The fifth generation of mobile networking is inching closer by the day — and despite the recent (completely unsubstantiated) health rumors circulating about 5G masts, the new cellular network promises to bring with it faster speeds, wider coverage, and a long-awaited end to congestion and latency issues. With the rise in remote working in 2020, the rollout of 5G may come faster than we’d anticipated as more activities move online.
There’s no doubt that 5G will revolutionize the way we use our phones. But is it really worth upgrading your 4G phone? Let’s take a closer look at 5G technology and find out whether it’s really everything it’s cracked up to be.
We’ve looked at how fast 5G is before, but there isn’t a specific speed we can expect. Instead, think of 5G as offering a speed range and the actual speeds you get will depend on what network you’re connecting to, how busy it is, what device you’re using, and a few other factors. This table gives you a rough idea of the maximum speeds of each generation of cell network technology and the average speeds in the real world.
The topic is complicated by the variety of different technologies that are used in each generation, geographical differences in coverage, and by the fact that the technology continues to evolve and improve over time. For example, 4G has improved significantly over its lifetime with the development of LTE (Long-Term Evolution) and then LTE-A (Long-Term Evolution Advanced). You can theoretically get up to 1Gbps with the latest 4G LTE-A developments, which is the lower end of what 5G hopes to deliver. The average speeds you get in the real world will inevitably be much lower.
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