Did you know that the mobile phone is over 50 years old? The Internet is younger, but the mobile network is the youngest of the three. The mobile network is constantly changing and never before have we been as reliant on it as we are at the moment.
Being online most of the time, the need for a speedy and stable mobile internet connection is increasingly becoming more important for activities like playing games online, catching up on the news, staying in touch with people on social media and being available for work. Beyond personal usage, many companies also rely on a reliable mobile network for the business to function. 5G is under development and most of us haven’t tried it yet. So, what do we know about this new mobile network? We’ll shed some light on it here.
- 5G is short for “the fifth generation mobile network”
- With 5G, the user will experience better availability, increased speed and more secure digital services. According to Telenor, the Norwegian telecommunications company, areas such as the health and transport sectors rely on a functioning and reliable internet connection to ensure efficiency and safety, and for the use of self-driving cars. The health sector is particularly dependant on a stable connection in order to offer services which are in high demand locally, as are factories with automated technology. In other words, chains that involve several links will benefit from a strong 5G network in order to run operations effectively.
- This is the fourth time we’ve needed a better mobile network and the ambition with the development is to expand and improve the coverage. This leads to the continued development of fiber and WiFi technology so it can compete with the faster mobile network.
- There are more mobile phones than people in the world and the number of phones will keep rising. Perhaps the need for a faster, more robust mobile network isn’t so surprising!
- This is how the 5G network works: a mobile phone is a two-way radio – you place a call and the phone will convert your voice into an electrical signal. It sends this signal to the closest phone tower through radio waves. The phone tower sends it on to other towers until it reaches the mobile phone on the other end. This principle is the same for text messages, MMS, etc.
4G uses a radio frequency of up to 20 MHz. By comparison, 5G will use a frequency of up to 6 GHz. The higher the frequency, the faster the radio waves will be transmitted. The downside is that higher frequencies can’t travel as far so part of the 5G development is looking at other ways to transmit the radio waves, for example through external antennas. Because of this, 5G is unlikely to fully hit the market until 2020.
- 5G’s biggest benefit for users is that it will be faster than any connection we’ve seen so far. Some experts say it will be as much as 100 times faster than 4G. So if you’re an online gamer or love mobile games, playing your favourites on your phone will be much smoother!
- Experts think 5G will be important for the global economy and that it will lead to the employment of 22 million people by 2035.
Looking forward to 5G coming? So are we!