For instance, the telecommunications company Ericsson has recently begun production in its new Texas-based smart factory, using 5G-connected robotics to manufacture 5G antennas. Cutting the cord with 5G gives factories new flexibility to reconfigure assembly lines with changing customer demands. Before 5G, manufacturers shunned wireless connections because their machines required constant instantaneous feedback. By contrast, many other technologies would benefit from 5G connectivity, and those aren’t on-the-go like the average smartphone customer.

That’s an expensive proposition, even in cities, which may not be justified by the ability to create faster streaming speeds for couples looking to stream Netflix on date night. Providing 5G cellphone coverage therefore requires carriers to place transmitters everywhere, augmented by specialized antennas and reflectors. The signal won’t travel very far, and pretty much everything blocks it. However, there’s a reason these higher frequencies used in 5G networks were mostly consigned to cordless phones in the past. For instance, many sensors on an energy grid could relay data to a control system almost instantaneously, eliminating the need for costly underground fiber optics. The addition of a new frequency range increases the amount of information users can access, and how fast. In addition to the existing channels, 5G will employ higher frequencies previously used only for short-range devices such as cordless phones. The promise of 5G is likewise connected to its technical characteristics: 5G most dramatically parts from 4G in terms of the frequencies used to relay information. Then 4G, the standard since 2009, made high-speed web access feasible, the final stage in fitting the world into every pocket. Next, 3G facilitated on-the-go video, making the phone into an entertainment system. The advent of 2G in 1991 brought cellphones - once a gadget of the rich - into popular use by switching from analog to higher-efficiency digital transmission. Each of the five generations of cellular has changed society in different ways, with distinct technical improvements generating new levels of digital access. The fifth-generation standard for cellular communications, 5G has generated buzz since it was codified in 2017, beguiling consumers with visions of seamless videoconferencing and video-game streaming.

Magazine article on 5g technology