5G’s Potential to Advance Industry

Just when 4G could get no better, innovation has brought 5G technology to business. Building on 4G networks, 5G internet connectivity is faster, allowing businesses to work across a number of channels. In 2018, businesses began adopting 5G technology, with industry experts expecting more to come in the following years, as IoT and other innovations demand a network that can accommodate them.

The technology is important because it forms the infrastructure that will enable many new business operations and because of its potential to advance specific industries. The way the technology works involves installing huge numbers of small cell sites about the size of a pizza box on cell towers and buildings that will eventually become the 5G network.

A 5G network can be built in three different ways. The first type is a low-band network, which covers a wide area but only moves data 20 percent faster than 4G networks. The second is a mid-band network, which balances speed with coverage area. In the third, a high-band network has extremely fast Internet speeds, but its signals do not travel well, especially through hard surfaces.

According to a March 2020 article, speed is at the center of this innovation, with industry experts expecting the networks to be 10 times faster than 4G. As the technology progresses, the expectation is that 5G speeds will grow to be 100 times as fast as 4G.

To give some perspective on just how much faster a 5G network is, consider how much time it would take to download a two-hour movie. With a 5G network, the movie downloads in less than 10 seconds. On a 4G network, the same content downloads in seven minutes.

In fact, this ability to download content quickly extends to streaming content as well. The potential here is for businesses to provide presentations virtually, allowing clients and employees to view streamed content from all angles. In retail, the potential is there for businesses to allow customers to try on styles virtually or tour their manufacturing facilities without ever visiting the site.

There is also the productivity factor. With 5G connectivity to the cloud, businesses can use their devices (screen and battery) simply to perform functions such as running analytics.

More than making employees more productive, 5G has the potential to make sales operations more productive. In addition to making content available virtually, a faster connection promotes making more sales in less time. Moreover, with augmented reality, which requires large amounts of high-speed data transfer, sales people can be trained in a myriad of new ways.

One of the reasons that 5G was developed was to potentially be the infrastructure for supporting the Internet of Things, or IoT. This simply refers to the interconnectivity of devices, allowing for communication over multiple channels. An IoT platform over a 5G network will allow businesses to track items shipped from a warehouse, to alert HVAC technicians when maintenance is needed, or track the health of crops and signal when the plants need water or fertilizer.

Finally, the network offers businesses cost-savings. The technology is expected to reduce power consumption in devices by 90 percent. For this reason, businesses will not spend as much in terms of IT infrastructure and hardware. Further, there is the expectation that this will cause a shift from using hardware to relying on software and related systems, which will reduce IT maintenance and monitoring expenses.

The five industries that experts expect 5G will impact the most are health, transportation, financial services, retail, and manufacturing. As hospital operations and patient care become more digitized, 5G will become more relevant in telemedicine, the transmission of large files, and in the use of artificial intelligence.

In financial services, 5G will play a role in delivering new services to customers, such as wearable technology, AI-powered financial recommendations, and secure and fast data transfer. In retail, virtual and augmented reality over the 5G network will allow customers to try on clothing in a virtual dressing room.

Manufacturing will implement 5G in conjunction with sensors to monitor every aspect of the manufacturing process. In transportation, 5G will allow for better control over how people and products are moved around. Improving safety and mobility and unifying networks will culminate from the power of 5G connectivity.