The importance of the fifth generation in the near future

Rural Swiss in particular can tell you a thing or two about this: The amount of digital data is growing and growing, but internet connections can’t keep up. With the arrival of 5G, dependence on cables of all kinds will come to an end.

The new mobile communications standard, paired with Swiss technology, now makes it possible to transmit large amounts of data on the go.

The 5G mobile communications standard allows Swiss technology to make several leaps in development. These exceed top data transfer rates of up to ten gigabits per second. It is not only the Swiss who benefit from these, who have so far been unable to stream anything online due to poor internet connections.

5G enables streaming in 4K Ultra HD. Among other things, it allows access to AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality).

This also applies to cameras in public places. In this way, the police can watch HD videos in real time. This enables rapid intervention in the event of problems and facilitates the identification of criminals.

In addition, the problem of network downtime with high data traffic should finally be a thing of the past.

Thanks to 5G, up to a million objects can be linked in an area of ​​one square kilometer. This opens up completely new possibilities in the field of logistics and production.

Self-driving and automated operations via remote control become normal.

This also applies to the health sector. Robots, for example, can be controlled more easily at high data rates. Today, they independently perform examinations and operations and send the data to human clinicians in controls.

Transmission rates of 10 or 20Gbps advertised by mobile phone companies are still fake in Switzerland at the moment. However, wherever mobile data transmission is required, the Swiss technology is already taking advantage of the 2Gbps that is currently possible.

Private users who still use the LTE mobile network should definitely prepare for the near future. This also means that the next smartphone should be 5G capable.

When the introduction of 5G from 2017 became known, concerns about dangerous mobile radiation erupted (again). Even a popular initiative to stop 5G was launched, but it failed due to an insufficient number of signatures.

In fact, new antennas must be installed for 5G, the so-called adaptive antennas. This direct information is intended specifically for individual users and is not simply made available to the general public.

However, they do not generate any additional radiation, as evidenced by a comprehensive examination by the Office of Federal Communications (OFCOM).

Experts such as environmental pandemic slogan Martin Röösli confirm this in an interview with SRF: He points out that 90 percent of mobile phone radiation comes from your cell phone and not from transmission towers.