5G Is Coming!

Technology is continually changing and evolving, and the wireless telecommunication industry is no exception. Major telecommunication companies are all investing heavily to build the capability to offer 5G to their customers within the next five years.

The term 5G stands for the fifth generation of cellular mobile communications, coming after 4G, 3G, and 2G systems. 5G will bring several advantages over 4G that most phones have now, including greater speed, the ability to handle more data, more responsiveness (‘low latency’ is the buzz phrase for this), and the ability to connect more devices at once.

With 5G, your internet experience will be potentially lag-free. We all know what it is like to wait for that page to load or that photo to be delivered. In other words, the time between when you click on a link to a video and when the video actually starts playing will be almost non-existent. These types of speeds will be especially important to growing industries that are dependent on super-responsive internet, such as self-driving cars, virtual reality, and telemedicine (or remote surgery).

As with all technological improvements, there are some downsides to 5G technology. Though the signals can be transferred more rapidly with 5G than with 4G, they will not be able to travel as far, nor will they be able to transmit through physical barriers; so companies are going to need to build many small cell antennas in close vicinity. Most of these are not in place yet, and the process for building this infrastructure is complicated, as city governments, state governments, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and telecommunications companies decide how to handle the pricing of construction and the regulations regarding the building of the infrastructure.

Also, people in rural areas may not see the benefits of 5G for quite awhile, as those areas are always last to receive the upgrades necessary to handle newer technology. The telecommunications industries stand to make less money on the less densely populated rural areas, and will likely be less motivated to complete the upgrades necessary to handle 5G. The FCC is trying to get involved in this by passing measures to cap prices cities can charge telecommunication companies, and trying to encourage them to develop in rural areas as well.

As with all new things, companies are wondering how this new technology will affect them. Smaller telecommunication companies would benefit from staying on top of this new technology and trying to encourage infrastructure development in rural areas and cities. Some communications companies are worried that 5G will eliminate the need for cable and DSL, but whether that will be true is still unknown until 5G is more readily available. With more government streamlining and evolving wireless technology, it will be harder and harder for big telecom companies to have a monopoly in certain areas. Opening up competition will give consumers more choices and potentially lower prices. How this all will play out remains to be seen, while local governments and the federal government hash out streamlined pricing and regulations.

When will 5G technology become available to the average cell phone user? There is no clear answer, but most likely sometime in the year 2020. Just recently, Samsung demonstrated a 5G phone at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii, using a Verizon 5G network set up specifically for that summit. AT&T and Sprint are hoping to launch 5G phones in limited markets in 2019 to test the waters, with more and more gradually rolling out as the infrastructure allows.

Not only will 5G give us faster service with our cell phones, computers, and tablets, but also with things such as home appliances, cars, and even dog collars, just to name a few. With more and more of our lives being connected to the internet, this new technology has the potential to make a huge impact.