[karl-j]

5G is not mainly for consumers like you and me. We are not willing to pay significantly more for the faster speeds, most people are plenty happy with 4G. The big difference with the 4G to 5G transition compared to the previous transitions is not speed, but flexibility.

5G aims to allow for completely new applications that were not possible before, and hoping that's where the money will come from. Ultra-reliable and low latency, and massive machine type communications are two new areas 5G is pushing into. The first will allow applications like self driving cars, remote control with immediate feedback, and combined with the increased speeds, augmented and virtual reality. The second area is for the smart city/home type of applications.

This is all from my digital communications professor with ties to Ericsson, but on a personal note I'd be hype to explore distant places in real time by wearing a vr headset and controlling a drone with a 360° camera and <10ms latency. You could be anywhere in the world and actually interact with the environment with just a 5G enabled headset and a 5G-drone renting app. Racing through an abandoned mall! Drone laser tag in a redwood forest!

[vkoskiv]

> ...applications like self driving cars, remote control with immediate feedback, and combined with the increased speeds, augmented and virtual reality. The second area is for the smart city/home type of applications.

A blurb like this can be found everywhere where 5G is talked about. It sounds technical and knowledgeable, but it actually makes zero sense whatsoever. Self-driving cars? No. If the fundamental assumption is that every single vehicle everywhere is communicating, that system is fundamentally flawed and will never take off. Remote control? This has been possible for over 100 years. You can literally do that with a spark-gap transmitter, let alone current 4G tech. Immediate feedback? In what context? Augmented and virtual reality? Now you're just blasting buzzwords to sound smart. Come on. Smart city/home is another common buzzword, but that's actually where the vastly increased capacity of 5G starts to become relevant.

[karl-j]

Those are not my words, they're all from my professor and this [1] book, chapter 23. With remote control and immediate feedback I'm talking about closed loop control. Consider industrial automation with image processing done remotely, or immediate visual or tactile feedback to human operators of remote machinery and equipment.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/4G-LTE-Advanced-Pro-Road-5G/dp/012804...

[gizmo]

Why would 5G be a big deal for self-driving cars? Any self-driving that requires ubiquitous low-latency communication is hopeless. Self-driving is a vision problem, and it has to work in a messy world.

[nujabe]

I think the main purpose is for car-to-car communication, latency could be very critical in some situations.