Stranded in a remote community, a patient lies on an operating table, undergoing life-saving surgery. A doctor carefully sutures a wound shut – but through a sophisticated medical robot which she controls from hundreds of kilometres away.

This is one of the many ways 5G could transform our lives. A collection of standards and technologies, 5G is an umbrella term given to the next generation of wireless internet that will connect smartphones, laptops, cars, sensors and a host of smart devices.

The idea of a surgeon healing a patient via a remotely controlled robot sounds incredible if you recall the innumerable Zoom meetings you may have had over the past few years. Plagued as that technology is by lag and unreliability, it is fair to ask: How might we ever do things like remote surgery if we can barely make a video conference call work?

That’s part of the challenge. While 5G networks are up and running in Canada’s major urban areas, the applications and devices to take advantage of them are still very much in their nascent stages. It’s also an area of research for a significant number of Canadian academics. From how to make connections more reliable to how to bridge the digital divide, what they hope is that 5G will usher in a brighter future – if it’s done right.

Among those focusing on the technologies is Ekram Hossain, a professor in the University of Manitoba’s department of electrical and computer engineering. He has worked extensively on 5G since the early 2010s, focused on using modern cell networks to enable machines – that is, sensors, industrial equipment, vehicles – to communicate with one another wirelessly. “There are three types of service with 5G,” Dr. Hossain said. “Machine-to-machine communication, mobile broadband, and ultra-reliable low latency.”

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