5G has many flavors yet predictions, such as this one, presume that high bandwidth and low latency will be available everywhere. Eventually maybe, but when is a much more important question when making IT-related investments.
Carriers in the US are taking different paths to 5G deployment and I can guarantee reliability for high-bandwidth low latency 5G will be as spotty as traditional 3G and 4G were 10 years ago (and for many people, even today).
Carriers in a rush to claim 5G coverage are rolling out low-band metropolitan solutions that add some bandwidth and provide similar coverage as 4G but do nothing for latency. It wouldn’t be wise to roll out low latency edge computing solutions on low-band metropolitan 5G. In fact, while it may be advantageous to roll out advanced mobile-based solutions to claim technical superiority and to implement corporate and special event solutions where 5G high-band solutions with very limited coverage can deliver on 5G expectations.
However, the bread and butter of consumer mobile apps will still need to deal with dropouts, low bandwidth, and low latency for years to come:
“5G will also remove bottlenecks for a wide range of financial services that will drive an enhanced customer experience for payments. 5G will expand the notion of what is possible and expected before, during, and after the transaction. It will improve back-end internal operations, front-end client interfaces and middle-office partner collaboration; and further the finance industry’s overall emphasis on a mobile-centric, human-centric business model.
For example, loan applications and credit checks will be increasingly common on mobile as the increased speed of 5G will expedite the entire process. Customer data and AI (artificial intelligence) compliance checks can be matched in seconds, making payments across the world almost immediate for 5G users. Lower latency means cross-border payments benefit from increased clearance and transfer times.”
Overview by Tim Sloane, VP, Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group
