What is 5G and how fast is it?

If you’ve spent much time on this site or other mobile-focused websites, then you’ve probably been seeing 5G referred to with increasing frequency.

There’s a good reason for that – it’s coming very soon and is set to be far better than 4G, let alone 3G. But what exactly is 5G? When is it landing? And how fast is it? You’ll find answers to all of those questions and more below.

What is 5G?

5G simply stands for ‘fifth generation’, as it’s the fifth generation of mobile networks, just as 4G is fourth generation and 3G is third generation. So it’s a new generation of mobile networks, complete with new infrastructure.

With each new generation data speeds have increased and that will be no different with 5G. We’ll talk in detail about the speed below, but it’s worth knowing that speed isn’t the only difference. In fact, 5G could power all sorts of use cases that just aren’t possible on 4G. Examples of them can also be found below.

What’s so good about 5G?

• Very fast
• Low latency
• Network slicing
• Alternative to fibre broadband

There are lots of advantages to 5G. It’s set to be very, very fast for one, but it should also have much lower latency (the delay in waiting for the network to respond to a request). There’s also set to be a lot of spectrum available for it, meaning plenty of capacity, so it should be able to easily cope and provide a smooth, reliable experience no matter how many people are using the network at the same time.

These things combined should allow for lots of new and improved use cases, from autonomous vehicles to holographic and 8K videos and super-smooth online gaming.

5G could also help in industry. It could for example power smart cities and revolutionise agriculture. Imagine for example a 5G-powered drone monitoring crops and livestock, sending data back to a control centre in real time.

5G could also prove a real alternative to fibre broadband in many places. It has the potential to be faster, particularly in regions that don’t currently get fast broadband. It should also be cheaper and simpler to install, with no engineer visits needed.

Plus, 5G will be capable of ‘network slicing’, which means partitioning parts of the network to make separate virtual networks that can be completely customised to the needs of the user, rather than the ‘one size has to fit all’ approach of 4G and 3G.

How fast is 5G?

That’s the question everyone wants the answer to, but right now the answer isn’t entirely clear, and it will probably change over time.

Ofcom has estimated an ultimate download speed of somewhere between 10Gbps (gigabits per second) and 50Gbps, but don’t expect that on day one. It should still immediately be a big upgrade on 4G though, with EE for example achieving 2.8Gbps speeds in a lab test and 1.3Gbps speeds in a live network trial.

4G meanwhile tops out at around 100Mbps (megabits per second). In fact, in practice, you can’t get more than 90Mbps speeds with 4G in the UK, as no network supports more than that, and average speeds are far, far lower.

The OpenSignal Mobile Networks Update in October 2018 reported average 4G download speeds of 28.9Mbps for EE, 21.92Mbps for Vodafone, 18.78Mbps for Three, and 14.61Mbps for O2. 3G meanwhile is around five times slower than even that, with speeds often of just a few megabits per second.

So even if we’re conservative in our estimates of initial 5G speeds and say they’ll average around 1Gbps (when in fact they could be a lot higher), that would still make them between around 30 and 70 times faster than average speeds on 4G networks.

In turn, that would mean apps and files download 30 to 70 times faster, web pages load instantly, and all the use cases mentioned above start to make sense.

Having said that, some estimates are more conservative, putting real world speeds – at least initially – at between 10 and 20 times faster than 4G speeds. That drop off is possible, since once networks launch for real they’ll have a whole lot of devices connecting to them and sharing bandwidth, but even then, that’s a huge improvement on 4G.

Of course, it’s not just download speeds that will be better on 5G. Upload speeds will too, with those potentially ultimately reaching around 10Gbps according to estimates. As with download speeds, that’s unlikely to be the case on day one, but expect a similar boost over 4G speeds.

And then there’s latency. We mentioned this above, but this plays into speed. Latency is how long it takes a network to respond to a request, and can be one of the main causes of lag in online games. It stands at around 120ms (milliseconds) on 3G, 50-60ms on 4G, and theoretically just 1ms on 5G.

That doesn’t just mean gaming will be smoother, but is also vital for anything where lag isn’t an option, such as self-driving cars, which need to make constant and immediate adjustments.

How does 5G work?

Whether you’re using 3G, 4G or 5G the core technology is similar in that data is transmitted wirelessly over radio frequency between you and the nearest compatible mobile mast. With 5G, higher frequency bands will be used in many cases than with 4G or 3G as this is capable of higher peak speeds and there’s a lot more spectrum available in these bands, making for a lot more capacity.

Networks have already started acquiring this spectrum, with the first 5G auction in the UK seeing Three, EE, O2 and Vodafone all come away with varying amounts of 3.4GHz spectrum, but there will be more auctions in future, and the networks have their pre-existing spectrum that they can fall back on.

One thing to note though is that this high frequency spectrum doesn’t travel as far as the lower frequencies currently in use for mobile, nor is it as good at passing through solid objects like walls, which means there will need to be a lot more infrastructure. That means rather than (or as well as) towers dotted miles apart, there will also be lots of ‘small cells’, that is, small, low-power base stations, clustered much closer together.

Beyond higher frequencies and more, smaller infrastructure, 5G will rely on an assortment of technologies, such as MIMO (multiple input and multiple output), which would allow more than one data signal to be transmitted and received at a time.

Beamforming will also be used. This will allow networks to steer the 5G signal more precisely, so that it goes where it needs to and doesn’t cause interference.

When will the UK get 5G?

5G networks are set to start appearing in the UK in the second half of 2019, so there’s not long to wait.

EE has been the most open about its 5G plans, saying that it will initially bring 5G to busy parts of London, Cardiff, Belfast, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Manchester. Then, later in 2019 it plans to expand its 5G network to cover parts of Glasgow, Newcastle, Liverpool, Leeds, Hull, Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester, Coventry and Bristol.

Vodafone also plans to launch a 5G service in 2019, but its initial focus looks to be on Cornwall and the Lake District rather than cities. That’s promising for anyone who lives in rural areas. The network has said it aims to have 1,000 5G sites active by 2020.

Three has also talked about a 5G launch in 2019, but hasn’t gone into any specifics. O2 meanwhile isn’t expected to launch a 5G service before 2020.

Of course, in all cases these 5G networks will initially have very limited coverage. As with 3G and 4G it will take a while – probably years – to deliver widespread coverage. It’s also likely that for the most part large cities will be the first to get 5G.

Will my phone work with 5G?

Unfortunately not, you’ll need a phone with a 5G modem and none of those have launched yet. However, a large number of such handsets are expected to land throughout 2019, including phones from Samsung, OnePlus, Huawei and more. Apple is the one notable exception, as it’s unlikely we’ll see a 5G iPhone before 2020.

There are two things to remember though. Firstly, your current phone will still work fine over 4G and 3G even once 5G arrives. Secondly, as noted above it could be many years before 5G is available across the majority of the UK, so there’s no immediate need to upgrade, especially if you don’t live somewhere that initially gets 5G coverage.

In fact, it might be worth waiting. The first 5G handsets are likely to be more expensive than typical phones, but prices are sure to drop in a year or two. But if you just can’t wait you should have a number of options by the time 5G networks are available.