How the Rollout of 5G Will Change Everything

mrspoonsi writes The global race is on to develop 5G, the fifth generation of mobile network. While 5G will follow in the footsteps of 4G and 3G, this time scientists are more excited. They say 5G will be different — very different. "5G will be a dramatic overhaul and harmonization of the radio spectrum," says Prof Rahim Tafazolli who is the lead at the UK's multimillion-pound government-funded 5G Innovation Centre at the University of Surrey. To pave the way for 5G the ITU is comprehensively restructuring the parts of the radio network used to transmit data, while allowing pre-existing communications, including 4G and 3G, to continue functioning. 5G will also run faster, a lot faster. Prof Tafazolli now believes it is possible to run a wireless data connection at an astounding 800Gbps — that's 100 times faster than current 5G testing. A speed of 800Gbps would equate to downloading 33 HD films — in a single second. Samsung hopes to launch a temporary trial 5G network in time for 2018's Winter Olympic Games.

Comments

Re:Who cares

[jandrese]

However, if the bandwidth is so dramatically improved, can't the caps be also dramatically increased?

That sound you hear is the executives at Verizon and AT&T laughing their asses off. You'll get the same caps you have today, because that's what is most profitable.

Do we have 4G now?

[gstoddart]

I kind of got the impression most things being called 4G weren't even properly that.

So now we'll have a rollout of something called 5G which isn't?

Know what I expect? We won't see faster, we won't suddenly see a lot of additional bandwidth. For promotional purposes it's fast and awesome ... and for practical purposes the carriers will scale it back because they're incapable of selling you what they will claim it to be.

I simply don't believe the carriers will be able to deploy what this thing could be theoretically. All they'll do it repackage the same shitty service and charge extra for it, while crying poor about how they can't keep up with the bandwidth demands.

Because telcos are lying, greedy bastards who put more effort into marketing than quality of their product.

They've been telling us how awesome their network speeds are for over a decade. And they've been unwilling to live up to that the entire time.

Case in point: Unlimited data plans, which are so much marketing bullshit it's not funny.

Don't even have 1G

[neorush]

I still have no cell phone coverage at my house...I live in New York State...can I at least get coverage at my house...