Featured image shows a flexible display technology developed by Arizona State University in April 2006/Wikimedia
5G – the fifth generation of wireless technology – is just about to happen with revolutionary and transformative impact across multiple areas of the economy. Both consumers and businesses will have an lightening fast experience with services, utilities, messaging, networking and advertising.
Companies and experts engaged in development of 5G technology say its introduction will propel the world to a whole new level of communication with instant uploads, downloads and information-sharing leading to trillions of dollars in economic impact in a matter of years.
Many experts see the technology setting life-changing effects for businesses of all sizes – small to largescale industrial output, from research to marketing, from media to social networking, the speed of political messaging to automation and national security fields.
In the United States, Verizon this month announced the launch of Verizon 5G Home, the world’s first commercial 5G broadband internet service, on October 1 – with the service to be initially available in parts of Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento.
A 2017 study looked at the economic impact of the 5G technology, finding that the use of technology will enable a massive $12.3 trillion of global economic output by 2035 and the global 5G value chain will generate $3.5 trillion in output and support 22 million jobs.
The study highlights that like general purpose technologies of the past – printing press, steam engines, electricity and telegraph – the widespread use of Internet will have a transformative effect on many areas of economic activity.
For consumers, transfer of information will take place in an blink of an eye. An Australian Government study in April 2018 explained benefits for consumers by contrasting the difference between the current 4G technology with the fifth generation. At the moment, the 4G allows download speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) while the embrace of 5G technology could potentially enable speeds of more than 1,000 Mbps.
But for that kind of benefits to realize communication industries and consumers both will have to make investments.
According to a Bloomberg report, the transformations that the 5G promises will cost the mobile-phone companies, chipmakers, device manufacturers and software developers about $200 billion a year in research and capital spending.
It may be a moot point for now but once some leading communication service providers succeed in introducing 5G, competitors will be obliged to enter the fray. And same will be the case with businesses and consumers as has been witnessed since the start of the century that each time there is an upgradation, companies and people rush in to embrace the latest technologies, particularly smart phones, as soon as they are available.
The unbound implications including mostly benefits of 5G are bound to be a reality – a reality that seems around the corner.
The small businesses and startups may particularly have bigger and much faster platforms to market their ideas, products and services through efficient marketing, branding and networking campaigns. The new innovators, inventors and entrepreneurs may not have to wait long to market and promote their products and services. Innovation coupled with fast-paced transfer of data and marketing will ultimately shape the outcome of competition. Finding the right mix may be the name of the game to reach out to both local and bigger markets.
