After years of anticipation, 5G networks are finally here, promising to propel us into a new era of connectivity.
Offering a major step-up from 4G networks, 5G offers huge upgrades in terms of speed and latency, giving you the ability to download an HD quality film in seconds, as well as being able to enjoy live streaming and gaming, all on your smartphone.
Away from your smartphones though, 5G can also offer improved connectivity for the wider world around us. The Internet of Things (IoT), which brings together billions of connected smart objects, will get a major boost from 5G, in turn boosting the connectivity of our homes, offices and cities too.
Imagine a city that reacts to the world around it, taking information from the people within it, crunching data from sensors on roads, vehicles, buildings and much much more to improve the quality of life for all.
5G networks are poised to enable a whole new generation of platforms and services that can take smart cities from the realms of science fiction to science fact – here’s all you need to know.
Leaps in transportation
We’ve all seen visions of future cities in sci-fi movies, TV shows and video games, where flying cars zoom through the air, or people whizzing around pneumatic tubes paint a somewhat fantastical view.
Rather than those far-fetched machines, the smart city of today, and the next few years, is geared more towards making life better for its inhabitants through the use of sensors and the data they gather.
From a top-down view, cities such as Austin, Singapore or Dubai, are already deploying an inter-connected network of devices and sensors to gather valuable information about just what makes them tick -…