Words: David NieldWe’re on the cusp of a mobile revolution: as new 5G phones
connect to new 5G networks across the UK, you’ll be able to
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MARCH 2020 T3 73The year of 5G
G isn’t just on the way – as of
2020, it’s here. Today you can
go out and buy yourself a
5G-ready handset, and enjoy
blazing fast 5G speeds on your mobile
network, assuming you’re stood in one of
the spots in the country that are covered – a
list that’s grown strongly, and will get bigger
in 2020, but still has a lot of limitations.
While you might think 4G is fast enough
for your sports streaming and your Twitter
browsing, 5G is on a whole new level: expect
average download speeds of 150-200Mbps
(almost 10 times faster than 4G) and peak
speeds of 1Gbps (more than six times the
maximum rate of 4G). As the technology
improves, 5G should get faster still.
And it’s not just about raw speed: latency
(the lag between requesting something fromthe web and actually getting it) should
improve by three or four times compared
with 4G. Webpages and videos will appear in
a snap, and apps that require content from
the cloud (like VR or AR experiences) should
load up almost instantly.
5G vastly improves on bandwidth too,
which means your phone won’t suddenly
be unable to get a connection when you’re
at a sports stadium or a music gig – there
will be plenty of connectivity to go around,
no matter how many people get crowded
into one place.
Add all that together and we’re talking
about a genuine transformation in what you
can do with your phone and how you can use
it, and 5G is going fully mainstream this
year. The number of cities covered is growing
from a handful to the high double figures,and in 2020 it’s going to be rare for a flagship
phone to launch without a 5G variant.
That’s due in part to the arrival of
Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 865 and
Snapdragon 875 chips, the silicon that’s
expected to power the majority of top-end
Android phones that get launched over the
next 12 months. These have 5G modems as
part of them, so phone makers now have no
excuse for not offering at least one 5G phone
during the course of 2020.
Once you’ve got the phone, and the
network support, you’re ready to start
enjoying 5G and all the benefits it brings:
super-stable video calls, movies
downloading in seconds rather than
minutes, cloud content that appears as
quickly as it would if it was stored on your
phone, and plenty more besides.5