5G to transform property market: analysts

Being better connected through 5G will become the new standard for commercial real estate, experts have said.

5G will become the new standard for commercial real estate. — Photo Courtesy Cushman & Wakefield Vietnam

5G, the next generation of wireless technology, is designed to usher in the “connected everything” era.

In Viet Nam, according to the Ministry of Information and Communications' Department of Telecommunications, last year telecom businesses stepped up investment in broadband infrastructure.

5G networks have been tested in 16 provinces and cities; 4G network covers 99.8 per cent of the population and fibre-optic networks all communes and wards in the country.

5G will be commercialised this year.

In the property, market it plays an important role as many smart cities are being developed and commercial projects are mushrooming around the country.

Trang Bi, general manager, Cushman & Wakefield Vietnam, said: “For commercial real estate, real-time monitoring of assets could reduce operating costs and downtime, and 5G can enable new pathways to productivity. The pandemic has shown the need to transform the way we work and collaborate, and 5G has the potential to be part of that transformation.”

An expert was quoted as saying on vnbusiness.vn that investors consider factors like digitisation and stability before parting with their money.

These factors are considered more advantageous now than traditional ones like low cost, big population and abundant human resources, and smart cities and projects where data and technology are able to be transmitted are preferred, he added.

Cushman & Wakefield said in a new report: “As we learn more about 5G’s capabilities, we are increasingly looking at opportunities within the Internet of Things (IoT) realm, especially as it pertains to sensors, buildings and our ability to monitor different data points around any given building.

“The sheer number of sensors and the amount of data is growing exponentially, and 5G allows us to capture that data in real time so that we can build smarter analytics around it. The potential in this area is huge.”

One of the drivers of true technological change will be 5G’s ultra-low latency, which is the time it takes data to travel from the user to the central processor and back again, bringing the time taken to far less than the blink of an eye.

5G will directly impact many spaces in commercial real estate including smart city, smart homes, healthcare, office space, the company said.

With more homes using connected devices, centralised servers that process data collected from these devices increase privacy risk and latency.

In offices, 5G can eliminate excess core cabling and infrastructure. If companies can employ private 5G, no Wi-Fi network or infrastructure will be required.

This would ultimately open up a lot of possibilities for the way floor plans and flexible workspace can be designed.

“5G technology can do so much for commercial real estate,” Trang said.

“Whether through robots, cars, health devices or retail, 5G will undoubtedly transform not only how we operate, but how we work, live and play.”

Source: VNS