How 5G Will Juice Up Your Phone and Your Fridge

The world’s next mobile network, 5G, promises that it will be blazing fast and capable of accommodating many more connected devices. Don’t go shopping for a 5G-compatible phone just yet, since technical standards are still being hammered out. But businesses that rely on wireless connectivity are already dreaming of how they could put 5G to work.

5G simply stands for fifth-generation mobile networks or fifth-generation wireless systems. It will be the successor to 4G, the current top-of-the-line network technology first introduced commercially in 2009. 5G could end up being 100 times faster than 4G, with speeds that could reach 10 gigabits per second. This would allow a full-length high-definition movie to be downloaded in seconds. 5G will also increase transmission speed and total bandwidth, which will be needed to accommodate added demand from the "internet of things" -- the ballooning number of objects ranging from refrigerators to traffic lights to dog collars sending and receiving data.