Honestly, Mobile World Congress this year had me sold when they introduced the latest connectivity trend for 2019 - 5G. Foldable phones are still in their early stages and we are not sure about its impact, but imagine living in a world where you would be able to get a lightning fast and reliable cellular internet speed for all your daily work. We all wanted it for a very long time.
The future with 5G will look something like this for everyone: High-resolution movies will download in seconds, expansive 3D games and VR will be streamed directly to phones and new headsets, and smart cars will be more efficient to prevent collisions.
While all these promises look fancy and can get you on board as a consumer in an instant, one thing that all the companies seem to be overlooking for now are data plans for such a high speed internet.
Huawei is super proud to introduce the world’s first 5G foldable phone, Mate X, releasing in June this year. The device will have Balong 5000 Modem that can download a 1GB film in just three seconds, if connected to a 5G network.
With that, let’s add all of videos that we upload to Instagram Stories, tweets, emails, opening various websites at a time, and YouTube videos that we watch on a daily basis. Yes, you got that right! Your data plan will be finished in a couple of minutes.
Photo: Bloomberg via Getty Images
Although 5G isn’t ready yet, it is important for carriers to come out with unlimited data plans if they have to sell 5G successfully along with the much anticipated message: faster connectivity means you can download and stream more. We all would then definitely love to have it.
In U.S., no wireless carrier besides T-Mobile has promised to offer unlimited 5G data plans but T-Mobile won’t start 5G before second half of 2019. There are chances of AT&T, Verizon and Sprint to announce their own unlimited data plans for 5G later this year too but in reality they are really not unlimited after all.
According to their unfair data policies, customers experience reduced cellular speeds after they have used a certain amount of "unlimited" plan (50GB in most cases) and then they have to wait till the next bill date for it to get better. It’s a gimmick that carriers play to squeeze more from their customers.
So if you are super excited for 5G like me, then unlimited data plan is the only way to go for you. However, it might be a big drawback for consumers like us if carriers decide to offer 5G with limited data plans as even the smallest of the package would be more expensive than 4G LTE ones. And with the way, they are promoting it for now, 5G only seems to be relevant for elite customers or tech enthusiasts.
The trend might change in a few years once 5G gets a bit old. Until then we all would have to wait with 5G compatible phones in our hand or opt for a bundle once in a while to enjoy.
The future with 5G will look something like this for everyone: High-resolution movies will download in seconds, expansive 3D games and VR will be streamed directly to phones and new headsets, and smart cars will be more efficient to prevent collisions.
While all these promises look fancy and can get you on board as a consumer in an instant, one thing that all the companies seem to be overlooking for now are data plans for such a high speed internet.
Huawei is super proud to introduce the world’s first 5G foldable phone, Mate X, releasing in June this year. The device will have Balong 5000 Modem that can download a 1GB film in just three seconds, if connected to a 5G network.
Also Read: Several Vulnerabilities Discovered In 4G And 5G Including Call Interception By HackersGoing by the calculations, it would be 333Mb per second to download such a file. That’s crazy, right? But if you are giving away 1Gb in just 3 seconds, then how much data would you really consume overall, considering the kind of options like streaming 3D games on smartphone etc.? Much faster than your expectations. Even the best of 4G LTE data plans won’t be enough for fair usage.
With that, let’s add all of videos that we upload to Instagram Stories, tweets, emails, opening various websites at a time, and YouTube videos that we watch on a daily basis. Yes, you got that right! Your data plan will be finished in a couple of minutes.
Photo: Bloomberg via Getty Images
Although 5G isn’t ready yet, it is important for carriers to come out with unlimited data plans if they have to sell 5G successfully along with the much anticipated message: faster connectivity means you can download and stream more. We all would then definitely love to have it.
In U.S., no wireless carrier besides T-Mobile has promised to offer unlimited 5G data plans but T-Mobile won’t start 5G before second half of 2019. There are chances of AT&T, Verizon and Sprint to announce their own unlimited data plans for 5G later this year too but in reality they are really not unlimited after all.
According to their unfair data policies, customers experience reduced cellular speeds after they have used a certain amount of "unlimited" plan (50GB in most cases) and then they have to wait till the next bill date for it to get better. It’s a gimmick that carriers play to squeeze more from their customers.
So if you are super excited for 5G like me, then unlimited data plan is the only way to go for you. However, it might be a big drawback for consumers like us if carriers decide to offer 5G with limited data plans as even the smallest of the package would be more expensive than 4G LTE ones. And with the way, they are promoting it for now, 5G only seems to be relevant for elite customers or tech enthusiasts.
The trend might change in a few years once 5G gets a bit old. Until then we all would have to wait with 5G compatible phones in our hand or opt for a bundle once in a while to enjoy.
