“If you talk about remote surgery or connected cars, you don’t want latency times to be too long,” said Fredrik Jejdling, an executive vice president at Ericsson, a maker of cellular equipment.
When will 5G be here?
The answer for smartphone users in the United States appears to be by the second quarter of 2019; precise timing is uncertain.
ATT has actually switched on its mobile 5G service in 12 cities, with seven more targeted in its initial rollout plan. But smartphones aren’t ready yet for a direct connection to 5G networks. So ATT will initially market a 5G hot-spot device, made by Netgear, that can funnel wireless broadband connections to nearby phones and computers using Wi-Fi.
Andre Fuetsch, president of ATT Labs and the carrier’s chief technology officer, said the first Samsung smartphones for ATT’s 5G network will be available in the first half of 2019.
Verizon is already selling a 5G-branded service — based on its own variant of the technology — to provide wireless internet connections to homes in limited parts of Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento. The carrier predicts that it will begin serving smartphone users in the first half of 2019, without identifying cities or specific timing.
Sprint said it might also switch on a 5G service first for smartphones next year, initially targeting nine American cities. Its prospective merger partner, T-Mobile, has stressed a nationwide 5G launch in 2020, but said it was installing gear in 30 cities that would be ready when 5G smartphones appeared in 2019.
Countries expected to follow the United States with 2019 rollouts of 5G include Britain, Germany, Switzerland, China, South Korea and Australia, according to a timetable compiled by Qualcomm.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/technology/personaltech/5g-what-you-need-to-know.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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