We all rely so heavily on mobile devices these days, and all of those devices need to be connected somehow. That’s why the mobile industry is working on 5G, a new mobile network that promises to be faster than ever.
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You may have heard about 5G in the news, but you may not know what it is, when it will be available, and how it will impact you. This is everything that you need to know about 5G.
What Is 5G?
5G gets its name because it is the 5th generation of mobile internet networks. All modern phones are already equipped with 4G, which you probably use on a daily basis to access the internet when you are not connected to wifi. 5G will work in exactly the same way as 4G does now, but the big difference will be in the speed.
5G promises speeds of 10 gigabits per second on your phone. That is over 600 times faster than the speeds that you currently get on 4G, and it’s even 10 times faster than the average fibre optic broadband speeds that people get in their home. That’s a huge jump in speed and to put it in perspective, it will allow you to download a 4K movie in around 25 seconds.
When Will We Have 5G?
It is not yet clear exactly when we are going to get 5G everywhere but it has already been rolled out in certain places. However, there have been some hurdles that are slowing progress in some areas. Firstly, the Sprint and T-Mobile deal did raise some questions as it is up to the big providers to roll it out. But what a Sprint & T-Mobile merger means is that 5G is likely to come faster because the new T-Mobile Sprint combined company has committed to a 5G network that covers 97% of the US in the next 3 years.
The other potential hurdle is the relationship between China and 5G. Although Chinese providers like Huawei have already rolled out 5G in a lot of places, there are a lot of security concerns. US companies are currently trying to develop an alternative to the Huawei network.
How Will 5G Change Things?
The most obvious change that will come with 5G is the increase in internet speeds on your phone. It will make things so much more efficient so if you are running a business from your phone, for example, you will benefit in a big way. It will also make it a lot easier to stream movies on your phone wherever you are.
But 5G will also have a bigger impact on society as a whole. Things like driverless cars, for example, will rely heavily on 5G networks to send messages and data to one another so they can avoid crashing. Cities will make far more use of AI to control things like traffic lights, and it is likely that everything will be connected once we have a network that is capable of handling that.
Only time will tell just how 5G will change the world, but it will definitely have a big impact on our society.