FAQS

What is 5G? What benefits does it provide?

Concepts and Definitions

General Information

5G is a collection of technologies that make up the next generation of cellular technology. The two big selling points of 5G are: 1) much higher bandwidth than is typically possible with current 4G technology, and 2) lower latency than is typically seen with 4G technology. As with so many things, having 5G doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you’ll have higher bandwidth than any possible 4G tech, but in general, the technology is built around the idea of being able to provide higher bandwidth and lower latency. So, if your application specifically requires either very high wireless bandwidth or very low latency, then 5G might be a good choice. If it doesn’t require either or both of those, then there may not really be an advantage to you to use 5G. The 4G cellular network is not going away any time soon. 5G is the next generation and those are the two things it’s designed to do. If you care about those things, then 5G might be worth looking at. But if you don’t care about those things, then 5G may not matter to you at all.

Also, you may see NB-IoT and Cat-M1 technologies talked about as being part of 5G. While they are considered to be part of 5G, they actually did exist as part of 4G as well. Sometimes people will talk about low-bandwidth/low-power being a feature of 5G, but they are really talking about NB-IoT or Cat-M1.

All FAQs