Experts and managers from several multinationals are meeting these days in Seville to talk about the future of communications. The event is named Forum 5G, although what is being highlighted the most in the media is the possibilities of the next step, that of 6G, that anticipates us a scene close to the Matrix in which it will be difficult to differentiate where virtuality begins and when we are really stepping on the real world. The goal is to exchange within 10 years the number of one terabyte per second, which must be the equivalent of sending and receiving between users of approximately the Netflix catalog that each one has seen this year. Tremendous. And a shot of WhatsApp, we imagine.
For those of us who started with the typewriter and passionately immersed ourselves in those IBMs equipped with MS-Dos, Windows 3.0 seemed like a guided tour of the Death Star. The 6G thing is no longer a ride at the speed of light through a galaxy far away, but infinitely multiply the records of the Millennium Falcon.
Added to the domestic use of artificial intelligence and with machines capable of transforming data into coherent reasoning, 6G opens the door for us to communicate through holograms and we ‘holotransport’ quickly from one point to another on Earth, In addition to having access to an ‘internet of the senses’ beyond sight and hearing. Yes, it will be possible to touch, smell and taste (at this point, create what you think is most convenient). If you allow me the sacrilege, true science fiction was anticipated by George Lucas and not by Stanley Kubrick.
In recent years, the planet in general and Spain in particular have been articulated along one or several gaps, on whose sides a few are going to benefit from the formidable advances in science and technology and as many others will be in serious risk of being left behind. The gap is the new sociological division of humanity. The social gap, the salary gap, the gender gap, the digital gap. Any of them is increasing, although I am convinced that technology determines the distance that separates the three previous ones.
Here are some data. According to Red2030, a space for debate on sustainability and the 2030 Agenda of the Red Eléctrica Group, 13.4% of rural areas in Spain still do not have internet access of at least 30 megabytes per second speed, while half lack ultra-fast network coverage – more than 100 megabytes. “In fact,” this source points out, “we still find more than 720,000 homes in which the coverage range of a connection greater than 2 Mbps does not reach more than 10% of its power.”
For the inhabitants of many areas of the emptied Spain, It is no longer that the future of ‘Blade Runner’ that paints the 6G looms light years away, but that life is what passes from the time the connection begins until two users manage to communicate without resorting to the traditional telephone call. Taking into account that there are very few daily procedures that should not be carried out through the internet, In many parts of the planet, a minor procedure becomes an ordeal. Or, at least, in a huge delay.
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Governments and institutions love to participate in forums where they fantasize about a future of aerial cars, slave robots and lovers 3.0. However, the appeal generated by meetings of experts who speak precisely the opposite, namely, the digital divide, is much less attractive, given that current miseries are verifiable, contrastable and supported by figures, while talking about the future is free and does not compromise the speakers. In the plans of all governments, including the Spanish, is the implementation of ultra-fast networks in rural areas. The harsh reality shows that it is much more expensive and less profitable to digitize an empty region of Spain than to invest in holograms that will never be within the reach of a large part of the population.
An important segment of the citizenry will only know that fantasy world of 6G through a television screen, assuming that they have a reasonable connection in their homes. They won’t even be able to see it in the cinema because they have disappeared from many places, including those large cities where, they say, 6G will arrive. Fortunately, we will be able to ‘holoport’. Or so they say.