The Next Generation of Wireless Technology
At the University of Surrey, researchers and tech companies like Samsung and Fujitsu are collaborating to work on the development of fifth-generation, or 5G, technology. With 5G, people could download whole movies to smartphones in fewer than five seconds—in contrast, with current technology the same download would take as much as eight minutes. The efforts of those working on 5G will be displayed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, including demonstrations involving driverless cars, drones, and autonomous robots. US carriers are now joining the race to be first to 5G: both Verizon and AT&T have announced plans to test 5G in 2016. But even with support from an increasing number of companies and millions in financing, researchers anticipate that 5G technology will not be finished before 2019 at the earliest.
