The Essential 5G Guide for Business - Pt One: What and Why

Did you hear that 5G will wax your car, teach your kids how to write in cursive, and make your house smell like the fresh scent of pine?

Yes, I’m exaggerating. But I’m sure you have seen hundreds of ads, blog posts, articles, and more about how 5G technology will change the face of business and spark innovation. I have certainly contributed to that number! As someone who is working with the technology every day, I’m more excited than the average person about what 5G can do.    

And I’m not alone. I recently asked technology analyst Jeff Kagan to quantify the potential impact of 5G on business. He didn’t hold back: “5G will go beyond the traditional generational shift,” he says. “It will impact not only wireless, but every other industry. Over the next decade, it has the power to transform our entire civilization.”

Come to think of it, maybe 5G will wax your car someday — or at least power an autonomous robot that can get the job done.

For now, let’s steer away from the hype and focus on what 5G can do today. This is the first post in a series to help business leaders get fully up to speed on the technology as it stands, and what new innovations are in development. In later installments we’ll get into specific use cases, dive into a few key industries, and even talk about which other technologies can make 5G work even better. But for this first post, let’s cover the basics. 

Why is 5G so revolutionary?  What makes this move  more significant than the shift from 3G to 4G? For that matter, what is a “G?” Here’s what you need to know about the technical aspects of 5G and what it means for business.

What Is 5G, Anyway?

5G (the “G” stands for “generation”) is the latest iteration of cellular network technology that will deliver massively expanded capacity and higher performance, enabling the connection of machines, objects, and devices on an entirely new scale. The increase in bandwidth and lower latency will power innovative new experiences and services for users and businesses.

One key feature that makes 5G unique is its software-centric architecture. It’s a technology designed to be adaptable beyond just where you put the cell towers and what devices receive and send signals. Cloud virtualization and automation to manage resources makes 5G far more versatile and configurable than previous generations. This architecture is what makes 5G the virtually limitless platform for innovation that it is.

Three Bands, All 5G

There are  three different bands in which 5G operates along the electromagnetic spectrum: low-band, mid-band, and high-band. 

Low bands offer slower speeds but more geographic reach, while high bands offer faster [3] speeds but smaller reach. The mid-band of the spectrum is the Goldilocks range--low enough to have a wide geographic range and fast enough to handle massive amounts of data quickly.

5G is also using bands at the very top of the spectrum for the first time.  These high bands use millimeter-wave (mmWave), which enable much faster speeds than ever before. However, these waves have less signal strength than mid and low-band solutions, so they require more cell towers and small access points, especially in dense urban areas where obstructions like buildings and even trees can impede connectivity.     

None of these bands is objectively better than the others — it’s more about picking the right application to suit the implementation. For example, a pop-up mmWave network could provide blazing speed, high bandwidth, and low latency for an in-person event, while a mid and low-band solution would make more sense for a mobile network.  

What’s So Special About It?

Each generation of wireless technology has been faster than the one before, and 5G is no different. But while the speed boost is always welcome, it’s not what has technologists so excited.  Here are the characteristics that truly make 5G a revolutionary technology.

Smarter Networks

5G was designed as a software-centric network, which adds versatility, flexibility and enhanced capacity that isn’t limited by hardware specifications. It’s not a perfect analogy, but think of it like the difference between hosting a web site on your home computer, and hosting one on a virtual machine in the cloud. 

With the former option, you’re tied to how good your hardware is – the physical RAM and processor you have at home. If your site needs more resources than your computer can provide, you’re out of luck. But with a cloud host, your virtual machine can add more RAM to handle a traffic spike, or increase virtual processing power for a graphics-heavy site. And it can do these things automatically, without human intervention. 

This is the value proposition for a software-centric network: It’s automatically configurable to meet existing and emerging needs for enterprises and individuals alike.

Higher Bandwidth

5G’s capacity includes increased bandwidth to support higher-density data, such as high-resolution video. This higher bandwidth is essential to keeping up with the explosive growth in connected devices forecasted over the next several years, as well as to support innovative applications that require significantly larger amounts of data than current bandwidth can handle.     

 Reduced Latency

5G is expected to eventually decrease data latency to less than five milliseconds when combined with edge computing, enabling operations in near-real-time. In addition to enhancing the overall customer experience, this leap will be crucial for applications where nanoseconds make a huge difference, , such as self-driving vehicles or smart, autonomous manufacturing.

More Security

5G technology was designed to not only inherit prior generations’ security methods, but also take on stronger measures as well. Additional security technology is still evolving, but experts foresee a unified authentication framework, better over-the-air protection, and edge cloud security features, including edge proxies.

What Will 5G Do for Businesses?

Now that you know what 5G is and a little bit about how it works, it’s easier to grasp the implications for businesses across a range of industries. Kagan sees the technology helping to drive countless new applications, “  like telesurgery, automated driving, retail and so much more.”

Interactive experiences will become more realistic, seamless, and detailed with AR goggles and 3D modeling. Think about using AR to train technicians on servicing intricate machines,  creating a virtual retail store where customers can browse and even try on clothing

Faster mobile broadband will also support enhanced remote services. For manufacturing, that might mean the ability to track and repair equipment from hundreds or thousands of miles away. For healthcare, it could power wearable devices that allow doctors to monitor or even treat patients in their homes. For insurance companies and banks that means abilities like using drones to assess damage for a roof insurance claim, or providing remote appraisals in real time. 

Businesses can also leverage pop-up networks to meet short-term needs for added connectivity. Applications could be as diverse as providing adequate mobile service for a music festival in a remote area, setting up emergency hospital services, or simply augmenting services while more permanent infrastructure is under construction.

Essentially, anything 4G can do, 5G can do better. 4G has given us a taste of the potential of virtual reality, connected devices, artificial intelligence, and more, but in the coming years 5G will explore their full potential. 

The 5G Future Is On the Way

“It’s important for customers, investors and partners to stay up-to-speed on the 5G revolution so they can take advantage of opportunities as they pop up,” says Kagan. “As with all new things, there are the early adopters and then the followers. This means the companies that provide the services, the customers who use them and the investors who can catch the growth wave.”

The increased capacity, speed, and security of 5G open up a whole host of possibilities. Some are already here, others are planned and in the works, while some further down the road are only vague, shimmering possibilities. It’s definitely an exciting time for businesses to begin smart investments in the future of connectivity.

And while the “fresh scent of pine” upgrade may not be on our 10-year roadmap yet, we’ll do our best to get working on it.

Learn more about setting your business up to thrive in this new landscape: Explore Enterprise-Grade 5G.