With 5G just on the horizon, more mobile manufacturers are debuting their first – and some even their second – 5G devices and many network providers are gearing up to release their 5G package deals to the wider public when full coverage hits in the UK – suspected to land in late 2020.
With promised download speeds of around 1GB per second, it won’t be long before we’re downloading games with huge file sizes in just minutes – or even seconds – and buffering while streaming becomes a thing of the past. Though, if that is the case, what’s the point in WiFi anymore? Could old fashioned broadband be a thing of the past?
Device compatibility
The first argument to consider is device compatibility. Of course, the 5G network is going to hit our phones pretty soon – but what about our TV’s, laptops, smart home systems, printers, sound systems, and so on? A whole array of the devices we rely on connecting through WiFi systems, so if you decide to give broadband the boot in your home, you need to consider that these other devices will be offline until further notice.
Coverage
WiFi these days is practically designed to cover every single inch of your home – many providers even offer you your money back if it doesn’t. There’s no real way to manage this with a cellular network like 5G, other than installing a distributed antenna system (DAS), but this is super expensive, and not really an accessible solution for the everyday household.
Security
Broadband is generally seen as the most secure route for peer-to-peer communications and file sharing – after all, most businesses, schools and universities have their own local area network (LAN) connections. While that’s not always the case at home, if other industries are still using broadband, it’s unlikely to become obsolete.
For these reasons, it doesn’t look like 5G will be taking over broadband any time soon, and it probably wouldn’t be wise to kick WiFi out of your home just yet. Take a look at our other 5G blogs to keep up to date with the latest developments in the fifth-generation cellular network.
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