With the metaverse gaining strong global attention, and increasingly seeing the real world adapted into a virtual setting, businesses and organisations of all kinds must understand the potential the metaverse holds for business, as well as economic and social growth.
The metaverse has been gaining strong global attention in recent years. It’s hard to not see why; after all, it’s an early iteration of a fully immersive and realistic virtual world that promises to cater to all our senses in the near, digital-first future.
Australians and tennis fans may remember how, in early 2022, the Australian Open became the first official tennis grand slam in the metaverse – with key areas in Melbourne Park were recreated and featured exclusive content for virtual visitors, such as archive footage, access to the practice village, and live player arrivals.
This example is one familiar to most, in the way that the metaverse provides immersive experiences for lifestyle and social applications. However, how do we translate novel experiences powered by the metaverse – given that it is still very much seen as a buzzword or fad – into really changing the game for industrial, economic, and social growth?
Enter the enterprise metaverse. Powered by virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies, these areas of the metaverse hold significant promise in transforming various segments of the economy through its realistic virtual simulation and interactivity with these simulated objects. Here, communications service providers (CSPs) will play a crucial role in delivering the high-performance, mission-critical networks required to power the metaverse to the benefit of all economic sectors.
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Enhancing the underlying power of VR and AR
We have come a long way since the first VR head-mounted display was created in the 1960s. Today, VR is at the precipice of how we interact with digital media and with each other. Higher resolutions (enabled by faster and more robust networks) are making our virtual worlds more lifelike, enabling us to build shared 3D virtual spaces, be it for work or play.
Adding to this dimension of immersion is AR, which by adding a digital layer can allow people to understand the physical world better. With their digitally augmented ability to see the world around them, users can gain a more expert view of their surroundings and have a greater ability to easily see what they should do next – whether it’s simplifying furniture assembly instructions or helping to troubleshoot a faulty car.
Seamless experiences for both VR and AR rest heavily on high-speed networks. Without them, lags and glitches will continue to plague the Metaverse experience, as highlighted during last year’s Metaverse Fashion Week. The current challenge is that VR experiences are only properly accessible over high-speed fixed networks. This also does not resolve the latency issues that are not just counterintuitive to the VR experience but can also cause nausea and headaches for its users.
Meanwhile, AR experiences are often dependent on mobile network quality. If we want to extend its potential beyond games like Pokémon GO – especially for AR to act as a seamless overlay on the world around us – we would need networks with high capacity, high bandwidth, and ultra-low latency. For this, greater preparation in the 5G space is required to prepare for the roll-out of 5G-Advanced networks which can reliably power more immersive AR applications.
An ‘ultimate’ form of the metaverse will be a world that combines VR, AR, and other technologies to immerse a person into a cyber-physical confluence. What this means is that, instead of removing us from reality, it will become part of everyday life; an always-on extended reality (XR) that blends the physical, digital, and virtual that allows us to bring the metaverse wherever we go.
Creating more value via the metaverse
CSPs and enterprises must already begin thinking about how to harness the metaverse’s potential. For instance, one consumer-focused development may be creating devices that encourage people to spend more time with metaverse experiences, such as a lighter and higher-resolution VR headset or affordable AR glasses. If launched at the right price point, such devices may create the same disruptive impact on the metaverse as the iPhone on the mobile internet.
Yet, truly realizing the benefits of the metaverse on economies rests on wider industrial and enterprise adoption. Already, we are seeing enterprises exploring a wider range of practical metaverse applications. This includes cross-industry use cases such as training, collaboration, remote sales, and even product training (where VR can be used to demonstrate large products to potential customers without the need to travel).
To note, companies embarking on the industry and enterprise metaverse are reporting higher-than-expected gains in areas such as cost savings, safety, time to market and sustainability. This was highlighted in a report featuring insights from 860 companies across various industries regarding the perceived value of the metaverse on their operations. The report also shows that nearly all the companies no longer see the metaverse as being just a fad – even strongly signalling their intent to invest in the space with almost 60% of the companies deploying or piloting at least one use case, with another 40% planning to follow suit in the next two years.
What more can we expect from the industry and enterprise metaverse? For one, metaverse platform companies are leveraging XR streaming platforms for enterprise customers. This includes automotive manufacturers using AR to visualize airflow over a vehicle design, in addition to hospitals using AR glasses and 3D medical imaging to help clinicians plan complex surgical operations.
In Australia, more enterprises are gearing up for the metaverse via the right investments, even more so than in the UK and US. Here, the focus will be on creating transformative ways to interact, engage, and transact with customers – creating revenue streams and adding a new dimension of convenience, while also reducing physical infrastructure and maintenance costs via digital twins.
Trailblazing the metaverse’s future
The metaverse is set to transform every sector of our lives. Beyond the consumers and enterprises stated above, value creation can be enhanced via societal applications, such as public services. Imagine this: a city planner could walk on streets using glasses with XR overlay to assess how changes to traffic lights might impact traffic flow. This could feed into a digital twin in which colleagues from different municipal departments could collaborate to design a more livable city.
As more enterprises start waking up to the metaverse’s innate potential, Australia’s CSPs must be prepared to meet the growing demand for private wireless networks and 5G network slicing. They should also look to participate in or lead ecosystems to deliver metaverse platforms and applications to enable more use metaverse use cases to take off – changing our perception of how to experience and interact with the world around us.
Nokia Oceania VP and MD Andrew Cope