The metaverse is oscillating between hype and happening — and dominating panel conversations at events such as the Gartner IT Symposium 2022. However, the research firm Forrester has reiterated throughout the year, the metaverse doesn’t actually exist yet.

VP and Principal Analyst Martha Bennett more recently asserted that while “the journey has already started,” the existing metaverse environments are merely “precursors.”

“Future experiences will be more immersive, increasingly blending the physical and digital,” but the actual reality of the metaverse relies on a series of underpinning technologies at various levels of adoption, she said.

A big part of the work lies in “standards that allow portability of identity, attributes and value across different environments. And we’re nowhere close!” Bennett told SDxCentral via email.

While some technologies are close to actual implementation like cloud-native computing and natural language processing (NLP), “others will take five years or more to transition into the mainstream," she said.

These numerous reliances come as part of the firm’s recent predicted barriers for the metaverse in 2023, where fellow Forrester VP Chris Gardner wrote, “API standards will remain a mess despite Metaverse Standards Forum’s best efforts.”

Gardner also classifies needed tech adoptions as “proprietary precursors,” and they “don’t talk to one another readily.”

While the Metaverse Standards Forum established this year is attempting to orchestrate this interoperability, relying on over 1,500 members to submit standards for adoption, “Unfortunately, without consistency — and with a notable lack of Apple in the Forum (expected to release its XR device in 2023) — things will continue to rely more on de facto standards like the Unity and Unreal engines,” he wrote.

Still, “the Metaverse Standards Forum is a great start,” Bennet explained. “We’re keeping a keen eye on its progress. There are all kinds of other technical hurdles as well still, so we’ll need progress in a variety of different tech areas."

Another challenge 2022 has shed light: network-readiness. For that, TIPis bringing in big players like T-Mobile, Microsoft, Telefónica, Meta Platforms, Sparkle, and more for a Metaverse-Ready Networks Project Group.

Vendors, however, seem to be moving faster. Ciena CIO Craig Williams previously told SDxCentral that from the network side, the metaverse may be closer than it seems. “I’m not hearing like I used to that capacity is the issue in terms of technology. It’s just a matter of applying it."