We have all heard myths and conspiracy theories’ surrounding 5G, and most of us understand that it is a faster cellular connectivity technology, but there is much more. The truth is, 5G connectivity is going to be the backbone for driverless cars, safe drone operation, increased precision in manufacturing, ending traffic on the streets, and even safer surgical medical procedures.
5G is fast, very fast. Latency times are faster than the human’s reaction time. A human takes 200 – 300 milliseconds to react. 5G takes 1 millisecond. The revolution of 5G started at 1G. This was simply voice services over a cellar network on cellphones. Then with 2G came text messaging. 3G introduced internet connectivity along with voice and text. 4G made it faster and practical to use. And now, 5G. 5G speed is 150x – 200x faster than 4G. It also ends the problem of lagging connectivity at large events such as sports games and concerts due to network overload.
The speed of 5G will be faster than most high-speed internet connections that comes into your house, and with much less latency. Once a widespread network is up around the country, technology will change forever. Just like the cd rom drive in a laptop, hard drives will have the same fate. SD cards in digital cameras, gone. Storage on your phone, a thing of the past. Everything is going to save real time to the cloud. 5G networks will work at the same speed and allow devices to be smaller and more efficient.
Beyond storage, 5G will be what makes driverless cars safer than a human could ever drive. The cars communicating on the 5G networking will be able to make decisions and reactions 200 – 300 times faster than a human. They will make the correct decisions. This will help minimize or maybe even eliminate traffic on the roads. Safe drone flight will become a reality without air traffic control concerns and operator error. Distracted drivers and operators will not be able to cause accidents and endanger the lives of others. The speed and precision of manufacturing will increase due to every machine working together in real time perfect harmony of the 5G speed and low latency.
As impressive as all of the above things are, one of the greatest uses of 5G connectivity will be in the medical field. The best surgeon in the world will be able to operate on patients from anywhere in the world. The speed of the connectivity and latency will give the surgeon real time input. The robot’s output on the patient will be more precise and micro driven than the human hand is capable. Additionally, the time it takes to get the doctor to the patient could be the difference between life and death.
With all of these great contributions to society, there are some downsides of 5G. The signal is higher frequency and a shorter wavelength than previous technology. This means that it transmits a much shorter distance. The frequency can even be disrupted by severe weather. To solve this, the 5 major carriers need to put up transmitters on rooftops every few blocks instead of just one massive tower servicing an entire city. There have even been misconceptions of 5G being harmful to the human body. Research is showing that this is not true and the worst thing 5G transmitters can do is emit heat. The Government of Canada released that the only adverse health effects associated with RF field exposures in the frequency range from 3 kHz to 300 GHz relate to the occurrence of tissue heating and never stimulation from short-term acute exposures. And finally, the frequency of visible light is 1,000 times higher than that of 5G, which obviously does not harm us.
Cellular carriers have been racing to lease rooftop space and land to build out their 5G networks all around the world. With this demand, I am working with Engineered Tax Services to source transmitter locations and long-term prepaid leases for property owners. The question of, if 5G networks will be completed is not if, it’s when. It will change the way we live for the better!
