While we were over in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, we had the opportunity to listen to a bunch of smart people use lots of long words and fancy acronyms about what's going on with 5G, the next generation of cellular network technology. We've taken the liberty of picking out a few key facts and translating them to English.
4G to 5G will be a trickier move than 3G to 4G was
Moving from 3G to 4G was an easier transition according to Qualcomm's Vice President of Engineering, John Smee, because it was mostly about providing smartphone owners with a better browsing experience. 4G to 5G won't be quite as simple.
4G to 5G is much harder, as it's not just about smartphones and tablets, but about expanding the ecosystem for multiple industries - home automation, automotive, industrial IoT to name a few - each with different requirements, and balancing these requirements in how the standard and networks are designed and constructed.
"It's an active dialogue between different industries," said Smee.
5G will keep getting better and better, much like 4G has
A final 5G standard has yet to be locked down, but Smee says that 5G can still be updated in the future, much like 4G has.
"I think the whole industry supports for the evolution of 5G," said Smee. " Obviously, you look at LTE, it's gone from release eight all the way to release 13 with these continued improvements."
For reference, when 4G launched in Australia in 2011, the maximum capable speeds were 40Mbps. Now, Optus and Telstra have both achieved speeds of 1Gbps on their 4G networks through the use of technology such as carrier aggregation.
5G won't replace 4G
It might sound obvious, but 5G isn't going to be replacing 4G, at least not in the short term. Hell, Australia still hasn't finished shutting down its 2G networks. What this means is you won't need to rush out and a buy a 5G ready device as soon as they're available, out of a fear of being left behind.
In fact, Executive Program Manager for 5G at Deutsche Telekom Antje Williams says 4G is still quite a good investment for carriers.
"Coverage of 5G will be spotty, so you need the underlying [4G] technology," said Williams.
Alex Choros
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