5G Era Comes. Are You Ready To Meet It?

5G Era Comes. Are You Ready To Meet It?

Imagine you live in a world surrounded with many devices that are transparent as glass and you can find them everywhere: on the wall, on the floor, on the ceiling, at home, at work, as well as in public places. All you need to do is touch them by your fingers – and, voila, you'll get information, chat with your friends and relatives, watch TV, read books, play games, etc. It is known, touch technologies have already been developed quite well, so that we are all now on the threshold of an era, when dreams may become true. Just one step left: to increase speed of data transmission. This is where 5G (or 5th generation wireless systems) will come into play.

So shall we expect revolutionary changes in mobile network technologies?

Today we are witnessing an increase of wireless traffic due to the spreading of smartphones and tablets, and a lot more Internet apps for them. It is forecast that, by 2020, the network infrastructure will be likely capable of embracing trillions of devices that have yet to be developed according to the new standards and specifications.

According to the experts, the forthcoming 5G revolution is going to bring substantial improvements such as 1000x higher wireless area capacity for 8+ billion people and 7 trillion objects, 90% of energy savings for your devices. Apart from that, more reliable and secure Internet will be created.

What are 5G mobile networks capable to offer?

5G is actually the next LTE (Long-Term Evolution, a standard for wireless communication of high-speed data for mobile networks). It is expected to be:

FASTER THAN 4G

It will provide a transfer speed of ten gigabits a second.

…and it will also bring:

LIGHTNESS

Easier connection and transferring of all kinds of data.

SPECIAL FEATURES

For example, video streams will come from device to device wirelessly.

CHEAPNESS

The cost of the network connection will be decreased.

MORE AVAILABILITY FOR ALL KIND OF USERS

Even your grandma will be able to use it.

NEW WAYS OF DATA ORGANIZATION

Better data organization solutions will be possible.

MULTIHOMING

5G will absorb and replace all kind of previous and current mobile networks.

When shall we expect the beginning of the 5G era?

While the vast majority of developed countries in Europe and America are still implementing 4G, in South Korea the government is planning to establish a new nationwide next generation 5G network. It was announced that the first test should take place in 2017, and commercial communications should appear in December 2020. For these purposes, 1.6 trillion won (about half a billion dollars) have been allocated.

In China, Huawei reported that it intends to introduce commercial production equipment for 5G by 2020, and that it is ready to invest $600 millions in the development of new technologies.

The Communications Ministry of Japan is going to discuss the development of 5G with major country's mobile companies, as well as with manufacturers of handsets, such as Panasonic, Sharp and Fujitsu. One of the reasons why Japan has to create a 5G wireless network is that 2020 the Summer Olympic Games will be held in Tokio, and there will be a great need for the new generation networks to serve millions of guests along with residents of the country.

In May 2013, Samsung Electronics announced the successful testing of the 5G technology and data transfer at speed of 1 gigabyte of information per second over a distance of 2 km. We can assume that the era of 5G is already quite close to us, bringing us new opportunities like innovative services, new kind of applications, which will definitely influence our life style. We will be able to witness how rapidly our world is being changed. Maybe, it will become the same like in this video very soon: