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Verizon and AT&T Prepare to Bring 5G To (Select) Markets In 2017 (ieee.org)
An anonymous reader quotes IEEE Spectrum:
This year, Verizon and AT&T plan to deliver broadband internet to select homes or businesses using fixed wireless networks built with early 5G technologies. These 5G pilot programs will give the public its first glimpse into a wireless future that isn't due to fully arrive until the early 2020s. With 5G, carriers hope to deliver data to smartphone users at speeds 10 times as fast as on today's 4G networks, and with only 1 millisecond of delay... Over the past year, companies have completed a flurry of lab tests and trials to figure out what types of radios, antennas, and signal processing techniques will work best to deliver 5G in hopes of bringing those technologies and their capabilities to market as soon as possible.
The article notes that standards groups are halfway through their eight-year process of finalizing technical specifications (set to finish in 2020), but "With so much cash on the line, and facing pressure from data-hungry customers, carriers are moving fast." In Japan, NTT Docomo has even tested dozens of programmable antennas simultaneously transmitting signals, resulting in transmissions at 20 gigabits per second. "At that speed, a complete 2-hour, 1080p, high-definition movie can be transmitted in a second and a half."
The article notes that standards groups are halfway through their eight-year process of finalizing technical specifications (set to finish in 2020), but "With so much cash on the line, and facing pressure from data-hungry customers, carriers are moving fast." In Japan, NTT Docomo has even tested dozens of programmable antennas simultaneously transmitting signals, resulting in transmissions at 20 gigabits per second. "At that speed, a complete 2-hour, 1080p, high-definition movie can be transmitted in a second and a half."
I imagine Verizon in particular plans to deliver 5G service for 10x faster cell service so you'll hit your data cap that much more quickly. Not interested. On the other hand, if cell service could become more competitive with broadband internet and better consumer devices were available to connect your home devices up to it without additional expense, I might be interested. I don't find it valuable enough to be able to watch Netflix anywhere on any device to pay a premium price. I'll just go home and watch it on my HD TV and 7.1 surround sound system.
We'll make great pets
One thing that is curiously absent from public announcements of new standards is that successive standards proposed by the 3GPP have taken more and more feature of land mobile radio standards like TETRA, DMR, etc.
5G promises to be the first modern standard where LTE could in theory completely replace 2-way radio communication including features such as call priority, preemption, and incredibly short call setup times.
We could be looking at a change in the model by which 2-way radio systems are being provisioned, from a DIY, own your own radio tower and transmitter solution, to a wide coverage area with leased bandwidth solution.
This to me is more interesting than incremental speed increases.