What is 5G ?

 Are you guys eagerly waiting for 5G ?

 

Regardless of whether you're one of those diehards who's first in line at the Apple store it always seems to feel like no matter what kind of mobile technology that you have in your pocket, it quickly becomes yesterday's news and that may never be more evident than right now. 

Telecommunications providers worldwide are working on 5G, which might be just as big of a deal as when we marveled at being able to look at full-fat web pages on tiny phone screens.  Another G just after LTE became super widespread well.

While it's admittedly a bit tricky to keep up with all the freaking different wireless standards and the G's and what they all mean and all that kind of stuff which you can learn more about up here.

The industry hopes that 5G will be much better than what we have today.

It's being centered around the idea that the Internet of Things that is connected devices that enable self-driving cars automated homes and more will become very important in the near future and that mobile data networks will need to be very robust.

Imagine if your self-driving car took half a second too long to make a critical turn and suddenly you've got a huge dent in your fender or more frightening in your body.

5G, however is not only aiming to reduce latency to as low as one millisecond to allow real-time operation of important devices. It also boasts a theoretical maximum speed of 20 gigabits per second way faster than the quickest LTE networks today.

Of course, this is a theoretical maximum and it looks like the bare minimum for the average user will be about a hundred megabits.

So again this is still quite a bit faster than real-world performance of many LTE deployments

Part of this awesomeness is due to 5G's usage of higher frequency waves which also gives it a much greater capacity for theme forming meaning signals can be focused on to areas where there's more data traffic compared to existing cellular antennas many of which are just omnidirectional.

You'll have a network that is not only quicker but also has better throughput, so the quickly growing number of things connected to the mobile Internet don't become bottleneck.

In fact, the industry is hoping to have a million devices supported per square kilometre possibly meaning no more delays at places like concerts, conventions or sporting events.

Of course, this is a very ambitious project so it's not available quite yet. Current projections have 5G hitting the market sometime in 2019 with it becoming widespread around 2025.     Since providers not only are trying to make 5G a more Uniform Standards than what exists today to ensure better compatibility around the world, but they also need time to build more infrastructure.

The infrastructure would include signal boosters, since 5G's shorter wavelength means it's more prone to signal degradation across great distances.

But even though most of us will have to wait awhile to experience. 5G trials are already underway in a few places firstly in the United States and small scale deployments are expected at the 2018 and 2020.  Olympics to give attendees an early look at the tech before it reaches the mainstream.

Bharti Airtel and Chinese telecom Huawei have also successfully conducted India's first 5G network trail in Manesar, Gurgaon. The promise of 5G is endless. It will be a game changer, and it will change the way we live, work and engage.

So, in summary don't chunk your LTE phone just yet but don't be surprised if in a few years whatever you're carrying in your pocket ends up putting your home internet connection to shame. 

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