2018 5G Wireless Debut! Don't Get Too Excited--Yet
5G wireless availability has been announced for a number of cities, and the list will continue to grow. But the true impact of 5G wireless will take some time to be felt.
July 10, 2018
Mobile carriers Sprint and Verizon recently expanded the list of the first U.S. cities to see commercial 5G service. Verizon announced Los Angeles will get fixed 5G service this fall, following the service’s launch in Sacramento. Sprint said 5G service will appear in New York City, Phoenix and Kansas City in early 2019, and previously announced 5G in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. AT&T will deploy 5G in parts of Texas this year. However, while the list of 5G cities continues to grow at a fairly quick pace, the impact on businesses and consumers will likely take more time.
“Large manufacturers will have some products lined up in time,” said John Proctor, CEO, Martello Technologies. “They always do. Given that the estimates put massive adoption only around 2020, I would think that new products coming out as of 2019 will be 5G compatible, without necessarily relying heavily on it.”
Enterprise uses of 5G--beyond backup or wireless local area networks--include low-power, wide-area networks and IoT applications.
“5G’s high data rates and ultra-low latency will enable the development of completely new types of video and other high-bandwidth applications,” said Gus Vos, chief engineer of technology standards at Sierra Wireless. Vos notes that we’ll likely see 5G used in agriculture, smart city applications, supply chain, healthcare, energy and transportation.
In terms of IoT, Vos says, wide-area networks using 5G could be inexpensive, use little power, offer wide coverage and, of course, offer attractive data speeds.