Everything we should know about 5G
It seems that 5G is on everyone’s lips. Pioneering companies in establishing it in our country, alarming articles about its consequences for health, revolutionary promises about the progress that it means … but what exactly is 5G? What advantages does it bring us with respect to 4G?
If you are one of those who is a bit lost with this topic, in this article we will try to answer your questions.
First of all… What is 5G?
It is the fifth generation of the mobile network , each of the stages that have occurred in mobile telephony since its inception. Doing a little review, you will remember the analog 1G, which only allowed you to talk on the phone. With 2G came SMS. 3G gave us mobile Internet. Finally, with 4G came mobile broadband, which allows us to view live videos or virtual reality.
Finally, 5G is nothing more than the development or evolution of the current 4G / LTE.
What advantages does 5G bring us?
The main advantage of 5G is, without a doubt, that it will allow us to surf the Internet at a much higher speed than the current one, until reaching peaks of 1 to 10 Gbps. This will allow, for example, to download a series on the mobile in seconds.
On the other hand, 5G also brings us a reduction in latency, that is, in the response time of the network from when an instruction is given to a device until it reacts. For you to understand, 4G reduced that time to 30 milliseconds, but 5G will take it to the environment of 1 to 5 milliseconds, practically in real time. This is an advantage in situations such as automatic driving or remote devices. In addition, it will also allow us an almost instantaneous interaction with the cloud: added to the download speed, this will mean that if, for example, you press a photo that you have in the cloud, it will open the same on your mobile as if you already had it inside memory
Finally, 5G will also allow us to have more connected devices , specifically up to one million per square kilometer or 100 per square meter. This is an advantage for the Internet of Things, that is, for all those everyday appliances that are evolving towards the digital environment, such as the washing machine, the refrigerator, industrial robots or autonomous cars.
Where is 5G now?
In our country, at the moment only Vodafone customers can enjoy it in certain cities (Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Malaga, Zaragoza, Bilbao, Vitoria, San Sebastián, La Coruña, Vigo, Gijón, Pamplona, Logroño and Santander) and as long as you have a state-of-the-art, 5G-compatible phone model. However, in all these cities, Vodafone’s 5G will only be operational initially in certain areas, with half of the base stations arranged in the aforementioned urban centers.
In addition, they will not be able to enjoy 100% of all the advantages of 5G, since until 2020 they will not be incorporated into compatible modem devices. So far, the 5G that will be used will be carried out through 4G links like the ones we use now and, therefore, will technically be more limited than in the future.
