On Wednesday, Hrvatski Telekom (HT) presented the role of network infrastructure in building a metaverse or a huge interoperable network of virtual 3D worlds, which is the next generation of the Internet that will not replace today’s but will upgrade it.
“Metaverse or metaverse is the next generation of the Internet where 3D experiences with digital content are involved, and after the current human-Internet interaction, it is ‘rising’ to human interaction with the digital environment,” explained HT’s board member and chief technology officer. IT Boris Drilo.
In the metaverse, as he added, physical and digital merge, and the world of the virtual is as close to reality as possible, and thus the possibilities are very great, from marketing and use in tourism to promote destinations, sightseeing and other, to medicine and education. Dr. Natko Beck and geography professor Dejan Nemčić commented on the presentation.
This is potentially the next big era in computing, because due to the great technological complexity, it is still at an early stage, but evolution is expected in the coming years.
Drilo also said that it is a new technology that uses avatars as a digital identity to enter the metaverse world and consume content in it, similar to how passwords are used today to enter the virtual world.
According to the forecasts of the analytical global house, in four or five years, from around 2026 onwards, the metaverse could become something that is used regularly or the so-called mainstream, and many of the world’s big companies, like Disney, McDonalds and others are already working hard on it.
Also telecoms, with Drilo saying that HT developed it together with DT for about a year, and that these two telecoms are among the few in Europe for now that have reached such a level that they can present concretely usage experience.
Thus, several Croatian journalists were among the first to ‘enter’ the metaverse at HT’s presentation, after they created their personal avatars at HT based on facial photographs. So their avatars, with personal guidance with virtual (VR) glasses and two ‘joysticks’ moved in the new world, were on the beach, in the mountains, in a restaurant and the like, and even ran and jumped, all really sitting in one place , chairs.
A distant future possibility will be, for example, for the avatar to be at a conference, and even speak if necessary, which is directed by his real person from a completely different location or part of the world.
“For that, fast optical networks are important to us, without which this is not possible, and all optical high-speed connections we have made so far to more than 500 households in Croatia actually support it and enable this level of metaverse to be used now.” Drilo concluded.