get their information, goods and services. For example, mall car parking in China is done digitally – after scanning the car’s number plate, the car is directed to an empty lot; and when it leaves, the system automatically deducts the fee from the e-wallet. Simply, components in the digital economy are transformed or empowered by digitalisation: the fundamental process where data is generated, collected, analysed and eventually serves as the single most valuable asset. And so, data becomes the most valuable currency.
Today, China, Germany, the United Kingdom, South Korea and Japan lead the world in digitalisation – way ahead of the United States. China’s digital economy accounts for about one-third of its GDP: arising from two components (i) the orthodox ICT industry; and (ii) the digital empowerment of conventional industries (like agriculture, pharmaceutical, transportation, services, etc). This part contributes 75% of what’s digital.
Today, digital technologies have created a new virtual and autonomous economy (VAE) beyond mere production. Here, businesses & their processes make use of intelligent functions to boost economic activities – slowly but surely, they begin to render human activities increasingly obsolete.
The VAE is all about distribution – who gets what from production. This changes everything: from politics to free market beliefs to social structures. It all started in the ‘70s and ‘80s when ICs (tiny “integrated circuit” microchips) brought real computational assistance to the economy – arrival of the personal computer.
Then, the 1900s and 2000s brought in the connection of digital processes through the Internet; web services emerged, and the cloud enlarged computing resources. Everything started to talk to each other. Globalisation arrived. Since then (the 2010s), the onset of wireless networks through the use of a range of sensors brought into focus, data – using tons of data to enable machines to “see” via intelligent algorithms.
So, came computer vision (ability of machines to recognise), natural-language processing (ability of computers to “talk”), digital language translation, face and voice recognition, inductive inference and digital assistance. The use of masses of data to form “associations” began to give “life” to computers (beginning to act like humans), making them “intelligent.”
The new intelligent building blocks – using information, enable digitalisation to re-architect the way businesses do things. As a result, entirely new industries (never even thought of) will spring up.
Lost jobs
In 1930, Lord John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2030, the use of robots will lead to “technological unemployment”. This is now a reality – 10 years ahead! Jobs get increasingly scarce.
The orthodox economy will have by now produced enough for all. In the new VAE, physical production matters less; access to what’s being produced becomes key – distribution, i.e. who gets what! The new distributive era brings new economic and social realities: (i) belief in free markets (which prize efficiency over distribution) will be under pressure, since losers are rarely fully compensated in practice; (ii) the way to measure growth will also change (since GDP and productivity are now measured in terms of physical production) so that virtual advances in value-added will be properly accounted; (iii) workers feel disenfranchised as digitalisation replaces many of them – creating a quiet anger about immigration, inequality and elitists.
5G
US dominated 4G mainly because regulators got out of the way of private risk-takers. This led to the coming of mobile wireless Internet. Europe and Asia are still smarting over the United States having beaten them to the 4G finish line. By 2016,4G added almost US$100bil annually to American economic output and created numerous wireless-related jobs. It also powered the rise of the “app economy” because tools like Uber, Airbnb, Netflix and Waze require superfast mobile speeds to work.
Most apps weren’t even envisioned a decade ago; now nearly three-quarters of the companies in the global app economy are American. Other countries know they will reap massive economic returns if they knock the US off its perch as the 5G economy unfolds. Indeed, Europe and Asia are poised to surge past the US when it comes to mobile Internet innovation.
The next generation mobile broadband or 5G will allow entrepreneurs to create new technologies and products that we don’t even yet know we need. Ten years ago, most consumers didn’t have a smart phone; now most can’t live without them.
All of this happened thanks to 4G. With 5G, mobile speeds could be 100 times faster. This could enable driverless cars to avoid accidents, transform medicine through implanted medical devices, and produce smarter cities and energy grids through the emerging IoT.
Countries that build their 5G networks first will be in a better position to experiment with and deploy tomorrow’s technologies. Their first-to-market advantage could displace Silicon Valley and other US tech cradles. Already the United States is very much behind compared with Europe, South Korea, Japan and China. Since 2015, China has built about 350,000 cell sites, against fewer than 30,000 in the United States. That’s a huge competitive disparity because 5G requires far more cell sites grouped closer together than 4G.
The robot is part of a broader trend in China, where techcos are teaming up with a variety of industries – agriculture, auto-mobile, healthcare – to explore the possibilities of combining 5G and AI to revolutionise traditional sectors.
From conducting the world’s first 5G-enabled surgery on a human and transmitting 8K ultra-high-definition TV content through 5G networks, to piloting self-driving buses and cars, China is pioneering cutting-edge technologies for commercial use. The high-tech push is expected to accelerate now that China just kicked off the 5G era at speeds at least 10 times faster than 4G. So it is possible to gather high-quality data quickly, which is necessary to ensure AI is effective. AI applications have existed before the commercial use of 5G. But it is the superfast speed, gigantic computing capacity and massive device connectivity of 5G that will spawn the use of AI in most sectors and on a far larger scale. 5G’s responsive speed can empower mission-critical applications that are impossible with 4G networks.
When a needle pinches your finger, it takes one-hundredth of a second to feel the pain. And theoretical latency of 5G is one-tenth of that. Only with such speed can remote surgeries and autonomous driving see wider applications. In March 2019, a patient with Parkinson’s disease underwent China’s (and possibly the world’s) first 5G-based remote surgery. Digital technologies such as AI, next-generation network security, robotics, blockchain, IoT, 3D printing and virtual reality all depend on data. 5G addresses this need for data collection with its quick, smooth transmission.
The most important use of AI is to allow machines to automatically make decisions. The best application is self-driving vehicles where 5G will allow decisions to be made more reliably. When a car runs into emergencies (like a pedestrian suddenly jaywalking), a delay in seconds of data transmission among sensors equipped within the car will likely cause a potentially grievous, even fatal, accident. 5G can prevent such things from happening.
6G
While 5G is set to have a revolutionary influence on society and industries, 6G will bring more dramatic changes with super high speeds and ultralow latency. Theoretically, downloads over 6G can reach the astonishing speed of 1 Tbit per second, one thousand times faster than 5G’s capability of 1Gbit. In the 6G era, in less than a second, a new movie can be transmitted from the Internet to computers or smartphones. But 6G will go way beyond entertainment. For many researchers, 6G is capable of addressing some of the shortfalls of 5G and enabling streamlined connections with super performance in speeds and latency – for instance, the IoT and augmented reality.
Beijing started preliminary work on 6G research at the end of 2017. China’s 6G concept research and development work will start in 2020, with an expected commercial release in 2030. In Europe, 6G moves will mainly come from Finland. As I see it, Europe and China will need to join hands to work on 6G: because (a) cooperation is of strategic importance for both. 6G will greatly improve applications under 5G. With larger bandwidth, much lower latency and wider connections, it can revolutionise the structure of wired and wireless networks.
New 6G technical solutions can include satellite communication technology. This means a large number of places that are not covered by communication signals (for instance, deep oceans where base stations cannot be built) will have the possibility of transmitting and receiving signals in the future; (b) such cooperation will help Europe cope with the risks of lagging behind; and (c) it would be a natural extension of their proven 5G cooperation.
What then are we to do
The 5G technology promises to be the backbone of tomorrow’s Internet, transforming virtually every industry, including weaponry and manufacturing, by offering seamless wireless connections up to 100 times faster than current 4G networks. Its speed and capacity enable innovations, such as driverless cars, robot-run factories and Internet-connected pacemakers. It is said often enough that we tend to overstate the impact of technology in the short run and understate it in the long run.
One of the widely misquoted statistics concerns an imminent job apocalypse: automation will slash 47% of US jobs by mid-2030. In truth, the real finding of the two Oxford dons simply concluded that occupations accounting for 47% of current American jobs (including those in office administration, sales and various service industries) fall into the “high risk” category.
No attempt was made to estimate how many jobs will actually be lost. Much depends on cost, regulatory concerns, political pressure and social resistance. Historically, new technologies have always ended up creating more jobs than they destroyed. In the long run, all should work out fine. The short term is likely to be bumpy.
Simply because new technologies take time to raise productivity and produce wage gains. But, one thing is certain, automation is likely to boost inequality in the short run. So, policymakers need to really manage the transition: making greater use of insurance to compensate workers who have to move to jobs with lower salary; reforming education systems and support retraining and lifelong learning; extending income tax credit to improve incentives to work and reduce inequality; removing regulations that hinder job-switching; providing “mobility vouchers” to subsidise relocation as the distribution of jobs changes; and changing zoning rules to allow more people to live in the cities where jobs are being created. Sure, all these make sense. But will policymakers pay attention? To be frank, governments are incredibly unprepared for what’s to come.
The bottom line? Power brings with it great responsibility. Those in the technology and AI space have a moral imperative to ensure the ethics of data and technology – especially to help policymakers navigate complex ethical issues involved in using AI and robotics.
Most data relate to people – hence, the need to understand human behaviour. Technologies provoke a whole raft of new ethical issues involving transparency and accountability of business processes and decision making. Then, there are issues of privacy and rights connected with personal data. Not to forget that machine-learning algorithms often introduce bias.
Resolving them requires an approach grounded in ethics and an understanding of the causes of bias – traditionally the province of philosophy and sociology. In the end, the challenge lies in formulating transparent rules and ethical standards that can be agreed by the large scientific and technology community. That’s always tough!
BY Tan Sri Lin See-Yan who is Research Professor at Sunway University. His new book: Trying Troubled Times Amid Trauma &Tumult, 2017–2019 (Pearson). Feedback is most welcome. The views expressed are the writer’s own.
This photo of Shanghai Bund is taken by Chinese Satellite with 24.9 billion
pixels of quantum technology. It's worth seeing! You can zoom in, zoom
out when you look at it. You can clearly see every gesture, even face of
pedestrians on the road. You can see the license plate. Photos can also
be moved up and down, left and right. It is said that this is the
latest development of China's military science and technology
achievements, hidden, indeed suffered harm!!! It can also be rotated.
Press'+'to zoom in and'-' to zoom out. Left and right rotation. It's too
clear!
Quantum
Technology will be used in 5G phone very soon. Europe and US are scared
to death now because this technology is monopoly in nature
Why did Canada arrest the CFO of Chinese tech giant Huawei? – Samsung surrendered its Chip IP right to US companies in order to survive
By Janus Dongye, Researcher at University of Cambridge
The detailed reason for this arrest has been revealed. Huawei CFO Wanzhou Meng is suspected of conspiracy to defraud multiple financial US institutions. The US Judiciary found that there was a company called Skycom that traded with Iran during 2011–2014 and Huawei was suspected to control the company Skycom at that time.
So the accusation is about the old Iran sanctions 7 years ago. And you might wonder why someone brought this up at this particular time.
There is something else that you need to know to understand this incident.
Global 5G Battle
5G is the fifth generation of cellular mobile communications. It succeeds the 4G (LTE/WiMax), 3G (UMTS) and 2G (GSM) systems. 5G is the new critical node for the future global supply chain. This is the ultimate technology that determines the communication/mobile networks in the next 10 years. Therefore this is a big cake that everyone wants to get a slice from it.
The whole 5G framework can be divided into two key technology: the modem chipset and router infrastructure.
On one hand, the modem chipset is installed in your phones and other sensors that need to be connected to the Internet.
The current 5G modem chipset patent (IP) is held by:
Huawei (China), Qualcomm (US), Samsung (Korea), MediaTek (Taiwan), Intel (US), Apple (US) (rumoured).
On the other hand, the router infrastructure is placed in base stations all over the buildings and towers. It directly talks to the 5G modem in your mobile phones and translates your 5G requests to the Internet.
The current 5G router patent (IP) is held by:
Huawei (China), Nokia (Finland), Ericsson (Sweden), ZTE (China) Surprise Hah?, Cisco (US), Samsung (Korea).
There are two hidden traps from this 5G technology that other people might not tell you:
The router and the modem chipset must be compatible, and therefore a standard must be settled in order for them to talk.
The modem chipset is deeply coupled into the system on a single chip with CPU and GPUs. The system is normally shipped as a package.
If you hold the 5G modem IP in a SOC (System-on-chip), you can also bind your CPU and GPU IP in a package. That means whoever controls the 5G IP would also control the whole market of the CPU and GPU intellectual property. If you hold the 5G router standard, you can also control the modem standard and then control the whole system standard.
For example, if the US were to allow Huawei to sell its 5G router devices to Verizon or AT&T, then Huawei could make all of its base stations to only support its own modem standard. Then you could end up with the whole system package delivered by Huawei as well. Then the US might have to buy more devices made by Huawei in order to use 5G.
That’s how Qualcomm rose from a small company to the top simply based on its 3G patents. And you can see that Huawei and Samsung is the dominant player here that they both control the modem and router patents.
However, owing to the pressure of the US government, Samsung surrendered its chip IP right to US companies. This is the fundamental difference between Samsung and Huawei. Because the South Korean market is so small and therefore Samsung has to surrender to the US in order to survive.
Samsung Galaxy S10 Comes with Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC and 5G Service – Tech News Watch
You might wonder why Samsung does not use its Exynos processors in US but it has to use Qualcomm one? That is the pressure from the US government.
Meanwhile, Huawei gets the full cultivation in the Chinese market and does not fear the US government. It never intends to go to the US market as well. What it focuses on is the adoption in China and the rest of third-world countries. If you read the following recent news, you can get a feeling that China is really leading the global 5G battle in all three fields: technology, adoption and market.
Chongqing launches first 5G trial network
‘World’s first’ 5G call completed by Vodafone and Huawei
China Mobile and China Unicom to start 5G trials | TelecomLead
Briefing: China’s mobile operators granted nationwide 5G licenses · TechNode
The Chinese government said it would perform nationwide 5G adoption using Huawei technology around March 2019. Please note that this is a market of 1.4 billion people that is US population and Europe population combined. And the Chinese government is pushing this really hard, unlike the US stuck in legislation as you can imagine.
Meanwhile, the first adoption of 5G belongs to South Korea, which is four months ahead of China:
South Korean carriers set surprise commercial 5G launch for December 1 And compared to the US government, both Chinese and Korean government are very efficient in promoting 5G infrastructures. In this manner, US companies are really lagging behind. This could firstly cause wide-spread fears among the US companies. It is very likely that those companies would lobby the US Congress to ban Huawei at first. The arrest happens just before the Huawei 5G technology is going to be adopted commercially in China.
It is very likely that some people wanted to disrupt the growth of Huawei. Everyone talks about the Huawei arrest. But no one is talking about who initiated the investigation against Huawei and who filed the case in the US juridical system in the first place?
Another interesting side note during the incident:
Cisco temporarily bans employees from China
I suspect CISCO could be the one who actually filed the case to ban Huawei.
