A friend of mine recently called asking for my help with something. Their long time roommate was moving out and they needed advice choosing a new home internet plan (their current contract was under their roommate’s name). My friend was unsure on what different options they had and knowing me to be a huge nerd for this type of thing, decided to seek my opinion on the matter. I knew that my friend was less than happy with their current internet plan’s performance, so I suggested that this was the perfect opportunity for an upgrade. Promising to help them through the process of sifting and picking through the different options and helping out with setting it up.
But unfortunately for my friend, after a bit of canvassing for different options we found out that their building was far too old, and thus did not have any proper fiber-optic or broadband wiring for conventional home internet plans. However, one telecommunications company that we canvassed suggested an alternative to “wired connections”. They suggested that we consider a 5G internet plan.
What is 5G?
5G has been a headliner topic lately. From promises of revolutionizing the technology industry to debunked conspiracy theories that it caused COVID-19, there is no shortage of news about this new technology. In technical terms, 5G is the fifth generation standard in cellular broadband communication technology utilizing two sets of frequency bands (450 MHz to 6 GHz and 24.25 GHz to 52.6 GHz). Using these higher frequency bands 5G is able to provide vastly faster internet upload and download speeds compared to 4G (the previous iteration), with the potential to achieve theoretical maximums of 20 Gbps (Gigabits per second) download and 10 Gbps upload.
It is because of that higher network performance that 5G is seen to be revolutionary. The promise of a high-speed low-latency “Internet of Things” (IoT) network over a large geographical area could have a multitude of different impactful applications. Not to mention the possible implications on projects such as self-driving cars.
But for the average consumer, 5G also holds the promise of another revolution. Upturning the status quo on home internet plans.
