5G mobile data? Yes Please! – Grasp 16′
5G mobile data? Yes Please! – Grasp 16′
We like mobile data, we’re hungry, ravenous! – In fact, for data and the more data we have access to on the move, the closer we get to the high tech future full of endlessly possibilities or maybe the closer we get to the Dystopian, robot enslavement, who knows! But as things stand the news of 5G technology that could one day bring us around 3.6GPs speeds. These aren’t just pie-in-the-sky figures, they are proven figures derived from tests conducted by Huawei and Japanese mobile firm NTT DoCoMo. To put this into perspective, this is cited at around 100 times faster than current 4G signals can provide, another way of thinking of it is you will be able to download a film to your phone in less than, LESS THAN a second. Sign me up. But wait………
Sorry people, it looks like you’re going have to wait until 2020 until this new tech is rolled out. Not only this but the feel is that London will be the first to receive 5G and then later the network will spread to the rest of the UK over an undetermined time scale. Throw in a little precautionary delay time for the inevitable bidding wars between mobile network firms and you might have a slightly longer wait.
But all good things come to those who wait and lets not forget, increased mobile data speeds doesn’t just mean a significant rise mobile data, but also the knock on effects of significantly more powerful mobile devices. Logic dictates if you have a phone that has to cope with downloading 3 gigabytes a second, you are going to need a phone or mobile device with the WiFi tech to do this and hefty internal capacity in a device isn’t bigger than a shoe box.
The UK can hold its heads high this time around, because the UK is playing a big role in 5G research, no exception is the 5G innovation centre down the road from Grasp in Guildford at the University of Surrey. The University is collaborating with Vodafone using the campus itself as the pilot environment for the 5th generation mobile technology.
Those on Vodafone who plan on driving around the perimeter of the University campus trying to receive a 5G signal, don’t bother, I tried…….nadda.
This wouldn’t be a complete article if we didn’t cite some of the potential limitations of 5G. The frequency range that has been trialed on certain 5G tests have indicated whilst the bandwidth is very powerful unimpeded, with your everyday things like buildings, trees or fat people obstructing the signal, the 5G provision is detrimentally lowered. Never the less, the research is undeterred and there are some novel and interesting work around steps mobile technology research is turning to in order to cure this. With this in mind, hopefully lessons will be learn from the prior four generations of mobile technology to avoid the “patchy coverage” issue and we will finally have country wide mobile data coverage. What would also be refreshing is avoiding the ‘monopoly scenario’ such as that we had with 4G whereby one network has priority on rolling out new technology over another mobile data provider. We live in hope.
So roll on 2020 and in the meantime Im afraid you’ll have to stand in that sweet spot in the town center in order to access the internet.
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