With the introduction of 5G on the not-so-distant horizon, how the next evolution of mobile data will impact us? Justin Ellis, Senior Data Specialist at Comms Express investigates.
Remember that shrill warbling of the dial-up connection and fighting the family for the phone line? For those who had the delight of experiencing dial-up, you may have less fond memories of its not-so-impressive download speed of 56.6 kbits/s, which was just about enough to receive a text-based email.
Two decades on, the world of information sharing is a very different place. Broadband brought unlimited Internet into our homes at up to 17Mb/s, but it was 3rd Generation, otherwise known as 3G, that really took the UK and the world by storm, introducing a mobile phone network with a greater data bandwidth than ever before. This enabled mobile phone users to browse the web, email and send pictures and videos on the go via their mobile phones.
“Are we nearly there yet?!” With an Internet speed of up to 80Mb/s, 4G LTE (‘long term evolution’) quadrupled the speed of 3G and quietened the familiar call from the back seat of the car. As tablet demand increased, little ones (and relieved parents) could now stream video and live TV on the go. Globally, mobile data now reaches a staggering 3.7 exabytes a month
Then, of course, there’s Fibre optic, which started to roll out well before even 3G – but was very dependent on where you lived. Today’s fibre optic runs at up to 300Mb/s, enabling fast gaming and Ultra-HD films.
With speeds of 10,000Mb/s, 5G – the fifth generation of wireless networking technology – could download 100Mb of data in 0.080 seconds.* It’s hard to actually put that into perspective, which is why Comms Express has created the 100mb-race – a fun interactive to highlight the speed of 5G against other technologies.
But simply put, the average smartphone user can expect speeds at least 10-20 times faster than the 4G we’re using today.
