Verizon Wireless recently announced that it will begin field-testing its 5G network technology next year, aiming for the network to be ready for commercial use by 2017. This is much sooner than most other carriers, which have estimated that their 5G networks will not be up and running until 2020.
According to Verizon, its 5G network will have 50 times the capacity of its current 4G network, and will be able to handle “exponentially more Internet-connected devices.” In the technology’s early tests it provided speeds up to 40 times faster than current 4G technology.
With these impressive speeds, consumers will be able to perform amazing feats with their smartphones. However, consumers are not the only ones that will benefit from 5G technology. As mobile data technology becomes faster and increasingly more reliable, we are bound to see more business take advantage of this new technology as well.
Will 5G devices actually be that much better than those using 4G?
When Verizon’s 5G technology is officially made available for commercial use, it will undoubtedly be faster than 4G technology, but not quite as fast as its early tests indicate.
Most of the 5G testing done thus far has been conducted in isolated research labs outside of major cities. When real consumers use the technology, real-life factors such as signal strength, network congestion, surrounding terrain, and even the material in your own home or office will significantly slow down network speeds.
Despite these inevitable real-life factors, 5G network speeds will still be noticeably faster than current 4G speeds.
What’s taking other wireless carriers so long?
If Verizon manages to launch its new 5G technology in 2017, it will truly be an outstanding achievement for the carrier–as we mentioned earlier, most other 5G networks will not be ready until 2020. So what’s taking all of the other mobile operators so long?
There are a couple reasons why many carriers do not expect their 5G networks to be ready until 2020. First of all, 4G networks still have many years of headroom before they become overly congested and slow. More importantly, experts in the field of mobile technology have not yet come to a consensus on what exactly constitutes “5G” technology.
Most early 5G tests have been done in airwave bands of such high frequency and such short range that carriers would have to deploy thousands of “small cells” in buildings just to broadcast the signal. For this reason, many view these “5G” technologies as complementary to existing 4G networks, not a replacement for 4G
What does 5G mean for business?
When 5G networks are ultimately made available to the public, we can easily predict that consumers will quickly ditch their old 4G LTE devices for shiny, new 5G ones, slowly making old 4G technology obsolete.
It will be even more interesting to see how this affects mobility in the business world. Businesses across the country may choose to adopt this new technology as a way decreasing operational costs, while also increasing connectedness with employees that travel often or work remotely. High-bandwidth services such as streaming video might be used in ways that are not practical in today’s wireless environment. However, these new technologies will undoubtedly be more expensive, and businesses may favor 3G or 4G networks, which will become less expensive after the introduction of 5G networks.
Regardless of how business react to the advent of this new technology, the introduction of 5G networks will certainly be an important landmark in the history of mobile data technology. Verizon clearly has the right idea by taking an fast-paced, aggressive approach to its development of what could be the world’s first 5G network.
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