If all the Tech giants hadn’t made the trip this week to MWC 2022, the GAFAMs were present in force except for Apple. Meta has been particularly active behind the scenes since, according to our information, its teams met with telecom operators one by one to explain its vision of the metaverse to them. A joint announcement with Spain’s Telefonica was even made regarding the launch of a Metaverse Innovation Hub in Madrid.
Meta wants new networks
This seduction operation was coupled with a speech by Mister Connectivity by Meta Chris Weasler during a round table. As if that was not enough, the American giant drove the point home with a blog note that sounds like an injunction from Dan Rabinovitsj, vice president of Meta for six months. On his Linkedin profile he wrote “Connecting more people to a faster internet”. An entire program.
“Making the metaverse a reality will require significant advancements in network latency, symmetric bandwidth, and overall network speed. No company or industry can do this alone. The creation of the metaverse will require a global effort and we invite our partners to collaborate with us in this new adventure.he wrote.
Meta plans to launch experiments itself. But as you will have understood, he also badly needs the help of telecom operators for his metaverse project to happen.
You will have to download the virtual worlds
Among the challenges he points to is the fact that the virtual worlds in which we will immerse ourselves, with all their effects and avatars, will have to be downloaded in advance. However, this could take several hours in the current state of the networks.
Meta therefore calls for a hybrid rendering that is both local and remote in the cloud. But this would require, according to him, a new architecture with sufficient computing resources. Like the proliferation of mini data centers.
Also see video:
Video resolution and latency
Another problem is video streaming. Meta wants resolutions beyond 4K which would require “revolutionary improvements in network throughput”. Finally, there is the latency which will have to be drastically reduced for virtual reality, so that the environment reacts immediately to the actions of the user. “Things will have to move faster with one to double digit millisecond latency”emphasizes Dan Rabinovitsj.
Not sure that Meta’s proposals are heard. Because all this would require even more investment in the networks. However, telecom operators have rightly gone on a crusade with Brussels to demand that GAFAM contribute to infrastructure. Whether Facebook is willing to invest beyond a few research centers remains to be seen.