Business Benefits of Increased 5G Coverage
Using 5G To Boost Your Business
5G is now something more and more of us are experiencing as we upgrade our personal mobiles to the latest 5G enabled smartphones. Often when looking for a new business contract or considering whether or not to invest in the top tier smartphones for your workforce, these more costly handsets are overlooked in favour of more middle of the road devices that will “do the job”.
Whilst that’s a perfectly sensible route for many business owners who simply cannot justify the investment in the latest premium models, the benefits 5G connectivity can bring to your business are certainly not to be overlooked.
As the mobile networks add more and more 5G coverage across the UK, now’s a good time to consider how 5G could support your business too. Especially the ways this new form of mobile connectivity can save you time and effort.
Together with some insights from O2 we bring to light four key benefits you can get from 5G technology.
1) Keeping it personal
Personal connections have always been crucial for sales, supplier relationships and customer service. With more of us working remotely, high quality video calls are more important than ever.
With 5G, the increased reliability means that you won’t experience those moments when the screen freezes or the audio cuts out on a video call. This could make a massive difference to those employees who will continue working from home. Not just by overcoming the usual frustration with sound or picture quality. But also by bringing back some of the features of body language that are such an important part of personal relationships. Things like micro facial gestures that help you understand how what you’ve said is being received. And we all know how important these are when trying to build rapport or making someone feel comfortable.
2) Bringing people together
With many of us sharing wifi, bandwidths have been stretched to the point that everything suddenly slows down. Often just when you need it to speed up because there’s a deadline looming. And what about those times you’re hosting an event online? Whether it’s Facebook Live or IGTV, people are depending on you, so the last thing you want is a lack of bandwidth preventing you from presenting seamlessly.
Better 5G bandwidth really helps your people work together as a team, regardless of where they are. Remote working is now part of daily life for many of us. And 5G means that whether they’re working at home, in the office or around the corner in the coffee shop, everyone can see what they are sharing down to the minutest of details. They can use collaboration tools to make changes in real time. And they can share the results with customers who can see everything in high definition. Just the way it should be.
3) Removing the waiting time
Everyone knows that waiting for a file to upload or download is a waste of time. Compared to 4G, 5G gives you far less latency. This is the time that passes between you telling your tech what to do and the tech actually doing it.
What does all this actually mean for your business? Well, it means you can transfer more data more efficiently to more devices. If you’re sending large files or folders – like catalogues with lots of high-res images via WeTransfer – it’ll happen in a flash. And your people won’t be wasting their time waiting. Cloud based collaboration and productivity apps will work effortlessly too.
4) Keeping things secure (and sustainable)
Security is always a concern for businesses. Especially if you hold customer information. And even more so now when many of us are working away from company IT set-ups. Not only is 5G far more secure than shared wifi, it builds on 4G’s capability to offer true Carrier Grade security. Of course, it’s still important to look at the range of security products to protect your people and your business.
It may surprise you but 5G is a more energy efficient technology because it processes data much quicker therefore using less energy. So it can support your move to more sustainable ways of working while also helping provide the foundation for smarter cities and autonomous vehicles. All of which can reduce our carbon footprint.
Upgrading Your Existing Contract and hardware
Don’t feel that you need to make a complete switch to 5G for all your mobile workforce if that is simply out of reach right now. Why not consider reviewing which of your employees rely more on remote connectivity or have roles that involve lots of video calls and just invest in a small number of 5G devices and related tariffs (all 5G connections will require upgrading to a specific 5G tariff rather than simply renewing your current arrangement)? You can then measure the impact on efficiency over a period of time to see if a wider rollout would be appropriate.
If you’d like to talk to one of our team about our flexible upgrade options and existing contract buyout service please contact us.