In 2022, Crypto, Satellite Communications, MCX and 5G will make steady progress, while 6G and Web3 will just be sound bites.
Dusting off the crystal ball is not getting any easier for each coming year. On the contrary, getting a clear picture out of it is becoming more challenging every year. We live in times when distortion - err, trends - are abundant and persistent, some short-lived, such as SIP-based peer-to-peer networks, and some lasting a lifetime, fluctuating in and out of the background, such as the work on intelligent transportation systems. Many trends remain such for a long time, only increasing in intensity - can such "trends" be called "permanent?"
Let's have a look at ongoing long-term trends.
Ongoing Digital Transformation, often commonly called digitalization, extends to more and more facets of our lives - and yes, the trend will continue in 2022 and beyond.
Cybersecurity is daunting, but a critical necessity and the Achilles Heel of each and every business, organization, and governing body today - and this game of cat and mouse will continue to be played at higher and higher speed and skill levels in 2022 and beyond.
Video conferencing, the economic savior of the modern world over the past two years and the power engine behind the new hybrid work model, will continue improving in 2022 and beyond. There is still much to do to make it easier, faster, and better (it pains us greatly to observe the complete lack of lip-syncing in so many video communication solutions).
There are currently more than 7,800 cryptocurrencies traded on a variety of crypto exchanges, and we should expect this number to increase even if we will ignore the advent of NFTs in 2022 and beyond.
Cloud Computing is becoming more and more widespread, powerful, and sophisticated and this trend will continue in 2022 and beyond.
All of these "trends" are ever-present in our crystal ball and have been for a number of years, and you can appreciate how badly they obscure the clear view of the future (ahh, and otherwise we would have no problems predicting it correctly). With so much happening already, what we would like to offer are a few observations for the things to come. These might not be yet fully baked trends, but in our opinion, they warrant some attention, as we are quite convinced that you will see more of them in 2022 and beyond.
Now let’s look at what’s likely to be new trends in 2022:
#1: 6G
Of course, we are nowhere near realizing the full potential of 5G which is slowly, very slowly becoming a reality. The question is: is it even prudent to identify 6G as a trend? Well, we can say what we want, but this world is ruled by marketing, and the marketing machine for the "new, latest, greatest, obviously better than before technology" is already in motion. So yes, consider it a trend. Nobody yet knows what 6G will encompass technically, but the possible use cases for next generation wireless technology are already compiled by the 6GWorld and other organizations, which will translate into requirements and technical specifications. The current expectation is to see 6G implementations in about 10 years time, but we all know that timing roll-out predictions for the technology world are the worst, so let's just keep our eyes open.
#2: Web3 and dApps
Heard of Web3 yet? At the moment, it’s a concept somewhere between technology and philosophy, but it seems to have quite a following, so it is worth discussing it. Web1 was the original World Wide Web when websites were more of an aggregation of static files capable of serving information (content) that was pre-installed. Web2, the current paradigm, was enabled by dynamic HTML, allowing users to have full interaction with websites, and moreover - instead of pre-built information, users can create their own content, which we now call a "social" element. However, in Web2 all the content is aggregated and provided by companies that now "own" it. In Web3, the paradigm shifts to the fully distributed, peer-to-peer network of nodes (servers), where nodes have a trust relationship enabled by blockchain algorithms. All interactions in such networks can be fully anonymous, and each interaction can also be controlled by the exchange of tokens, which can carry monetary values (cryptocurrency-based). Such distributed networks now call for the new concept of applications - distributed applications - hence the dApps acronym. I'm sure this all sounds too esoteric at the moment, but we should watch this space as Web3 might have a significant impact on the way businesses work.
#3: Metaverse
Let us not forget about the metaverse. Remember Second Life? It’s back, under a much fancier moniker - metaverse. This is a parallel universe where we will all be able to hide from real life, or maybe we will just move there. The Second Life was ahead of its time as 20 years ago computational power was simply not there. Today, when a typical graphics card can beat handsomely any CPU in performing highly specialized tasks, the virtual world can be drawn with an absolute degree of realism. Distributed Web3 architecture together with an abundance of virtual currencies becomes a perfect canvas for the meta universe to be drawn upon. Watch out for the technological race for dominance in this brave new world - nobody will be spared.
#4: Satellite communications
Of course, there is nothing new about satellite-powered communications that has been around forever. However, satellite access was always a scarce resource with very limited capabilities (transmission speeds) and very expensive. The game changer is the new player in the house - LEO - Low Earth Orbit satellites. Multiple companies (Amazon, Starlink, others) are involved in creating a large network of LEO satellites - it is expected that 18,000 LEO satellites will be circling Earth in 2025. These satellites are expected to offer bandwidth of up to 25 MB/sec with a latency of around 50ms. These are not 5G speeds, but a significant upgrade from current speeds and good enough to carry multimedia traffic. The rumor of iPhone 13 already having support for LEO ended up being just that, but we wouldn't be surprised to see LEO support offered in smartphones in the 2022 - 2024 timeframe.
#5: NFTs (and Crypto, of course)
On one side of the coin is the desire is to avoid this largely speculative field of cryptocurrencies. On the other, crypto is here to stay, and the technology behind it - blockchain and its permutations - are getting a lot of good use in the technology world. And the crypto world is evolving at breakneck pace. NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are the latest crypto craze. NFTs are primarily used to enable and ensure ownership of unique objects, mostly in the virtual art space (nothing prevents one from using NFTs for the physical art pieces as well), all build on the concept of smart contracts. The situation with NFTs reminds us of the infamous Dutch tulip bulb market bubble crash of the 1600s. But even if the NFT market will share the fate of those Dutch tulip bulbs, once the dust settles, they are not going anywhere and will stay around enabling the creator economy in the close relationship with Web3. No matter what you think of crypto, don't lose sight of NFTs in 2022 and beyond if you would like to avoid unpleasant surprises of how much the world has changed overnight.
#6: Mission-critical communications for all businesses
Mission-Critical Communications (MCX) is a set of standards-based technologies (3GPPP standards) created to advance public safety communications into the modern broadband world and enable the transition from the radio to the smartphone-like device. The key element of public safety communications is so-called group communications - the ability to speak to a group of people with a push of a button. When powered by mobile broadband, such group communications can now include not only voice but also video and a slew of data (files, images, chats, and more). Most importantly, as MCX technology is standards-based, it can be commonly deployed in countries, regions, or even worldwide, enabling all first responders to use common devices, much like standard cellular communications are today. The technology was created with public safety professionals (police, ambulance, firefighters) in mind. However, many other classes of business users (utilities, transportation, mining et al) can also benefit from broadband group communications. As public safety broadband deployments around the world, many driven by commercial carriers, start reaching an initial level of maturity and acceptance, we expect that group communication capabilities will slowly percolate other industries where group communications are highly beneficial. We hope to see new and exciting project announcements appearing in 2022 and continuing far beyond.
#7: Practical 5G advancements
Alluding to the famous Gartner Hype Curve, we can say that 5G technologies already went through the peak of inflated expectations and the trough of disillusionment, and are now entering the slope of enlightenment. There is an increasing number of 5G devices available; 5G service is now an actual 5G in many places and not just bandwidth-increased 4G LTE. Cellular IoT has now started taking advantage of 5G using low-band frequencies and low power consumption, one of the critical success elements of IoT. Trials of 5G-based mission-critical technologies, such as MCX and FRMCS are also now underway. It is a slow process, but we should expect to see an increased number of 5G success stories in 2022 and beyond.
Conclusion
That is the view of our crystal ball at the moment. Crypto (especially the NFTs), Satellite Communications, Mission Critical Communications, 5G technologies will continue their steady advancement in 2022, and 6G, Metaverse, and Web3 will continue to be the talk of the town and something to watch closely. The technology space is never boring, and if we can make one single prediction for the coming year, 2022 will not be dull by any means.
