In the upcoming year, attention will turn more and more towards 5G infrastructure. While the early movers are testing their own versions of the 5G technology, the internal communications industry is still not sure what to expect. Will 5G be a great revolution for your team or will it just provide your employees with faster wireless internet?
What we know so far
On the surface, 5G technology will just be a faster version of the 4G wireless network. How fast exactly we can’t say. Some experts say the 5G network will be up to 10.000 times faster than 4G; up to 1,25Gb per second. Some laboratories tested the speed upon 20gb per second. That means latency can be reduced to 1 millisecond.
At the earliest possible time, 5G technology will be accessible for common use in 2020. However, 5G technology is now well and truly under development and rumour has it that we might be enjoying 5G network already in 2017.
Expected possibilities 5G Technology
When you take a look beyond the promised speed of 5G technology we see loads of new options that weren’t in the game of wireless mobile technology before:
1) Optimized Internet of Things
This simply means that there will be more and more machines, buildings, and vehicles connected with both the internet and each other. For example: wearables. The most obvious wearable in the office will be the smartwatch. The smartwatch is ideally suitable for sending urgent messages. This could be useful in crisis communication but also to decrease work related stress. As the smartwatch can recognize the employees heartbeat, it can send a notification to take a break or change task.
With these developments, more than ever relevance is key. As imgZines CEO, Marijn Deurloo, said: A smartwatch is literally connected to your body. This makes sending news to a watch really intimate and extremely requires relevance. To read the whole article about the role of the smartwatch in internal communication, click here.
2) Autonomous driving
If all vehicles on the road could connect and respond to the outside world such as traffic management systems but other vehicles as well, our roads will be a lot safer. Vehicles would be able to adjust their speed limit, proximity of other vehicles and simply exclude human errors.
Google has been working on a Google Car for years. Many test drives further we still don’t know when the first self-driving car will be on the road. But when it does, it means your employees can plan their time more efficiently. While they are driving to work they can already start their first (video) meeting of the day or scan through the internal communications platform to catch up the news.
3) Wireless office
Without any delay in latency, working outside the office will be as flexible and hassle-free as we all imagine it to be. 4G technology already took a huge step – but when it came to working without wifi for a long time, it wasn’t that much of a pleasure at all. With 5G, uploading to a cloud server will be so much faster and video-calling with multiple contacts won’t be a problem. For internal communications it means reaching your employees whenever/wherever you like becomes a true possibility.
4) 3D Video streaming
3D Video is not a new trendy thing on its own. But with 5G technology it will be a mobile feature. With only 1 millisecond latency nothing is holding us back to watch 3D videos while we are on the move. Does that mean we are going to wear 3D glasses to watch 3D videos of your company’s new products, office or the favorite spot of your new employees? Or will manufacturers come up with a fancy 3D mobile device solution? Who knows…
The difference between 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G technology
We did our best to give you an idea about 5G technology and its benefits compared to 4G technology. To give you a complete overview, the image below shows what has changed in mobile networks over the years.
What are your expectations of 5G technology for your communications department? Feel free to share your ideas below.
