5g – what is it? and What is all the hype about?
The mobile data world has come a long way since BT Cellnet tried to get you to surf the net, surf the BT Cellnet”
After misleading customers in 2000 over what you could actually access via your phone BT Cellnet put the mobile internet and data market back 6 months. A long term in technology terms.
Now 19 years on, changes are taking place again with talk about 5g technology which simply stands for ‘fifth generation mobile’. Each mobile generation has brought businesses and consumers something new, something exciting and has changed the way we live.
What generations have you experienced?
1g was simply just phone calls.
2g was the added benefit of text messages through SMS (short message service) – even though some phones could only receive them and not send them.
3g was launched in the UK in 2003 and this is where the smartphone revolution began. Offering higher speeds to access the internet.
4g was only launched in the UK in 2012 and this was really the first time you could actually stream on the move and bring high definition content to mobile phones and tablets. It also offered a reliable way to connect to the internet if you couldn’t get a hardwired connection through dongles and Mi-Fi devices.
Whereas 1g – 4g were seen as upgrades on the one before 5g is seen as something new, something different. Though 5g will offer lightning speeds of data (tests have shown speeds of upto 20Gbps) which will greatly advantage consumers by giving them a real alternative to a hard wired connection the real benefit is going to be see in the infrastructure of the economy.
O2 research has shown 5g could create over £6billion of energy savings in UK cities with 5g solutions around energy grids and traffic management systems and Barclays Corporate Banking has stated that 5g technology could give Yorkshire a £1bn boost per year by 2025.
Similar to full fibre broadband they key with 5g is it isn’t all about the speed. Its what you can do with it that counts! There has been talk because of how stable the connection is with examples given of how remote surgery can be carried out without the surgeon being in the same room as the patient. O2 and Samsung have recently announced their latest trial of #5g and how it will involve equipping a standard ambulance with could transform vehicles into a remote consultation room.
Other doors 5g opens is around a stable and reliable connection for the use of driverless vehicles, drones and Virtual Reality and even improving remote working – no more clunky conference calls. At last a connection that makes you feel like you are in the same room. In fact Vodafone conducted the Uk’s first 5g holographic call a short while ago to show the potential of this technology.
Recently a Cisco led consortium developed one of the benefits of 5g for dairy farmers with their connected cow app!
O2, one of our partners have recently announced that 5G is now live in 60 towns and cities in the UK including Rotherham, Sheffield, Leeds, Hull and York. Great news as more and more people have become reliant on mobile data for remote working as a result of the recent Covid – 19 Pandemic.
Now is the time to start having conversations about mobile data and how it can help your business.
KAT Communications already provide leading mobile data solutions for businesses, whether that be for remote CCTV solutions or door entry systems or simply office based solutions with 4g and a static IP address in areas where fixed broadband cannot be installed or the speeds are too slow to operate.
Contact the team for more details or for further information on individual 5g business cases around healthcare, manufacturing, transport or retail. Call today on 01302 260195 or email via enquiries@79.170.44.128
