According to the Verge, initial simulation tests by Qualcomm in San Francisco determined the web browsing speeds for the median 4G user would increase from 7.1 megabytes per second to 1.4 gigabyte per second when upgrading to 5G. Further, download speeds for 90% of users would increase from at least 10 megabytes per second to 186 megabytes per second on 5G. The median speed would be 442 megabytes per second.
Some industry observers have noted that at 10 gigabytes per second, a full HD movie can be downloaded in less than 10 seconds, reports Marketing Tech.
Those speeds are considerably faster than wired connections to the web. So, in theory, 5G could become the new method for accessing the internet, thereby replacing cable boxes, cable modems and cable connections. With that in mind, 5G could drive major shifts in digital advertising. More specifically, wireless telecomm companies will become the new gatherers of personal data, reports AdAge.
The law currently allows wireless data carriers, such Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile to collect 100% of internet browsing activities. If all web activities occur via wireless networks, therefore, data carriers will gather so much information on individuals that the amount of data currently collected by Google, Facebook, and Amazon will seem almost trivial.
Once legislators learn of the enhanced data collection that could results from 5G, however, Congress will probably conduct hearings on privacy issues, similar to those held with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
In the meantime, telecommunication firms have already made big pushes into digital marketing. Verizon, for example, has acquired Yahoo and AOL to create a marketing subsidiary called Oath. Like other digital marketers, Oath uses individuals’ internet activity to pitch targeted advertising.
AT&T, for its part, purchased AppNexus in June, reports CNN. AppNexus is technology firm that operates one of the world's biggest online ad marketplaces and reportedly fetched a $1.6 billion price. The deal occurred just weeks after AT&T announced it was acquiring Time Warner for $85 billion.
The AppNexus deal is being viewed as a move by AT&T to capture marketing revenues from Facebook and Google, who generated $114 billion combined in net digital ad revenue worldwide last year, according to the research company eMarketer. The two companies accounted for approximately 49% the digital advertising market.
In the meantime, some futurists are making lofty predictions regarding how 5G will change the way we shop and consume content. In one example, an individual could view images of how to cook a meal while riding in an autonomous vehicle to buy ingredients that are being robotically gathered at a local supermarket, reports DigiDay.
In the same article, Jeremy Lockhorn of SapientRazorfish provides a more modest prediction. He maintains that with faster download speeds, individuals may be less likely to become annoyed by advertisements and therefore less likely to install ad blockers.
One open question for 5G technology is timing. Some telecommunication companies expect to launch limited 5G in trial cities later this year, but a wider rollout of the technology isn’t expected to occur until sometime in 2019, reports BGR.
Initially, speeds are likely to be only 25% to 50% faster than 4G LTE until enhancements to the technology are completed. Coverage could also be an issue because 5G is based on a high-band millimeter-wave spectrum. The spectrum has a range of only about 900 feet, so a single cell antenna radius would only cover about 0.1 square miles.
