5G and Events: A Dazzling Future or Marketing Hype?

(An edited version of this article was published in MeetingMentor Magazine in Spring 2020- also, it was written, you know… before…)

Welcome to 2020!

It still feels weird to say that. My inner twelve-year-old is screaming, “We were promised jetpacks! Where’s my robot maid and flying car?” I’ve often maintained that if the industrial and technological age of the 70’s and 80’s had progressed on schedule, we’d be there by now. Instead, we got a little distracted by that thing called “The Internet”, and instead of the continuation of the industrial revolution, we got the next “communications revolution.” What Gutenberg did for the printed word, the Internet has done for the digital.

As a result, it should be no surprise that one of the biggest buzzwords of the end of 2019 (and what looks to be the entirety of 2020) is “5G”. The promises are enticing: blazing fast download speeds, up to 100x better than current 4G speeds, instant communications between people, holograms, smart cars, and a world full of always-on, always-connected devices.

So should you run out and buy a 5G phone? Should you re-work your entire conference or event with 8K video and buy stock in an autonomous vehicle company? Hold on there, friend.

Relationship Status: It’s Complicated

Look this stuff is extremely nerdy, but you don’t really need to know the nuts and bolts to know what’s what. The biggest thing you need to wrap your head around is that 5G isn’t just one thing. It’s a series of technologies that work together to greatly improve performance over the current 4G/LTE standard. The “G” in 5G literally just stands for “generation”, as in the “5th generation” of cell phone technology. It’s not as simple as just saying “it’s faster.” There’s a lot more going on under the hood, and depending on the type of 5G that you’re on, your performance could improve in any number of ways.

Unfortunately, it’s that wiggle room as to what exactly is 5G that marketers are taking advantage of. Cell phone providers are vocally claiming to be rolling out 5G networks, but if you look closely, some are touting speed, and others are touting coverage. That’s because they’re upgrading their networks, but they're doing so in very different ways. More on that later. In the meantime, let’s cut through the hype and take a look at what’s really going on.

A Rainbow of Flavors

At the risk of oversimplifying, there’s basically three types of 5G, all of which have pros and cons. The differences between these types have to do with the wavelengths being used in the radios and antennas in our phones and on the towers, and can be roughly divided into “bands” of wireless spectrum: Low Band, Medium Band, and High Band. I know your eyes are already glazing over, but stick with me!

The higher the frequency of the radio transmission, the faster data speeds you can get. The lower, the slower. It’s in this “high band” that you’re going to see the 100x speed improvement of data. The “low band” will have speeds only marginally faster than current 4G/LTE speeds. So why use the lower band at all? Give us the speed!

Well, it’s a funny thing about radio frequencies. The lower the frequency, the easier a time it has getting through solid objects, like trees, buildings, and, you know… us. The higher the frequency, the more likely it is to get blocked. Those ultra-fast high band waves won’t go through much of anything, so basically you’ll have to be outside, with a direct line of sight to the 5G node to get those blazing-fast speeds. It’s the same with audio waves, which is why you can hear the thumping bass coming from the wedding DJ the hotel booked next door to your corporate meeting, but not necessarily the horn section from “Sweet Caroline”.

One G to Rule Them All

What 5G is attempting to do is use a clever combination of all three of these bands to get the best of all worlds, seamlessly switching from one band to the next depending on your proximity to the antennas. The deeper into a venue you might go, your speeds will slow down significantly, but you’ll still get good signal from the medium and low bands. The medium band will still have a marked improvement in speeds, and your phone could save power by sending simple requests up to the network using the low-power, low band.

The other huge improvement over the current standard has to do with capacity. While the low band of 5G is capable of roughly the same speeds as current 4G/LTE networks, they can connect simultaneously to more devices at once. This increased capacity is going to make it feel faster. It’s like driving in traffic- the speed limit is the same, but the more people on the road, the more it slows down. 5G antennas are like driving on a 150 lane highway compared to a 2 lane road.

A Little Perspective

I recently asked a room full of planners if they felt 4G/LTE was “completely rolled out, covering everywhere in the US”. Not one hand went up. Not one. That’s right, folks, we’re 10 years into the 4G era and we haven’t even finished rolling that out. So when the phone networks are hyping their new 5G service, and you start seeing ads for new 5G compatible phones, tablets, laptops, and routers, I urge you to keep that in mind.

Those high-band waves can’t go through things, so basically, if you can’t see the antenna, you’re not going to get those speeds. The end result is you’re going to need a lot more of them. Some providers are focusing on speed, covering small areas like parks or arenas with high-band antennas. Others are working on upgrading their towers to the the new low and medium band antennas, trading speed for coverage and capacity. Still others (who by the way did the same thing when 4G rolled out) are just changing the icon on the phone from LTE to 5G without actually doing much of anything to their network. Before you rush out and buy that 5G phone, you might want to find out which one of those your provider is doing.

So When is 5G Coming?

Is it here today? 5 years? 10 years? The answer is… all of the above. Can you get 5G now? Yes, but only in limited areas, and your performance increase may vary wildly depending on where you are and which provider you have. It’ll be a solid 5 years in my opinion before we start to get large coverage areas, and easily a decade before we see the seamless use of all three bands as the specification envisions.

Just as 4G spawned businesses, services, and products that nobody could have predicted, so will 5G. Who knew in 2010 when the first 4G phones hit the market that 10 years later they would account for 50% of all traffic on the web? Who knew so many people would use an app that let you call a car and take a ride with a stranger to the airport? Or order food? Or catch an AR Pokemon?

I’m personally looking forward to finding out what new advances this technology will bring, and can have a little fun daydreaming about what that might look like. Just remember it’s still in its infancy. So let the marketers do their thing, but don’t feel like you have to rush out and get that new 5G gadget. We’ll get there, soon enough.