5G What’s The Story For Businesses?
5G – the story so far
5G has been in the news quite a bit this year, with EE making it first past the post to officially launch its 5G service. Unlike 4G, the UK has been in the first wave of countries to adopt 5G technology. All the major networks have started initial rollouts in high traffic areas. Speeds will be well in excess of 1Gb/s in some areas on the high bandwidth.
At this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, every smartphone manufacturer showed off a new 5G device. However, it won’t be until 2020 at least until the 5G revolution really kicks off here and it’s likely urban centres – where all trials have been held so far – will benefit first.
Having said that, the race to 5G is at risk of slowing as it requires extensive government approval. Not to mention the fact the U.S is still trying to ban Huawei, the Chinese supplier of high-speed telecoms systems over fears this would help China conduct espionage or cyber sabotage. It seems the UK believes this risk can be mitigated without banning Huawei from the 5G network, according to recent headlines.
There’s a lot of talk about 5G as a consumer technology but less about business benefits. But when you start to look at the facts there’s quite a bit to get excited about!
The start with, it will certainly improve the experience of remote working and collaboration. Today, over 50 percent of staff work away from their main office at least 2.5 days a week which while giving businesses agility, improved scheduling and lower staff turnover, can make connecting, sharing and engaging teams difficult.
LESS LAG, MORE PRODUCTIVITY
This is where 5G comes in. Network-related tasks, such as online sales or sharing large files in the cloud will become much faster and more efficient, even on mobile devices without the need to connect to WiFi, giving businesses huge productivity gains and boosting staff morale. After all, there’s nothing more frustrating than a slow internet connection.
As well as connecting people, 5G will connect things, vastly expanding the capabilities and application of IoT (Internet of Things) which demands better and faster connectivity. In fact, 5G will enable device-to-device communications for up to a million devices per square kilometre.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN IN REAL BUSINESS EXAMPLES?
This means massive opportunities for IoT innovation and commercial use – from driverless cars, drones, Artificial Intelligence, robotics and remote-controlled machinery, and virtual and augmented reality – giving businesses at the forefront of creating and using such technologies a competitive edge.
A very clever example of what’s possible is provided by Vodafone’s 5G connected crane, allowing an operator hundreds of miles away to have full remote control of the crane (or indeed multiple cranes in different locations). This 5G-enabled teleoperation solution could transform the construction industry and many others, increasing site safety and reducing idle time.
EE’S LAUNCH
EE were first off the mark with their initial launch on May 30th. A number of 5G-capable handsets are available from Samsung, OnePlus, LG, HTC and Oppo. Huawei was left off amid ongoing tensions between the US and the Chinese company.
During the announcement EE’s chief executive Marc Allera said it had decided to ‘pause’ the sale of Huawei 5G phones. He added that they won’t be stocking the handsets ‘until we get the information and confidence and the long-term security that our customers – when they buy those devices – are going to be supported for the lifetime that they’ve got the device with us’.
EE is planning to reach 1,500 sites by the end of 2019, including the ‘busiest parts’ of Bristol, Coventry, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham
Phase one of the rollout will last until 2022, when EE’s core 5G network will be in place, as will new spectrum bands and new chipset technologies will be available. Phase three, from 2023 onwards, will see mission-critical low-latency, network slicing, gigabit speeds and real-time traffic management capabilities enabled.
“5G is going to give customers in the busy areas an uplift of 150Mbps on average and often more than that. This is a premium experience,” said BT Consumer CEO Marc Allera. “We are confident that some customers will break the 1Gbps milestone. When we launched 4G in 2012, we were talking about 12-15Mbps and that was game changing.
“But it’s not about peak speeds in peak conditions – it’s about reliability. Our 5G strategy is demand led and focuses on the busiest areas of busiest cities. These sites make up eight per cent of our network sites but carry 20 per cent of our data traffic. These are the areas our customers need it most.”
IS IT RIGHT FOR YOUR BUSINESS NOW?
If your business is based on in one of EE’s launch locations and you’d like to discuss upgrading to 5G devices as an early adopter please contact us to discuss a suitable plan and range of handsets.