They may not be fully deployed until 2020, but 5G is the next big thing the world of technological innovation. It is the next transformative standard in high-speed networking, and it’s worth getting your infrastructure ready for it and your clients excited about it.
Without being too obvious here, 5G is the fifth generation of mobile wireless networking, which started with the invention of a mobile radio network in 1952. These generations move fast, as analog wireless technology came in the 80s and 2G digitally encrypted communications from 1991, which sped up to 200kb/s 3G and received a significant turbo boost most recently for 4G.
Need proof that this is, indeed, the next big step in connecting the planet with superfast data? Look no further than CES 2017 and this year’s Mobile World Congress (News - Alert), where you couldn’t go more than one branded booth at either show without hearing word of Intel’s 5G modem concepts that you could see in the next iPhone (News - Alert), or Ericsson’s huge bet on this wireless standard, with investments in everything from business-related networking improvements to personal entertainment and the Internet of Things (IoT).
The opportunities for customers seem endless, but chances are these same customers don’t aware of them. While it may be easy for us to understand the merits of up to 10Gbps data speeds and a 90 percent network energy usage as experts, the end user wants examples of real-life applications. Here are some ways you could sell the idea of 5G to customers.
It’s fast. Like, really fast
Currently, 4G LTE (News - Alert) speeds top out at one gigabit per second. This means it could take a few hours to download, say, the entire season of a TV show. With faster 5G speeds, this could be done in a matter of minutes. Plus, as this is a new wireless standard, you won’t fall victim to 4G’s main problem – interference from different connected devices like buildings, microwaves and other WiFi (News - Alert) signals. Streaming content on services such as Twitch starts instantly, you will have instant access to large files on a business server, and virtual and augmented reality have the data speed capacity for truly immersive experiences. The applications that will most benefit from 5G are interactive streaming games and apps, for instance, live immersive roulette and other online casino mobile games on guts.com, as higher speeds will allow for a seamless betting experience, which the technology is also expected to be able to enhance further as more data can be downloaded and uploaded at the same time.
IoT will come into its own
It’s all well and good having a whole range of internet connected devices in your life, but if they’re all on a cluttered 4G network space, they won’t be working at their highest potential. Now, with this cleaner wavelength, you can be sure of a high-speed response in your smart home and any other device in your life. With IoT projected to reach 75.44 billion connected devices by 2025 from 20.35 billion in 2017, 5G is a technology central to its adoption.
A world of self-driving cars is soon to become a reality
Take a look at recent research into autonomous cars and you’ll see one key flaw in bringing it to the masses – data speed. For a network of this huge size to work, potentially terabytes of data need to be transferred every single second. 4G is not going to do this, but a widely implemented 5G network can. You will see self-contained driverless cars that interact with each other on the road, which itself is connected to the network, resulting in perfect interconnectivity and a sharp reduction in potential accidents.
