Even if faster networks have been a salient feature of each digital mobile generation, “speed,” as such, might not be the defining advantage of 5G networks. At least as 5G for Dummies sees matters, for the first time, speed is not the key innovation.
Though it is difficult to identify a single killer app for each generation, first email and then web browsing are reasonable examples of use cases and apps that were enabled by 3G (even if expectations were much more futuristic).
Streaming video and audio arguably are the consumer apps that 4G has enabled.
In the early going, at least, 5G is likely to be used to reinforce mobile capacity demand (fixed and mobile), and less to support truly-new use cases. In other words, applications that require ultra-low latency performance will develop later, over time.
That would not be unprecedented. Many futuristic services imagined for 3G did not appear until 4G, and some still have not emerged. Likewise, 4G was seen as the platform for yet other new use cases, but few of any scale have developed, beyond video and audio streaming, internet access substitution (using mobile in place of fixed networks for internet access).
So it would not be out of line to suggest that some futuristic 5G apps will flourish only in the next generation. The heavy lifting (greatest value) might come from more-prosaic use cases.
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