Major Benefits of 5G for Businesses
By Art King
Published: February 21, 2022
Around the country, many providers will be using indoor small cell and DAS technologies to bring 5G technology to companies. Organizations are preparing for the switch to enhance their networks and harness the power of 5G for their businesses. But is it a cellular solution worth upgrading to?
First, 5G is the first “G” update that does more than just create a faster radio network. Instead, it works by bringing together many technologies that had emerged since the advent of 4G and connects them to people, machines, and global cloud infrastructures to create an enhanced solution.
It’s no surprise then that 5G networks will serve 40% of the globe by 2024. They can offer companies a chance to run more effectively and efficiently than ever.
Here are three significant benefits companies experience and what exactly 5G can achieve that make it the most revolutionary “G” yet!
The Three Major Benefits of 5G for Businesses
Enhanced Mobile Broadband and Capacity Enhancements
Each new “G” offers enhanced speed. However, the latest 5G takes it to a whole new level by improving both enhanced broadband and capacity requirements.
When tested under perfect laboratory conditions, 4G tops out at about 1 gigabits per second. 5G, on the other hand, completely surpasses 4G’s ideal laboratory situation with an impressive 20 gigabits per second.
Even with great coverage and speed, though, insufficient capacity will still result in reduced speeds and frustration for everyone. It results in the glacial service nicknamed “5 bars of nothing.” As companies have grown and expanded the technology they use, the demands on traditional 4G have stretched it to its limit. Previous generations of cellular solutions were not equipped to handle the increased loads of the new and emerging technologies.
5G tackles traditional cellular service problems by addressing the two critical components for an improved mobile experience: increasing both speed and density. Both of these together create an impressive performance across enterprises of all industries. With 5G speeds, enterprises can move significant amounts of data, including simultaneous data transfers, without network issues. They can start to plan for a truly universal wireless user experience, eliminating physical cabling, and reducing their infrastructure costs while improving employee satisfaction and connectivity.
Massive IoT and Connectivity
5G offers a higher device capacity than previous versions to handle the needs of the modern-day property.
As companies use more and more devices to run effectively and efficiently, traditional networks are overly burdened and cannot handle the increase in loads. Because of today’s 4G limitations, companies are limited in the number of devices they can run concurrently.
5G offers the connectivity that businesses need both now and in the future. It can support an estimated one million connected devices per .38 miles. By comparison, 4G supports just 100,000. But don’t overlook the important of a solid 4G core. It is important to insure you have 4G today to be ready for 5G tomorrow. Check out our recent blog post on how 4G is part of today’s 5G rollouts.
Not only can the network handle a larger number of devices, but it can also support simultaneous data transfers within the network that usually require multiple networks.
Low Latency and Ultra-High Reliability
Latency refers to the gap between when data is sent and when it is received and acknowledged.
Technology has always come with a certain amount of lag, and it has long been accepted as a minor annoyance of technology. Think about, for example, watching a livestream of a football game. It will always be a second or two behind what is actually going on in the game.
As more critical activities have come to rely on technology, latency periods have become more than just a minor inconvenience. In healthcare, where a surgeon is relying on technology to perform remote surgery, this gap is critical to ensure the surgeon’s movements are not affected by network latency.
Latency is especially an issue for companies that utilize IoT to run their business. 5G improves their functionality and safety by lowering latency. It can support the necessary applications with significantly lower latency.
Ultra-high reliability increases 5G availability so that technical applications and processes can be assured of consistent network services availability.
In short, 5G provides a substantial performance increase over 4G LTE. It can support additional devices at a speedier data rate and reduced latency.
The Goals of 5G
While these are the overarching benefits of 5G, what does this mean on the more technical level?
The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) created technical goals for 5G to make them a reality. These technical goals were created in 2015 to guide their process of designing 5G and their improvements over the original LTE:
- User Experienced Data Rate. 5G delivers 10x’s the data rate at the mobile device. It went from 10 with LTE to 100 Mbits/sec.
- Spectrum Efficiency. The spectrum efficiency is the data rate over a channel. 5G boasts three times more efficiency over LTE. What that means is that when both 5G and LTE use the same channel width, 5G performs three times better than LTE.
- Mobility. Mobility is a critical goal for mobile devices that need to move at fast speeds, such as high-speed rails and drones. 5G improved mobility from 250 to 500 km/h for applications that require exceptional speed.
- Latency. Latency is critical for applications that require quick replies from their systems, such as the surgery example noted above. 5G offers 10xs the improvement in latency over LTE, taking it from 10ms down to 1ms.
- Connection Density. Networks have to be able to handle and service more devices in dense areas, such as offices or urban settings. 5G offers 10x the improvement over LTE, taking it from 100,000 devices/km2 to 1,000,000.
- Energy Efficiency. Every part of the 5G network is orchestrated to use much less power over LTE. In fact, 5G is 100x more energy-efficient than LTE.
- Area Traffic Capacity. Area traffic capacity combines with connection density to improve network usage in the area. 5G offers 10x the improvement from 1 to 10 Mbits/sec/m2, and it could increase 100x the network usage across the area.
- Peak Data Rate. When testing the over-the-air data rate, 5G has 20x the improvements, taking it from 1 to 20 Gbits/sec. at the cell infrastructure.
When you combine these eight measurable goals and improvements, you get the three major benefits outlined above. 5G offers a more reliable network to its users that can handle 10x the devices in a common area while reducing latency by 10x and offering a 10x faster data rate.
Cellular Solutions to Meet Your Needs
5G technology , such as Corning’s Indoor Small Cell (Spidercloud Enterprise RAN), can help companies better harness 5G for a faster and more reliable network to handle the devices needed for business. Consider your 4G infrastructure today and prepare for 5G tomorrow. It is an investment that not just improves the network but completely transforms it.
Need help getting 5G to your business? Visit our cellular page today to see how we can help you run more effectively and efficiently with Corning Cellular Solutions!
