MSIT Director Talks 5G, 6G, and More

The director of Northwestern Engineering's Master of Science in Information Technology (MSIT) program gave listeners of an industry-leading podcast a taste of what his students learn.  

Randall Berry, MSIT director since 2015, recently appeared on “The Peggy Smedley Show.” The show is a top-ranked Internet of Things (IoT), digital transformation, and sustainability podcast, boasting more than 115,000 listeners, according to Smedley's website.  

Berry discussed the evolution of wireless technology and the benefits its latest iteration – 5G – is bringing to businesses and consumers.  

“5G is a view of making a wireless network work for other things besides just cell phones,” Berry said. “It’s about supporting smart cars and smart manufacturing and having a network that can do all of those things, as well as cell phones.”  

Berry used his time on the show to trace the evolution of wireless technology, from the first generation of networks in the 1980s to today’s fifth-generation networks. That evolution has seen networks go from handling voice calls through brick-like cell phones to moving massive amounts of data that enable immersive gaming and high-quality video streaming.  

But the purpose of all this technology goes beyond fancy features for consumers and speaks to the point of many MSIT lessons – finding a way for businesses to profit.  

5G technology can be massively profitable for companies whose applications run because of it. But Berry said on the podcast that the technology will create game-changing uses for a variety of industries.  

“5G gives you the ability to have mobile devices that support 8K video, but that’s more evolution than revolution,” Berry said on the show. “The stuff that’s more revolutionary is talking about things like connected vehicles, where cars can talk to other cars. Now we can start thinking about doing smart-driving maneuvers and forming platoons of cars to go down the highway together without an active driver.”  

The benefit of such a platoon? Aerodynamics that allow for greater fuel efficiency and cost savings for consumers.  

Many of Berry’s points during the podcast episode were about the economics of wireless technology, including the benefits found through its integration with wired networks.  

“The benefit companies see, as well as potentially consumers see from this, is, again, cost savings,” Berry said on the show. “If you can have a single network that replaces two networks, you have less infrastructure, less cost of installing components in the network, and the companies can pass the cost savings onto consumers.”  

Wireless advancements also allow for more features that benefit both sides of that equation – businesses and consumers. The next hurdle to beat is latency – the time it takes for a command to travel along a wireless network.  

In applications such as a virtual reality headset, a delay in rendering the new view when people turn their heads may cause nausea; a delay in the transmission of a command on a smart car could cause a massive crash.  

The latency battle has some – including Berry and others in the MSIT program – studying what 6G  might look like. Berry said much of the focus right now is on accommodating for the bandwidth demands of artificial intelligence (AI), as well as incorporating AI into the network itself to allow it to self-optimize.  

This new evolution of wireless technology makes it a great time to be a part of the industry and the MSIT program, Berry said. He encouraged students and technophiles alike to pay attention to all the changes taking place.  

“Lots of exciting things are happening,” he said. “Being aware of all that is going on is a big benefit to industries and consumers.”