Future 5G speeds could be just about anything

As I have written about a number of times, companies are seemingly trying to one-up each other with ridiculous 5G technology claims without any idea what 5G means since it has not even been defined yet.

Essentially, companies are doing today what they did years ago with 4G speeds. They use the term as much as possible and push to have the definition of 5G dumbed down to barely adequate current generation speeds.

Of course, this hasn’t stopped some from marketing their so-called 5G wireless packages which include speeds that barely reach what is defined today as 4G. Then there are islands looking to have the world’s first “5G network.”

Now, we have new projections about how fast 5G speeds can be in the future. According to a professor in the UK who heads a UK “5G test centre,” 5G broadband will be able to go as fast as 800Gbps. He also predicts that 5G will allow for “self-driving cars, smart grids and the growing ‘internet of things’ connected and communicating with each other.”

Although that sounds impressive, I keep getting confused about all of these predicted 5G speeds.

• According to researchers at the Samsung Research and Development Institute China, download speeds on 5G networks will reach “perhaps 10Gbps.”
• During Samsung’s 5G trials, they hit speeds of 7.5Gbps.
• During Samsung’s 5G trials while moving around, they hit speeds of 1.2Gbps.
• During Ericsson’s 5G trials, they hit speeds of 5Gbps.
• South Korea claims to be preparing their own 5G network with speeds of 800Mbps.
• One Asian telecom is looking to create their own 5G network which offers “1 Gbps data…anywhere“
• According to researchers at Rice University in Texas, their 5G network offered speeds “10 times what is offered right now.“

So, expect speeds anywhere from 1Gbps to 800Gbps on your future 5G network. You could soon hit your monthly data cap in several seconds!