What’s 5G in Canada And What Are The Benefits for Businesses?
What’s 5G?
More importantly, how will it benefit various entities like government, healthcare and businesses?
In a nutshell, 5G in Canada is the next generation of cellular wireless (more on this to come). It’s been a popular topic, especially now that the technology is nearly here.
In fact, 67% of consumers are willing to pay for 5G and its related apps and services.
The same study found that early adopters are even willing to pay a 32% premium on 5G (5G will actually expand coverage and capacity in a cost-effective way, but the point is that many see value in 5G).
As you will see, 5G has real-world implications and benefits for numerous sectors, from public safety to healthcare to construction and beyond. This blog post will take a look at what 5G is and how it will benefit these entities.
What’s 5G in Canada?
If you’ve heard of 4G, 5G is basically the next generation of cellular wireless. It will eventually entirely replace 4G LTE.
The most important things to know is that 5G will result in several benefits over the older technology:
- Faster download speeds
- Wider coverage and more reliable connections
- Decreased latency (i.e. the time that it takes for devices to “speak” with each other over wireless)
- The ability to connect to a lot of devices at once (think: smart devices, etc.)
It’s easy to see how faster and more reliable technology will enable greater efficiency and productivity as well as decreased downtime. However, it’s important to understand is that 5G isn’t just a “nice-to-have.” It’s a necessity.
The problem is that carriers have low levels of LTE capacity in many urban centers. In fact, many cities are actually experiencing slow Internet connection during peak times of the day. 5G, however, adds more spectrum in bands.
As for the nitty gritty (read: frequency talk), 5G will operate in a high-frequency band, between 28 GHz and 60 GHz. This range is also known as the millimeter wave (mm Wave) spectrum.
Unlike 4G, 5G works on three separate spectrum bands. This is important. It means that 5G makes better use of the frequency spectrum and allows more mobile devices to access the mobile Internet at the same time. That is, it allows for the most amount of data to be transmitted with the fewest errors.
As for just how much faster 5G will be compared to 4G, chipmaker Qualcomm conducted simulated tests and found that browsing speeds were 23 times faster on 5G, going from 71 Mbps on 4G to 1.4 Gbps for 5G users.
Download speeds went from 10 Mbps to 186 Mbps. Put another way, this means you could theoretically download a movie in about a minute. Speaking of video quality, this improved as well, with median users seeing 8K video streaming with 5G.
How 5G Will Benefit Businesses and Organizations
- Fewer Breakdowns in Service + Faster Speeds = Greater Efficiency and Productivity
As you saw above, the problem with existing spectrums bands is that they’re becoming congested. The result is more breakdowns.
5G, however, is equipped to handle all of these devices at the same time, which makes it much less prone to breakdowns. Add to this greater speeds as well as reduced latency (4 milliseconds) and it’s clear that organizations have the potential to become more efficient and productive as a result.
- Better Communication
At the heart of 5G is ultimately better communication between teams, from staff to customers. Of course, we don’t need to tell you that communication is central to every organization’s success.
The fast connection will mean virtually instantaneous communication. For example, it will mean the ability to stream high-resolution video, audio and images without any delay. This has numerous implications for organizations, with talent recruitment and remote work being two such examples.
Real World 5G Applications
5G will power a rise in the Internet of Things (iOT), which will enable an even more connected world.
While this is already in motion, the sensors that are currently in place require a lot of resources and are quickly lowering LTE data capacity even more.
A boost to IoT will have implications for related sectors, like the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). IIoT is all about using IoT devices and sensors to collect information to increase efficiency.
At the end of the day, a more connected world will make way for smart factories that connect automated machines, industrious robots and software for greater production capabilities. This technology also lends itself toward smart cities, asset tracking, smart utilities and security infrastructure (i.e. alarms or geofencing).
Of course, some of this exists today, but 5G will enhance these capabilities even further. The technical improvements will also mean 5G is much more energy-efficient, therein resulting in better battery life of various devices as well. By extension, this will improve efficiency even more.
- Improved Public Safety and Infrastructure
5G will have a lot of important real-world implications. One such example is improvements in public safety and infrastructure; cities and municipalities will be able to run much more efficiently.
Utility companies, for instance, will be able to monitor usage remotely; sensors will be able to alert public works departments when various infrastructure issues arise, such as the flooding of drains.
- Improving Manufacturing
5G also has the potential to address pain points within the manufacturing industry as well, with the difficulty of maintaining quality during the BLISK milling process and the severity of accidents as such examples.
To this end, 5G has the potential to monitor the process in real-time for a higher quality end product, a reduction in accidents and greater cost savings.
- Construction: Remote Control of Heavy Machinery
With such low latency, 5G makes controlling heavy machinery remotely a reality. The result is improved safety in more dangerous environments.
- Better Healthcare
Many doctors in Canada have already started implementing telemedicine. This is an important step in healthcare, not only in improving overall convenience but also in making healthcare more accessible for those with mobility restrictions, with the elderly being one such example.
The low-latency of 5G makes it possible for telemedicine to be improved even more. For instance, 5G opens up the possibility for greater convenience by gathering data (telemetry) via wearable devices.
However, it also makes powerful technological advancements like remote physical therapy via AR and even entirely wireless remote surgery a reality as well.
5G also makes it possible for 5G to create networks to better monitor patients or prescribe “smart pills” that can track how well patients are complying with doctors’ orders, ultimately resulting in better health outcomes for patients.
Wrapping it Up
Echoing what experts have already said about 5G, it’s important to remember that early smartphones couldn’t even record video. Simply put, it was difficult to predict where the future would take us.
The same holds true for 5G today.
Interested in the benefits of 5G in Canada? Nova Communications is the largest communication systems integrator in Atlantic Canada whose been delivering wireless solutions for over 30 years. We’re also ISO-certified, which means were industry leaders, and we put our customers first. Call us 24/7 at 1-(877)-721-7070 or contact us online here.
