5G: The Next Generation of Mobile Connectivity

Just before the smartphone revolution, Nokia was by far the world’s most popular mobile handset manufacturer.

However, despite selling 250 million units of its two most popular block-shaped models in the mid-2000s, the Finnish company ended up being woefully late to the smartphone party. Not only was the company ill-equipped to match the iPhone and Blackberry in terms of technology and design features, but Nokia also failed to foresee how exponential advances in mobile connectivity would change how people ultimately used their devices.

As true broadband connectivity shaped the mobile experience, the phone was no longer just a phone – it was transformed into a seamless hub for any and all digital activity.

The 5G Experience

In the coming years, the newest generation of mobile connectivity – 5G – will roll out and change what is possible again. With maximum speeds up to 1,000x faster than 4G, this new technology will again shift consumer behavior, as well as how we view smartphones, communications, IoT, gaming, and AR/VR.

Today’s infographic comes to us from Cradlepoint, and it highlights how the switch to 5G is unfolding, and what it could mean to you.

The switch to 5G is already well underway, with countries like China and the United States spending billions of dollars since 2015 to get infrastructure in place.

And by 2035, it’s estimated that 5G will enable $12.3 trillion of global economic output, according to a recent report from IHS Markit.

What 5G Will Mean

Here are some of the key differentiators that 5G will provide to future wireless connectivity:

10x decrease in latency
Latency will be as low as 1ms.

10x increase in connection density
This will enable more efficient signaling for IoT connectivity.

3x spectrum efficiency
More bits per Hz will be achieved with advanced antenna techniques.

100x traffic capacity
This will drive network hyper-densification with more small cells everywhere.

10x experienced throughput
Multi-Gbps peak rates will be achieved with uniformity.

100x network efficiency
Network energy consumption will be optimized through more efficient processing.

The switch to 5G will mean longer battery life for devices, lower costs, enhanced cellular footprints, higher throughput, enhanced capacity, low latency, and virtually no packets dropped.

More importantly, as a result of these changes, how mobile connectivity looks in 10 years may be as unrecognizable as the Nokia block phone era does to us today.