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5G technology has been a recent hype which almost everybody has been talking out – which in fact was well deserved. With significantly higher data speeds, low latency, increased device density, 5G is set to be one of the key drivers for innovation, enabling the transformation of many sectors and industries.
But what exactly is 5G?
5G is the fifth–generation cellular network. Currently, we have 4G available which provides a speed of 7 Mbps to 17 Mbps for upload and 12 to 36 for downloads. With 5G on the other hand, the speed will be around 15 or 20 Gbps. It‘s important to stress out that here we are talking about gigabytes and not megabytes. To illustrate this more simply, it means that an HD film that currently takes probably hours to download, with 5G technology will be downloaded at full length within a matter of seconds.
The good news about 5G is that is not mere hype, but in fact, it is really happening and it will transform economies. According to an economic modeling report done by Accenture, “the impact of 5G on the European economy will drive up to €2.0 trillion in incremental gross output (sales) growth between 2021 and 2025”. In addition, 5G will “add up to €1.0 trillion to European GDP as well as has the potential to create or transform up to 20 million jobs across all sectors of the economy”.
As probably seen so far, 5G will disrupt multiple ‘already existing technologies’ and offer a better solution that will improve our society. How so?
First, medicine will be largely transformed and more accessible. While hundreds, if not thousands, of patients do not have the necessary care facilities or conditions to be treated in their home countries and need to spend huge amounts of money to travel for treatment, via 5G and robotic virtual surgeries, surgeries would be much safer and reliable. Countries that have already advanced with 5G adoption are reaping these benefits and treating patients who are in completely different time zones with latency between doctor and surgical equipment being only two milliseconds.
Secondly, the whole transportation system will be disrupted. With 5G, the autonomous vehicles would be fully enabled. Just think about it, an autonomous car, which may include car shade, contains multiple sensors, cameras, radars, etc., which function properly by sending and receiving tons of data per day. The 4G technology can not support that large amount of data, cloud–based resources, or even the artificial intelligence system operating in parallel. However, with 5G, the whole infrastructure will be much faster and reliable and serve as a catalyst for the deployment of autonomous cars.
Lastly, 5G promises a vast avenue of loT ecosystem, with major improvements over the current 4G technology. The idea behind the loT is to have multiple devices connected by transmitting data in real-time. This continuous exchange of data deters the network and battery life of devices. Thus, with 5G, we will see around 90% reduction in energy usage, and 10 years of battery life for lower power loT devices. Business owners can also benefit from 5G especially if they are using Hybrid Cloud Solutions for their data management. This means that they can access their business data more quickly even when they’re on-the-go.
While these are not the only industries that will be transformed, they undoubtedly play a crucial part in our society. But with such technology at hand, the future seems bright.
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