The Business Of 5G

5G is coming and it is not all about bandwidth but real-time cloud computing for businesses.

16:21 27 March 2017

5G, which promises a download rate of 20Gbps and upload of 10Gbps, will use the same radio frequencies as current 4G LTE networks. However, it will also use higher frequencies millimeter waves that offer significantly higher bandwidths but only over very short distances.

 

Simon Bryant, Associate Director at Futuresource Consulting, said: "We will have fibre-like performance available on the go. It's driven by new chipsets for devices and base stations, and network construction, which will see much greater incorporation of multiple technologies and hand-off between cellular, Wi-Fi and other low-power wide area network (LPWAN) solutions. 5G is about integration and capacity as much as it is about speed."

 

Thaddeus Arroyo, CEO of Business Solutions and International at AT&T, added: “5G makes available much more spectrum, which will move the axis closer to the customer, because when you move to mmWave you have to be very close to the customer. So how we build our networks will change – it's as much about capacity and latency as it is about employing a much denser, but smaller grid, with smaller cells."

 

5G will change how the cloud is currently being used and even how it is conceptualised.

 

"We're going to see a network that's even more relevant than it is today," says Arroyo, explaining that existing networks have enabled compute to reside on the cloud, so cease to be a constraining asset. "We have seen companies move workloads to the cloud, and the network became more important … if you look at empowering these applications with 5G, the network goes to the next level."