Here's everything you need to know about 5G technology so far.

1. Arden Group – Listen. Understand. Deliver
Arden Group
Everything
you need to
know about
5G.

2. Arden Group – Listen. Understand. Deliver
Everything you need to know about 5G.
Even though 5G roll-out is still years away, lately it seems to
be dominating the technology news (see Incremental 5G
progress announcements reach new levels of mania),
leaving our customers questioning; what does 5G mean for
me and my business?
Here we take a look at everything you need to know about
this next generation technology standard so far.

3. Arden Group – Listen. Understand. Deliver
What is 5G?
5G, in short, stands for fifth generation and refers to the
next generation for mobile wireless. However, as there’s
currently no standard service level available and 5G is not
commercially deliverable, it is simply a future technology we
can build around.
All we can say for sure, is to be classed as 5G the connection
should deliver higher speeds, a greater capacity and lower
latency than 4G.

4. Arden Group – Listen. Understand. Deliver
So just how fast are we talking?
There’s a reason it’s being referred to as ‘fibre without fibre’. Initial
testing for 5G has been very promising, with the likes of Samsung already
reporting speeds of up to 7.5Gbps, Nokia 10Gbps and an astonishing
1Tbps from the university of Surrey. It’s worth bearing in mind however
these tests took place under lab conditions – think along the lines of a
cars advertised MPG, luring you in with the promise of driving from
London to the Shetland Islands on a single tank of petrol – once you take
into consideration the likes of excess traffic and poor environmental
conditionals you’ve made it to the Watford Gap before having to shell out
your hard earned cash on extra fuel.
Realistically, by the time the standard has been defined and technology
has been fully developed, we can expect speeds of up to 10Gbps – which
is still incredibly impressive when you consider that 4G offers average
speeds of 15Mbps in the UK.

5. Arden Group – Listen. Understand. Deliver
What does 10Gbps get you?
Think being able to download the latest episode of Game of
Thrones in a just few seconds, accessing remote data as fast
as you could locally and seamless video conferencing
without the need for a Wi-Fi connection.

6. Arden Group – Listen. Understand. Deliver
When will I get 5G?
With the Internet of Things continuing to boom, more and more people investing in wearable
technology and the imminent introduction of driverless cars, the demand for faster, more
reliable connections is more prevalent than ever.
Mobile networks are under increasing pressure to deliver a seamless service that supports the
latest technologies. It’s well known they’re already struggling when it comes to both speed
and capacity – something that needs to be addressed before they can seriously consider rolling
out an even more data hungry service.
Fortunately, with the support of small cell technology, Wi-Fi integration and the introduction
of OFDM – a type of encoding allowing networks to utilise new frequencies and cope with a lot
more data traffic, it means 5G is not that far away.
SK Telecom in Korea is being hailed as most likely to win the 5G launch race, with a somewhat
optimistic goal of the 2018 Winter Olympics. The UK on the other hand has a more
modest goal of 2020, which is likely to see an initial small scale roll-out in London. For the rest
of us non city dwelling folk, it’s unlikely we will benefit from super-fast speeds until a few years
later.

7. Arden Group – Listen. Understand. Deliver
Do I need to do anything?
The introduction of 5G is likely to coincide with a surge in
connected devices and smart building technology. IT managers
need to start looking at their long term strategies to ensure
that their own internal networks are robust enough to cope
with this additional demand.
If you would like to find out how Arden Group can help to
manage your mobile strategy then contact us today.
www.arden-group.co.uk
Tel: 03703 64 64 65