5G’s promise 🎉

• Faster connection - near real time
• Reduces latency, allowing more data to be delivered and processed faster 💨
• Increased usability: connecting Internet of Things or IoT
• This would allow us to harness connectivity in ways yet unseen, e.g. remote surgery 🤯

But wait, whoops...🧐

• Infrastructure 🏗- still requires fibre optic connection - sorry folks, you may not get this if you don’t live in New York🌇 (+ inequality, bleh)
• Shorter wavelengths + Blocked by glass - scalability block again 🛑

Verdict ⚖️

Make no mistake, 5G is paradigm shifting. 4G made possible all the fun stuff like Uber we take for granted today with better and reliable connections. 🚕 5G represents a similar revolution.

But...

...overhyped re consumer

• TL;DR, 5G is a) too expensive 💰 and b) results are not worth it for the ordinary consumer.
  
• Infrastructure demands and technical shortcomings limits its meaningful use for the ordinary consumer
• The uses possible also are overrated. 5G can only bring limited fire now.🔥
• E.g. real time connectivity is already pretty great. One of the problems with 4G is that it makes a lot of things possible, like Uber and on demand services. Sure, we can have 4K videos on the go. (Definitely not - if Quibi is any indication consumers don’t like high quality entertainment on the go. ) 📺
• Furthermore, not everything needs to be connected to the internet. (And yes, I’m talking about some of the past startups I’ve seen). 😬

So what now?

• Whilst the consumer angle is less promising than we’ve made it out to be, the real money might lie in the play for B2C. ⚽️
• TL;DR they can afford it, and it will be worth it for large corporates.
• Companies/large institutions are ideal use cases for 5G. They have the ability to pay for, design and implement the infrastructure for 5G happen. And it can pay off. 💰
• For example, 5G can be configured for controlled environments like in factories, for construction/manufacturing. It can also yield significant effects - communication between devices/machinery may bring increase efficiency. 🏭

There are also a lot of interesting points that lie in periphery. 🧐

• Let’s talk about edge computing. By deploying edge computing in networks, the distance between the endpoint and the data center is reduced. In the case of 5G specifically, which already reduces the latency between the data center and the endpoint, an edge compute reduces the actual physical distance between these two destinations.
• Edge computing is interesting because though they’re often thought of in connection with 5G, thought it doesn’t have to be the case. Thus, these under-appreciated cousin of 5G deserve more love for their wide applicability. ❤️
• Moreover, this leads me to the most unloved cousin of 5G: the 5G/data-center/periphery technology REITS.
• Land is necessary for 5G to work well.
• New infrastructure for 5G + blocks to scalability requiring more physical deployments + edge computing = REITs cash in 💰🏘