Maximum PC - UK (2019-09)

ROLLING OUT WHERE CAN YOU

GET 5G IN THE USA TODAY?

AT&T

What’s on offer: Mobile

5G to a small number

of business customers

Where:

Los Angeles, California

San Diego, California

San Francisco,

California

San Jose, California

Jacksonville, Florida

Orlando, Florida

Atlanta, Georgia

Indianapolis, Indiana

Louisville, Kentucky

New Orleans, Louisiana

Charlotte,

North Carolina

Raleigh, North Carolina

Oklahoma City,

Oklahoma

Nashville, Tenne s s e e

Austin, Texas

Dallas, Texas

Houston, Texas

San Antonio, Texas

Waco, Texas

SPRINT

What’s on offer: Mobile

5G to consumers and

business customers

Where:

Atlanta, Georgia

Overland Park, Kansas

Kansas City, Missouri

Dallas, Texas

Fort Worth, Texas

Houston, Texas

T-MOBILE

What’s on offer: Mobile

5G to consumers and

business customers

Where:

Los Angeles, California

Atlanta, Georgia

Las Vegas, Nevada

New York, New York

Cleveland, Ohio

Dallas, Texas

VERIZON

What’s on offer: Mobile

5G to consumers and

business customers,

plus a separate

home 5G service

Where:

Verizon Mobile

Denver, Colorado

Chicago, Illinois

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Verizon 5G Home

Los Angeles, California

Sacramento, California

Indianapolis, Indiana

Houston, Texas

Ookla’s 5G map

is a good guide

to coverage.

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In October 2018, Verizon beat other carriers to the punch by rolling out

its Verizon Home 5G service in a handful of cities, including Houston,

Indianapolis, Los Angeles, and Sacramento, and also offers a full retail

service for mobile 5G users in a handful of cities. AT&T turned on 5G in 12

cities at the end of 2018, adding more since, but only offers the service to

a select number of business customers. Sprint launched its network in

May, and like Verizon has gone for a more limited initial offering in terms

of locations, but with full availability to consumers. As we go to press,

here are some of the currently available locations and services.

driving, safety systems, smart rail networks,

and, of course, gaming. If those are the three key

5G usage models, real-world applications will

often straddle categories. An obvious example is,

indeed, game streaming. For that you want lots of

bandwidth. But you also want low latency.

The same convergence of factors applies to the

emerging field of telemedicine. Delivering medical

services remotely, even surgery, isn’t a novel idea,

but 5G promises to radically expand the range of

medical services that can be delivered over the

Internet. One more specific innovation involves

something called the “tactile Internet.” The idea is

to combine a range of existing robotic, sensor, and

haptic feedback technologies with the ultra-low

latency of 5G, plus some predictive algorithms to

compensate for what latency remains, to transmit

touch over the Internet in real time. The upshot

could change the way medicine is delivered.

MAKING CONNECTIONS

If that kind of technology is likely years away, the

5G-powered Internet of Things is much, much

closer. Analyst outfit Gartner, for instance, reckons

that by next year, over 20 billion devices will be

connected to the Internet. That number is growing

rapidly. Some research suggests 2025 could see

as many as 100 billion connected devices, which is

why 5G’s support for a huge increase in connected

devices is so critical. The IMT-2020 5G standard

set by the International Telecommunication Union

dictates a minimum requirement of at least one

million connected devices per square kilometer.

Yes, that’s a minimum. Meanwhile the maximum

number of connections supported by 4G tops out

at around 100,000 per square kilometer.

Those are impressive numbers, but what

will these devices be? Today’s Internet of Things

includes devices such as fitness monitors, and

smart devices, like connected thermostats

and light bulbs. But that’s just the beginning. One

obvious near-future example involves logistics and

tracking. Currently, most couriers use a system of

visible tags, which are optically scanned. It works

pretty well, but leaves room for error. However,

if every item or package had its own Internet

connection, its individual position could be known

in real time, even if it falls off the back of a truck.

In agriculture, meanwhile, 5G will enable a

huge array of sensors to be located in the ground

and in crops, on livestock, and on farm machinery.

Combined with data from weather satellites and

drones, farmers will have a far, far more accurate

picture of when and how much to water, fertilize,

and use pesticides. That will make farming more

efficient and more environmentally friendly, by

using chemicals only as and when needed.

Then there’s the whole autonomous car thing.

For truly self-driving cars to be possible, a very

large array of innovations and technologies is

required. Any fully autonomous car would need

the capability to sense and react to vehicles and

other hazards without communicating, especially

in a world where autonomous cars will initially have

to share the roads with human-driven vehicles,

cyclists, and pedestrians. But the ability to send

and receive large amounts of data with low latency

will be a huge advantage.

An autonomous car would know about traffic

problems miles away, because of the data it pulls

in from other vehicles and the cloud. It will know

where the cars in front and behind are going, and

which lane they will be joining at the next set of

5G is set to revolutionize the world of personal health. traffic lights. It will know when the cars around it

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