5G is Coming

Unless you live under a rock you have heard of 5G in some context. However, the question is do you REALLY know what it is? Well if not, you’re in luck! Even though news was recently just released that 5G is not coming as soon as we had hoped it would it is definitely still coming so it’s never too early to start planning and understanding how 5G will fit into IT plans across organizations of all sizes and industries.

Simply put, 5G is a business opportunity that is being designed to be implemented to provide all of the communication capabilities and performance we expect from a wireline network on our mobile devices. Therefore, end-users will now have additional throughput, capacity, and other elements to address the continuing growth in geographic availability, user base, range of devices and application requirements as well as enable carriers, operators, and service providers to benefit from new opportunities in overall strategy, service offerings, and broadened marketplace presence. This means that it will completely change the evolution of cell phones from a wireline extension to a wireline replacement and to a mobile only requirement.

So, now what you’ve been waiting for. Some of the many benefits we will be able to take advantage of once 5G is released.

1.) Enhanced throughput 
With so many devices we use daily on Wi-Fi the issue of throughput has become obvious. With 5G there will be major advances in cellular data with new upper bound throughput numbers. It has been mentioned that in 5G the floor for Wi-Fi will be 1 Gbps with a ceiling as high as 10 Gbps.

2.) Reduced latency 
Just as important or to some even more important than throughput is a reduction in the round-trip time for your data to get to where you need it to go. Reducing latency is important for voice and video, which for 5G will all be over IP.

3.) Advances in management and Operational Support Systems (OSS) 
This may not seem like a direct benefit for businesses and consumers but if the suppliers now reduce overhead and operating expense, they are able to enhance their system management and OSS which produces improvements in reliability, availability, serviceability, resilience, consistency, and operational efficiency, which all directly benefits consumers.

4.) Increased mobility 
An issue with our current mobile devices is the inability to use them on all different modes of transportation. That will now be solved with very high speed user mobility, to as much as hundreds of kilometers per hour.

5.) Improved security 
Security seems to be an increasing issue these days with many top name companies reporting a security breach of consumers’ private and crucial information. Therefore with 5G there will be enhancements to encryption, authentication, and privacy.

6.) Industry growth 
5G will allow all carriers, operators, and equipment vendors of both infrastructure and subscriber devices to deploy all new types of technologies and devices for consumers and businesses with countless end-user visible benefits.

This is only a short list of the various advantages we will see in the world of technology with 5G. It definitely seems like an exciting time within the always evolving IT and telecommunications world. From the talks of carriers and suppliers it looks like 5G will not come into our lives until late 2019 or early 2020 but whenever it does come we will be ready.