LESS LAG, MORE STREAMING
The broadband speeds that most homes have today may not be enough, especially if there are multiple users.
“Father or mother could be on a Zoom call … kids could either be streaming 4K video or playing Call of Duty. If everyone is online at the same time, someone is going to suffer. Who hasn’t experienced the dreaded buffering or ‘your internet is unstable’ message pop-up?” said Mr Chua Hock Leng of data storage provider Pure Storage.
He listed the bandwidth of commonly used applications – Zoom uses 10 megabits per second (Mbps), Netflix 4K uses 15Mbps and online gaming takes up 100Mbps.
High-definition video streaming on large screens, particularly through multiple devices, demands high data rates, said National University of Singapore (NUS) Professor Biplab Sikdar. Higher speeds would minimise chances of the video freezing and network buffering.
Higher network speeds would also facilitate augmented or virtual reality experiences and significantly reduce download time for files, said the professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering.
Another NUS expert in the same department said higher broadband speeds could facilitate massive multiplayer online gaming and online classes.
“In online gaming, higher network speeds help to decrease lag, meaning you won’t get kicked from the server or get killed by the powerful mob boss,” said Associate Professor Mehul Motani.
In terms of online learning, higher-speed networks would improve real-time communication and facilitate such interaction, he said.
To Mr Chua, the move to upgrade is also about anticipating the requirements of tomorrow.
“With Meta’s Quest and Apple’s Vision Pro, we could also be seeing a whole new range of applications come online in the near future that’s going to put a huge strain on our current infrastructure,” said Mr Chua. Meta Quest and Vision Pro are mixed-reality headsets.
In businesses, higher network speeds could boost productivity.
Any business that uses the cloud to store, process and analyse data would benefit from higher data rates, noted Prof Sikdar. So would businesses that process large volumes of data.
Businesses would be able to access data and files faster with higher speeds.
Trading firms, for instance, can rely on high-speed market data to make “lightning-fast decisions”, said Assoc Prof Motani.
Mr Chua said the high bandwidth network could support applications in remote surgical procedures and enable access to specialised medical care.
“We’ve already seen the benefits of our digital infrastructure particularly during the lockdowns. Now we need to take things to the next level so that businesses and individuals can take the most advantage of applications such as Gen AI, virtual and augmented reality, the Internet of Things and any other technology that emerges down the road.”