América Móvil obtained the go-ahead from the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) for its subsidiary Telcel to offer 5G mobile services in Mexico.
This fifth mobile generation is not only a new version that offers higher data transmission speeds and lower response times (latency), but, together with other technologies, it will have applications aimed at automation.
5G mobile network: what it is and its importance
5G, whose implementation is being progressive worldwide, will speed up everything that its younger brother, 4G, has achieved in the last decade.
For Francisco Oliveira, communications architect at BBVA, a good way to understand what this technology will bring is to visualize the different phases it has been experiencing, each with its corresponding functionalities and services. “In this case, 5G would be the last of these phases, but all the previous ones have been providing fundamental benefits,” he says in an article.
The first was 1G, completely analog, which allowed making phone calls; then came 2G and with it text messages; mobile internet arrived with 3G; and finally, 4G made its way, which brought mobile broadband, thanks to which mobile phones can offer, among other things, live videos.
Some of the promises of 5G are higher data transmission speeds, greater bandwidth, lower latency or boosting other technologies, but to avoid getting lost in the face of so much change, we summarize below the main advantages that 5G will offer, according to the specialist.
How will the 5G network benefit users?
Increased network speed
One of the main attributes that most experts praise is the speed offered by these networks. According to Oliveira, 4G networks reach speeds of up to 1Gb/s while 5G networks will exceed 10Gb/s. Thus, for example, content downloads, such as a video, which today take a few minutes, can be completed in seconds.
Bandwidth improvement
One of the easiest comparisons to understand what bandwidth consists of is with roads. The same vehicles do not circulate on a motorway as on a one-way road. And with high-speed networks the same thing happens. The 5G will significantly increase the bandwidth, so the volume of data and network capacity will be much higher. “Mobile coverage, for example, will improve compared to 4G. The connectivity will be more uniform, regardless of the area in which we are, and the performance will increase as more users are incorporated, ”says the Ericsson 5G Systems report, enabling the transformation of industry and society.
low latency
Latency, that is, the time it takes for data to travel the distance between sender and receiver, will also change with the arrival of 5G. Thanks to these networks, this time can be reduced to 1 or 2 milliseconds, which is a significant reduction compared to the 20 milliseconds of current 4G networks. “Ultra-reliable, low-latency communications (URLLC) will facilitate the launch of services that require real-time data analysis, such as those related to autonomous driving,” explains Oliveira.
More connected devices
The capacity of devices that can be connected to the network will also be expanded thanks to the new 5G antennas. This technology allows managing a volume of data much greater than the current one, so it will be possible to support more than 1 million connected devices per square kilometer, unlike the 100,000 devices per square kilometer that can be connected with 4G.
Exponential creation of private networks
While 4G networks do not have any type of prioritization of services, through ‘network slicing’, in 5G networks it is possible to segment the network by defining different services that allow guaranteed and priority access. “In this way, specific ‘slices’ can be defined for multimedia services, low latency services such as autonomous driving or even guarantee that emergency services can access the network in critical situations such as catastrophes”, adds Oliveira.
Promotion of other technologies
The arrival of 5G is accompanied by other technologies that will increase its capabilities almost instantly. This will happen with the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing or edge computing, which allows the data produced by each device connected to the network to be processed closer to where it was generated. This prevents data from having to travel long distances, thereby reducing latency, offloading the cloud, and speeding up real-time data analysis.
Within five years, there are expected to be more than 20 billion connected devices worldwide, according to Gartner. And for this future, bandwidth and latency are critical because they will allow the full potential of innovation to be extracted. “If I can have more connected devices and more bandwidth, I can use the cloud more and implement IoT. But for this I need to manage everything more efficiently, which is what 5G networks allow”, explains Guillermo de Haro, professor in the IS/IT area at IE Business School, quoted in the BBVA report.
Opening of new businesses
Just as the digital transformation has brought unknown professions until a decade ago, the emergence of 5G has something similar up its sleeve, but in the form of businesses and companies. “With the hyperconnection that this type of high-speed network will allow, it is easy for new business opportunities to appear. The examples that fall into this category are above all related to services such as data control, building and infrastructure automation, smart agriculture, logistics or fleet management”, concludes the Ericsson study.
