Recently, 5G Technology has been gaining a lot of hype.
People all over the world have been flying to cities with 5G Technology to do crazy speed tests, and when I say crazy, I mean CRAZY. This made me curious; what is 5G? and how does it work? Will it actually fry my brain? This article will explore all the different aspects of 5G, and hopefully answer some questions that you have had about it!
First of all, what does "G" mean?
We all know what 4G is, we use it all the time! There is also 3G, 2G, and 1G. However, what does the "G" stand for? Well, the "G" in all these networks stand for "generation." So 5G, naturally would be the fifth generation of wireless network technology. Every new generation brings significantly faster speed when compared to the previous one, so 5G would be a lot faster than the current 4G or LTE you might be using. Remember how slow 2G and 3G were, and how much faster 4G was? Well, the same would apply to 5G!
How can I get access to 5G?
Currently(Mid 2021), not a lot of cities support 5G network, since telecom companies have only recently started to set up the infrastructure. To take full advantage of 5G, first you need a 5G device(such as the iPhone 12). You'll also need to live within the range of a 5G network. They only work in select cities, one location at a time, so you can't just update your phone's software to use 5G.
How does 5G work?
5G is built on "millimetre waves," a section of the electromagnetic spectrum that is pretty high frequency, ranging form around 20GHz(gigahertz) to 96GHz. By comparison, 4G ranges up to only 6GHz. This may all sound great, but the higher the frequency of a wave, the less distance it could travel. This is the same reason to why your microwave wouldn't cook you when its reheating your lunch from last week; the waves can't travel that far. Because of this, 5G only really reaches its incredible speeds when you're literally standing under the node. If something is blocking the wave from travelling to your phone, the high frequency signals would be disrupted; even rain could be a potential problem.
Why would I need the faster speeds?
Honestly, 4G is pretty fast already for daily activities. However, who wouldn't want faster connection when they're outside? 5G speeds could reach up to 20 times faster than 4G LTE speeds. That's insane! YouTube videos could be loaded instantly, games could be downloaded at the blink of an eye, and even better, Netflix movies take seconds to download! You could probably download a full season in under 30 seconds!!! But again, you have to stand right under the 5G tower to reach such speeds.... How on Earth would we ever fix this problem??? Well, all you have to do is install a lot of nodes everywhere! Yeah, it seem crude, but it's the only way we could reap the benefits of 5G. The infrastructure would probably take years to install, but it'll be worth it afterwards!
Are there any drawbacks to 5G?
Other than the incredibly short coverage distance, 5G has some other drawbacks as well. First, it drains the battery of your phone real quick; you could use up the entire battery in a couple of hours. It also causes your phone to heat up a lot, since all that speed takes a lot of power to process. Uploading speeds doesn't seem to differ from 4G by much, but that may be changed in the future.
Now..... the big question. Are 5G conspiracies real???
C'mon man, is that even a question???
The future of 5G
5G is still in its infancy, but in the future, it could bring forwards a lot of new and interesting technologies! Imagine a fleet of autonomous cars, communicating through a wireless 5G network, or perhaps the end of video buffers. Imagine a doctor in one country doing surgery on a patient in another country, using a 5G-connected robot, with real-time footage of the patient being shown to the doctor with almost no latency. 5G is still developing, but I personally can't wait for 5G to be ready in the future!
