How will 5G improve mobile experience?

5G has been going around the Telecom industry for some time now and 2019 seems to be the year when it finally becomes a reality. 5G is an end-to-end ecosystem to enable a fully mobile and connected society, which also means a technological base for the development of IoT (Internet of Things). 

The new networking standard is not just about a fair balance between speed, latency and cost, but it will also make new experiences possible in augmented and virtual reality, connected cars or the smart home. "5G will be the post-smartphone era," said Robert J. Topol, Intel's general manager for 5G business and technology. 

This fifth-generation mobile network technology aims to provide high-speed and low-latency connections to the point of allowing to increase -and even replace- fixed broadband access. In general terms, 5G networks will be able to meet the communication needs of billions of devices connected to the Internet, and it will be a key factor to move forward over the digital transformation process. 

One of the main advantages of 5G networks is the greater speed offered for data transmission. It assures to be up to 100 times faster than today’s wireless systems which will definitely improve the end-user QoE in our hyperconnected world of streaming music, video and online media usage of mobile networks.

Besides higher speed and lower latencies, 5G can dramatically improve how we humans (and machines) interact through the internet

Furthermore, 5G greater reliability and lower latency will also open up new horizons within the network and the evolution of IoT, making our world hyperconnected and will turn our cities in an intelligent environment that will transmit and receive millions of data instantly.

5G: much more than fast speeds

Every improvement in technology comes along with continuous challenges that companies are constantly trying to overcome to provide an excellent and solid user experience for this next generation mobile network. Experts have already defined QoE requirements for the design of more user-centric networks, however, as Yves Bellego quoted, the challenge comes when “we have to rethink what is the QoE from each customer and whether the customer is a device, a smartphone, or some kind of IoT terminal to personalize this quality and/or service”. 

Consistency has been identified as one of the biggest benefits of 5G. In the end, a 5G user should expect to receive a continuous Internet service, without disruptions or with limited fluctuations, ensuring the excellent quality of the offered service. 

Also, 5G technologies should try to understand its end-users and differentiate the offered services accordingly, since QoE is tightly dependent on the type of application. Therefore, it is required that the 5G systems are flexible when serving diverse applications, tailoring their quality monitoring and provisioning techniques. In this regard, experts will need to build competences to get the full picture of the overall QoE. 

QoE seems to be the key factor of upcoming 5G networks, and this will ensure some of the main QoE requirements -consistency, transparency, personalization and differentiation in service delivery- that should be considered when introducing 5G. 

Although there will be challenges in achieving this end-user QoE, a move from a network- to a user-centric architecture would be a key differentiator and a step forward from 4G to 5G networks. We are all expecting a lot of improvements and new experiences that will come along this 5G technology. 

In this sense, MedUX provides accurate insights into customers’ behavior to help Telcos and providers guarantee a better service for their users. MedUX will give them enough insights to detect incidents at the end-user service level when 5G shakes up the industry! 

So… are you ready for 5G then?

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