Why You Won't Really Feel 5G Until 2027

We're now going on three years of being fed guff about how 5G will enable the "fourth industrial revolution," while seeing 5G networks that look a lot like 4G, just a little faster. Fresh 5G applications have been slow to develop. And to listen to Ari Pouttu, vice-director of the 6Genesis program at Finland's University of Oulu, it might be years more before we see 5G's "killer app."

A major wireless industry hub in northern Finland, Oulu is where a lot of cutting-edge network development happens, so when these folks talk, we should listen. All the way back in 2017, I attended a 5G hackathon in Oulu where they talked about streaming games, telehealth, and 5G-enabled robotic factories.

"There's a new 'G' every ten years, but the market transformation takes 20 years," Pouttu said. He suggested looking at 1G and 2G together as the voice era, where most people didn't get voice phones until well into the 2G period. 3G and 4G were the mobile internet era, and smartphones didn't hit 50% penetration in the US until 2013, two full years after Verizon launched 4G.

The 5G that's getting Oulu excited right now is all about industrial sensors and robotic factories, not any consumer application, to hear Pouttu tell it. When asked about world-changing consumer gadgets, he brought up AR glasses, virtual worlds, and holographic telepresence—but sounded like he was kicking them down the road into the 6G time frame, starting in 2027.

"5G is now being introduced, but we only have the first part of 5G in the market, and that's 4G on steroids," he said. "That's not the real promise of 5G. The real promise of 5G is connecting all the objects, bringing intelligence into the service."

Pasi Leipala, CEO of Haltian, followed up with tacit agreement that the 5G era may be about changes in an ambient industrial world you don't necessarily see. When I met with Haltian in 2017, it was a custom design house for consumer products. Now it's an IoT shop focused on smart office buildings and inventory sensors.

"If you have a pallet of something, 10,000 units, how do you track where those assets are going? How do you assure that nobody is stealing those, that they're in the right place at the right time?" he asked. But that kind of sensor density and energy efficiency will take 6G, not the current form of 5G, he said.

"You always overestimate the near future and underestimate the far future," he sighed.

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In other words, in the 5G to 6G transformation of the world into robotically organizing smart objects with a side order of holography, we're at about what the 1985 technology level was for voice phones. No wonder we're disappointed.

We still need 5G right now, but for the most boring reason possible, Pouttu said: It's higher-capacity than 4G, able to use spectrum more flexibly, and we are running out of data capacity on existing 4G networks.

"The appearance of 5G not serving us more than 4G is partially true, partially wrong," according to Pouttu. "When we go a few years into the future, the capacity of 4G systems comes to the limit, and we need 5G to continue this path."

Then, at the very end, Pouttu dropped this bullet point. My body isn't ready:

What's Happening Next Week?

This part of the newsletter is usually about what happened this week, but I think it's more important to keep an eye on the major things happening next week.

• Apple has its Mac event on Monday. Currently I expect that to be primarily Macs, and I expect them to not have an integrated 5G option. From Apple, this is by design: The company wants you to tether your iPhone or iPad for connectivity (and buy an iPhone or iPad if you don't already have one). But it's not like the rest of the laptop industry is rushing toward "always connected" designs either.

• Google's Pixels are coming out Tuesday. As you probably know, there will be a Pixel and a Pixel Pro, but my attention is mainly on Google's new Tensor processor to see which ways it competes with Qualcomm. Remember, Pixels are never about selling phones—they're about the directions in which Google wants to push the industry.

• Samsung has a surprise Unpacked event on Wednesday. I'm 90% sure there will not be a Galaxy S21 FE released at this event. That leaves...Bespoke colors? (Both in terms of customized color options, but also, Bespoke is a Samsung kitchen brand that uses a lot of pastels.) OneUI 4 with Android 12? I can't think of what Samsung has to offer that validates another event, and it's driving me a little nuts.

• Verizon and T-Mobile might be trying to sabotage the new Andromeda spectrum auction, purely to hurt AT&T. Light Reading has the latest, and we may see next week if it all falls apart.

Read More Race to 5G:

• Why I Gave Up on the Galaxy Z Fold 3

• How US Carriers Are Slowing 5G iPhones Down

• Apple's Available iPhones Are the Ultimate Flex

• What the iPhone 13 Tells Us About 5G in 2022

• Why the iPhone 13 Will Boost Everyone's 5G