It is faster and more reliable than 4G, and will soon be the new standard for all mobile users. Estimates say that 32% of North American mobile connections will be 5G by 2023, and by 2025 5G will comprise 45% of all mobile data globally. 5G improves the user experience in a variety of ways. With 5G, video conferences can be crisp and without audio delay, large files can download from office servers in a fraction of the time, applications hosted remotely can perform smoothly, and VPN connections can be stabilized.
Today, 5G already exists in at least thirty-five cities in the U.S. The impact that 5G is having on American life, business and government will continue to grow as service-providers invest hundreds of billions of dollars in 5G over the next five years. That impact is being accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced public and private sector employees to rely on home and mobile networks to perform their duties. It has been observed that internet traffic increased by as much as 100% as a consequence of COVID-19 lockdowns. 5G is transforming the nature of that internet usage and will become ubiquitous in the not-so-distant future.
So, what is 5G? And what impact will it have on the federal
government?