The Promise of 5G

An anonymous reader writes: From instant monitoring of leaking pipelines, to real-time worldwide collaboration, the increase in machine-to-machine communications that 5G allows will change the way we live. This TechCrunch article takes a look at the promise that 5G holds and its possibilities. From the article: "By 2030, 5G will transform and create many uses that we cannot even think of yet. We will live in a world that will have 10-100 times more Internet-connected devices than there are humans. Hundreds of billions of machines will be sensing, processing and transmitting data without direct human control and intervention."

Comments

Thoughts

[DaMattster]

I just cannot get excited about 5G because there are still large gaps in 4G coverage. I'd like to see the telecoms finish what they started.

Re:Thoughts

[mjwx]

I just cannot get excited about 5G because there are still large gaps in 4G coverage. I'd like to see the telecoms finish what they started.

I can't get excited over 4G because we haven't actually got it yet. LTE is still a 3.9G tech, LTE Advanced was supposed to be the first 4G technology according to the ITU definitions.

But then the marketing trolls decided that they could just re-define words to mean whatever the hell they wanted to and 4G went from a well defined standard to arbitrary marketspeak. Some telco's had rebranded HSPA+ as 4G, because of this 5G has no real meaning and it will just lead to marking one-upmanship. "Our competitors are still on 6G, we've gone to 11G" without actually telling you they haven't changed technology at all.

Re:Heard this before

[TWX]

There are a few actually. Building security systems now are not dependent on landlines, so it's harder for someone to sever the security system's ability to report trouble. Medical alert monitoring is easier and works away from the residence more reliably. Cars can report-in when there's a likely automobile accident and can get map information in real-time instead of relying on outdated locally-stored maps exclusively. For those that want to spend the money, they can have full Internet access nearly everywhere they go, so businesses have made use of this for real-time status reporting (think package delivery) and for general Internet use.

Now, most of these were achieved with "G" and "2G" speeds. It's tough to say that beyond being able to add realtime video capability that there have been too many significant improvements.