The main difference between current wireless networks and 5G networks comes down to two words — speed and latency.
5G networks are expected to be up to 100 times faster than current networks. And at that speed, 5G drastically cuts latency when connecting to the network, the lag between instructing a computer to perform a task and its execution. One thing we know with certainty — by delivering mountains of data at warp speed wirelessly, the impact of 5G will be enormous and it will be felt across all sectors of society.
“5G networks are arguably the most consequential network of the 21st century,” says Computer Science Professor Omid Abari. “5G achieves high connection speeds by using what’s known as mmWave technology. Wi-Fi devices and the current 4G LTE networks use 1 or 2 GHz signals, but 5G uses 28 or 60 GHz signals to communicate. These mmWave signals are orders of magnitude higher in frequency and using such high frequencies is precisely what enables 5G to have orders of magnitude higher throughput communications.”
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