What is 5G?

First, it is a new, very capable radio.

With beamforming, MIMO antenna technology, and frequency bands reaching to millimeter waves, it provides both higher transmission speeds and serves more users at the same time.

The new radio is also needed to serve mass deployment of networked sensors, and to enable various mission-critical services that may require better latency or reliability characteristics. 5G radio can provide speeds in the Gigabit range, up to 10 Gbps or even beyond, although for large numbers of users the speeds are lower, but still target at least tens of megabits per user, for tens of thousands of users.

Second, 5G targets a set of use cases, such as the familiar mobile broadband use case. But 5G is also intended to open the use of communication and cellular networks for many new industries.

The goal is to be able to tailor communication platform for a wide range of different services, ranging from low power IoT devices to self-driving cars, from mission critical public safety communication to providing services to energy providers. any of these use cases were hard to provide with previous generation technologies.

For instance, one use case is about controlling remote machinery — an example of a service that benefits from lower latencies that 5G provides. There is also a higher demand on flexibility and configurability/orchestration.