What is 5G?

What’s the technology behind 5G?

To understand 5G, it’s helpful to understand what came before it. Broadly, the first generation of mobile technology, 1G, was about voice. The ability to use a phone in a car, or anywhere else, really took root here. The advent of 2G introduced a short-messaging layer—pieces of which can still be seen in today’s texting features. The move to 3G provided the essential network speeds for smartphones. And 4G, with its blazing data-transfer rates, gave rise to many of the connected devices and services that we rely on and enjoy today.

A discussion around 5G technology is really a discussion around delivering life-changing technologies through next-generation networks. Verizon's Ultra-Wide Band 5G network will allow up to 100 times better throughput, 10 times longer battery life and 1,000 times larger data volumes, all while being 10 times more reliable. We are the only company with the engineering experience, fiber assets, wireless millimeter wave spectrum and partnerships to scale the transfer of massive amounts of data at unimaginable speeds.

This is all predicated on work we began years ago to “densify” our 4G LTE network in high population areas with small cell sites. And thanks to Verizon's world-class engineers, we've laid the groundwork that will transform the network and push the limits of 5G's potential faster and more efficiently.

Verizon's Ultra-Wide Band 5G has the greatest potential to revolutionize industries, and provide the most immediate impact for customers. In 2017 and early 2018, we conducted field trials in 11 markets nationwide—among them Ann Arbor, MI, Sacramento, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Houston—and they exceeded our expectations for how the technology would perform.

Bottom line: Much of the pre-positioning for our 5G network launch is already in place, including access to the radio waves, fiber and small cells—all of which will make the installation of 5G network equipment faster, and bring next-generation technology to customers sooner.

We remain on track to deliver on our 5G residential broadband deployment plans. The ecosystem is developing quickly and we’re working with partners and start-ups to discover new use cases for the technology.

How fast will 5G be?

5G will provide more speed, data transfer rates many times faster than a blink of an eye, massive bandwidth and greater opportunities for connectivity and reliability. One way to quantify the difference is in terms of download speeds.

In our 5G trials, we achieved download speeds roughly 30-50 times faster than what is possible with 4G. Data moves so quickly on 5G that Ronan Dunne, our executive vice president and group vice president, has argued:

“5G isn’t just another iteration of wireless innovation,” he says. “Just as the next generation of the television industry reinvented content based on the unique properties of the medium itself, the potential of the fifth generation of wireless technology demands that we fundamentally rethink what can be done on a wireless platform.”

Thanks to its combination of greater data transfer speeds and heightened processing power, 5G will enable even more technology to connect, leading the Internet of Things to be deployed on a truly massive scale. Today, there are some 8.4 billion connected “things” in use—up 31% from 2016. With 5G, that number will grow to more than 20.4 billion by 2020.

Latency will be dramatically lowered. On 4G, latency was cut in half from 3G, with response times of 15 and 60 milliseconds, versus 120 milliseconds on 3G. On Verizon's Ultra-Wide Band 5G network, latency could drop to just 1 millisecond or less, which would make lag times nearly impossible to detect.

What will 5G be used for?

A more appropriate question might be, “What couldn’t 5G be used for?” Rich, complex information will be freed to move at scarcely imaginable speeds. Those speeds, combined with lowered latency, will have far-reaching effects on every sector of the economy.

AR and VR applications can work seamlessly. Industrial machinery and robotics can be controlled remotely. Feature-length HD movies can be downloaded faster than you can read this sentence.

In a 5G-powered tomorrow, entire supply chains can be fundamentally reshaped. With its gigabit speeds and unprecedented response times, 5G can be thought of as the “secret sauce” that will make driverless cars, cloud-connected traffic control and other applications that depend on instantaneous response and data analysis live up to their potential. The possibilities are limitless.