Honestly speaking, I have always been confused about 4G, 5G but never felt the need to really learn about it. My Verizon plan allows me to use my phone on the cellular network and I believe it is 4G but it shows up as LTE on my phone, my Wifi in my apartment has a “- 5G” with one of the Wifi names and I have never understood why. I wanted to learn more about 5G after watching all of Apple’s event on October 13th and it seems like their only selling point this year is all involving 5G since I don’t see too many breakthroughs in new designs to the exterior. According to Brian X. Chen in the New York Times Article What You Need to Know About 5G Smartphones 5G is not as life-changing as they are marketing it out be and it is just faster than 4G. Chen mentioned that the changes in the iPhone 12 might actually be more significant than the whole hype about 5G. Chen mentioned that the current capacities of the 5G we have might only be able to bring up speed faster. by a few milliseconds. However, he also talked about how 5G can bring positive changes and make a big difference for self-driving cars and virtual reality. Personally, I definitely think that 5G will bring a lot of positives such as streaming speed, and allowing me to actually have the capability to text my friends while at the White-Out game in Beaver Stadium. However, my biggest issue is with the way they are marketing things and how they mislead the customers. I really wish companies like Apple can wait until there is actually a more significant breakthrough in 5G and the iPhones before tricking millions of customers in the world into rushing to buy their new iPhones when the change is not so significant from the previous models while using the marketing headline of being environmentally friendly. I think that is just disappointing and misleading.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/technology/what-you-need-to-know-about-5g-smartphones.html
I totally agree with your comments on 5G technology. I would always see ads mentioning 5G technology being such a great thing, when I was never really sure what it was. Like you said, marketing has a major role in why it is hyped up. However, it is nice to have my phone operating faster and smoother. Personally, I still have the iPhone 8 and my phone works perfectly fine. I rarely have any internet problems. That is why I do see how marketing can make 5G technology seem a lot better than it actually is.
I agree with how you feel about the 5G technology. Even though it’s a significant improvement, I think it is being used by companies to increase advertisements in different products. This is a little disappointing and removes the focus on the actual improvements of the 5G network. What excites me the most about the improvements on the large types of networks for mobile cellphones is how in the future, it will be completely normal to always have access to fast internet. In the past, it was acceptable to having slow internet speed when being on the streets. Nowadays, if you have 4G connectivity, it’s acceptable to have slow speed when you are in a crowded area. With 5G, it will be completely normal to still have high-speed internet regardless of the amount of people around you. Also, this will allow other types of devices to be able to use the internet everywhere with high-speed. According to CNN, 5G will give around 10 times faster internet than 4G.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/03/business/what-is-5g/index.html
5G will be a significant leap from 4G, but it will be a while before we see the full impact that 5G will have on the US. Currently, 5G is very limited with only a few suppliers making it available to select customers. It is also only very useful in areas where there are 5G towers nearby. So as of right now, and for the next few years, 5G will not be very popular until multiple providers have good coverage across the whole country. 5G will also lead to higher prices, so many people won’t have to upgrade because 4G is good enough for them and at a lower price point. Although 5G is extremely fast in some areas and its a big leap for technology, I don’t think it will have the same impact as going from 3G to 4G.
https://www.cnet.com/news/5g-from-iphone-12-to-pixel-5-heres-everything-you-need-to-know/
It honestly surprised me to see that 5G wouldn’t do AS much as its been made out to. I do believe however that 5G is a difficult technology to implement, and for that reason, expensive. They will need testing done with a large group of users in different areas, so its important to get a jump on the process right away. 5G does improve my normal internet speeds to a large degree, however, like mentioned sometimes my connection can be a little more spotty due to the shorter wavelength causing interference. I think the implementation of mesh networking will help to solve this issue however, a technology recently coming into residential hands as opposed to just large facilities. I think mesh and 5G will come hand in hand.
4G mainly solves the communication between people, while 5G mainly solves the communication between things and things. 4G is the era of information. We send and receive in a snap of a finger. Therefore, we have great applications like Snapchat, Instagram, etc. In the coming 5G era, with the increase in speed. We can literally control things with 0 lag. Imagine driving your son to school on your phone. Doctors doing operations across countries. Those things we saw in sci-fi movies, Those things we never think it would happen. I am looking forward to the changes 5G will bring to human civilization. Thanks to those scientists who have been thinking about improving our quality of life.
5G seems to be an overhyped thing at this point when you look at the advantages and drawbacks. Compared to 4G, 5G has a lot faster speed since a lot more data can be transferred over at once. Despite this faster speed increase, the coverage of 5G is significantly less when compared to 4G. And considering the high frequency of 5G, the signals can easily be stopped by regular everyday objects completely. This causes discrepancies in many areas where coverage can be spotty. While 5G may be a lot faster, it will take a lot of time to actually get coverage in many areas and actually be a reliable and fast internet connection. This could also help bring the Internet of Things ideology actually become true, or at least accelerate the process. Without a doubt, this is a great advancement in modern technology and telecommunication, but I believe it will take a lot of time for 5G to actually be effective and a truly great marketing point.
Although I do not have the latest iPhone 12, I noticed that on my iPhone when I am using cellular data, it shows 5Ge. My family uses the At&t carrier and after researching a bit, I found out that 5Ge shows up on my phone when it is in an area with 5G Evolution coverage. 5Ge from AT&T is their latest invention and is comparable to Verizon and T-Mobiles LTE Advanced. It turns out that 5Ge, is not actually 5G, it is a misleading title set by AT&T and is actually just an advanced version of LTE. According to Igal Elbaz, AT&T’s senior vice president for wireless technology, “All of our investment in the infrastructure and hardware is all 5G ready, so the moment the 5G software and the 5G devices show up, it’s a software upgrade to our network to enable our customers to move to 5G.” This is significant as it means in the new iPhone 12s, this 5Ge provided by AT&T will actually begin to feel different with faster cellular speeds, however on devices that are not 5G capable yet, they are simply just misleading which is not a good thing. Overall, I do not think that the new changes made in the iPhone 12 and its 5G compatibility will matter as much because it seems like the majority of people are content with 4G and LTE Advanced speeds.
Sources: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/5ge-explained,news-29329.html
https://www.zdnet.com/article/5g-is-no-reason-to-buy-the-iphone-12/
I think I can definitely relate to you as well. The next generation of high-speed mobile data, known as 5G, is live in many countries including the US, the UK and Australia. Not only will these 5G networks connect us to a super-fast mobile network, but entire industries will benefit from the faster connection as well, including the healthcare industry, self-driving cars, drones and the Internet of Things. People with 4G will also experience a sweet change of faster internet with the might 5G coming in the market. Also, 5G is not completely replacing the 4G network, it is just a build up on top of the existing network. This means, if your area does not have 5G available, your 5G phone will switch to 4G network and work perfectly fine. With this advanced technology, people will also experience carrier aggregation that allows carriers to combine 4G signals with other 4G signals, which will result in a huge performance and capacity lift and also allowing users to experience lower latency periods.
I had heard that the new iPhone 12 was coming out, but I was not really sure of the upgrades that it was going to include. I vaguely remember the transition from 3G to 4G, but like you, I was never really sure what that meant, and I think majority of the general public does not know what it means either. Apple seems to be highlighting this change to 5G as its forefront of the release of the iPhone 12. From what I have learned, it seems the 5G does not really mean much besides faster everything – streaming, downloading, gaming, etc. But it really is not much faster so consumers are not that intrigued by it. The push to go to 5G is coming from the producers, not the consumers.
https://www.cnet.com/news/iphone-12-do-we-even-need-5g-were-still-not-sure-apple-future-proof-phone/
I also was confused by the differences between 3G, 4G or 5G. However, I did have to search up the difference and see what they meant by having new 5G technology. All 5G or 4G is, is just an upgrade in higher speed of internet. However, I do not think Apple would necessarily wait for something drastic or a big change to come around to launch a new phone. It wasn’t as drastic as I thought, in fact I thought it was kind of expected. Apple doesn’t necessarily come out with something out of the ordinary or new – just an upgrade in screen, iOS, feature, etc. After all, Apple is a company that will automatically come out with a phone every year to generate sales and earn money. I do think that 5G is important even if they might have over hyped it. 5G is slightly important as it does provide higher speed, which is helpful towards the times that we are in currently.
I’ll be real I don’t even ~know~ what “G” my phone is on. When I’m at home home, as in my parent’s house, I’m pretty sure I’m on 3G because I live out in the country away from any major city. We recently got hooked onto the fiber-optics line that runs by my house which, once connected, increased our internet speed but as far as I know it’s still 3G but I could be wrong. But, to me, 3G is kind of all I need as long as it’s fast and my Zoom videos load when I’m home. When I’m at school I think I’m always on 3G if I’m not on wifi and it works just fine so I honestly can’t see the need for 4G or 5G unless you can prove to me it’s significantly faster. I’d love to see a comparison of 3,4 and 5G next to each other to see the major differences before I make a decision.
To be honest, I did not even know there was 5G. On my smartphone, I always see 4G LTE of wifi, but have never seen 5G before. This made me very curious to do some research and see what it was all about. Upon looking up 5G, it obviously brought up speed. It said this new network feature’s speed is up to a 100x increase compared to 4G. The article from Intel states, “transferring a high-resolution movie at peak download speeds will go from taking seven minutes to just six seconds”. This can help many people when traveling or just doing everyday activities. The other benefit that stood out to me was low latency. This means “round-trip transmission of data taking less than five milliseconds.” This is a benefit for many different industries. The combination of high speed and little lag will help many applications and IoT run more smoothly therefore benefiting us in many ways. Overall, I think 5G sounds pretty awesome. It is a newer network feature that I did not know I would want so bad. Although 4G works just fine for me at the time being, I think many people/ businesses will benefit greatly from this technological improvement.
Source: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/wireless-network/5g-benefits-features.html
I also am very confused about 5g and 4g. All I think I know is that when my phone says connected to 5g it processes much faster than when it is connected to 4g. I think that while on 5g connection, as stated in the original article, everyone in Beaver Stadium, when it’s full, could text and talk and it would still work very effectively. I do know that both of these are internet connectivity. I think that if the Apple stopped promoting more and more 5g than it would be better for everyone.
I similarly had no clue what 5g was or meant in terms of cellphones, however I knew it was on the rise and was being hyped up. The commercials and the selling points all now involve the fact that it’s running on 5g. Truly, the only main difference that users will likely notice between 4g and 5g is that 5g runs faster and smoother. I too feel a little underwhelmed and slightly disappointed by this disillusionment. 5g seemed like it was going to revolutionize and change the game for phones, however I have come to learn it was all a marketing tactic (pretty good one too).
I have also always been confused by what 4g and 5G mean but I did buy into the fact that 5G was going to be this new groundbreaking thing. Like you said they are marketing it as the major advancement of the new phone and I bought into the hype. It will be a major update however as it will allow more user to use the Internet with higher speeds and better efficiency. The biggest thing I think it contains though is bringing the Internet of Things to life. It will connect everyone a lot faster and is expected to enable trillions of dollars worldwide. The normal consumer it is significant update but for business is will be huge.
Source: https://www.raconteur.net/technology/5g/4g-vs-5g-mobile-technology/