MOBILE’S
NEXT GENERATION
As providers prepare to roll out 5G mobile technology,
what does this mean for us?
A generation ago, mobile video calls were the stuff of spy we’re now entering the fifth. The first generation
movies and science fiction. Now, as mobile technology was mobile voice calls. When all the South African
enters its fifth wave of evolution, we’re stepping into a operators launched in the 1990s we used 2G, which
future that not even James Bond or Star Trek could have could do phone calls and SMSs. Then along came the
imagined. And that’s not hype. Fifth-generation (or 5G) mobile internet, which brought the third generation (3G).
mobile technology will deliver 10 times the reliability, 100 Then 4G brought LTE, or high-speed data.
times the speed, and 1,000 times the capacity of the 4G
tech we’re currently using. And it’s not just about faster data
speeds: it’s about enabling the fourth industrial revolution
5G’s KILLER APPS
of artificial intelligence, virtual reality and the Internet of
Things.
Each generation had its ‘killer’ application. 5G will deliver
three of those. The first, Van der Bergh says, is data speed.
So how did we get from our old brick cell phones to AI,
VR and IoT? Ryan van der Bergh, senior specialist: Radio
5G will offer enhanced mobile broadband, which will enable
Access Network at MTN, explains:
4K video streaming, and virtual reality mobile streaming,
moving into augmented or mixed reality. This involves
Mobile technology has been developed since the 1970s massive amounts of streaming data, which you can think of
and 1980s. […] Roughly once every 10 years we get a new as huge ‘pipes’ in the sky.
generation of mobile communication technology, and
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