5G is useless: Why do some people still say that 5G is useless?

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently revealed at the World 5G Conference that the number of 5G terminal connections in China has reached nearly 400 million, and the number of 5G base stations has exceeded one million. 5G base stations cover 100% of prefecture-level cities and more than 95% of counties and districts across the country. By the end of 2023, my country's 5G base stations will reach 2.5 million, and 5G network construction will continue to heat up in the next 2-3 years.

In sharp contrast to these booming figures and the complacency of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the three major operators, there is the "5G is useless" theory that is constantly heard among the people. Many people even bluntly say that 5G is just a false proposition, and there is no big difference between it and 4G. They are just playing with concepts. Is the hype about 5G really a social scam?

Many terminal users often say: "5G is actually useless." What this sentence means is not that 5G is useless, but that in 2021, 5G is of no use to most people.

Indeed, many people bought 5G phones and opened 5G packages, but turned off the 5G data on their phones. Previously, Huawei's Hongmeng system was "forced" to cancel the 5G switch in the quick function area because of the mandatory requirements of the three major operators. Because many people bought 5G phones but turned off the 5G switch, the best way is to hide this switch to avoid wasting 5G functions.

The reason is that it is a recognized fact that 5G charges are high. Taking Tencent's King Card package as an example, the charges for the 4G version and the 5G version are very different. The 4G package starts at 19 yuan, with dozens of GB of traffic per month; the 5G package starts at 129 yuan.

Nowadays, almost every public place and home office environment has Wi-Fi, and many people cannot use up 10G of data in a month. 4G charges only 30 or 40 yuan, so how many people would choose to use the 129 yuan 5G package? Moreover, too many people have said that 5G is not much faster than 4G.

Until the charges are reduced and the speed is increased, it will be difficult for Chinese people to have any changes in their views and expectations about 5G.

In addition, the current 5G application scenarios are still very simple. Expensiveness may not be the biggest problem, after all, many people are not short of money. But there are still few 5G-related applications, and there are not many scenarios that can be affected. The transition from 3G to 4G is very obvious, because the experience of 4G is much better than 3G for playing games, watching videos, browsing the web, and even chatting with videos. But the most common applications such as Taobao, JD.com, Weibo, WeChat, or Youku, iQiyi, and Tencent Video are difficult to perceive the speed of 5G.

Right now, the most obvious way to feel the importance of 5G is probably when downloading software and movies.

So is 5G really a false proposition? What is its use?

5G is definitely not a false proposition, nor is it a scam. 5G will be a "zero latency" world, where the time from a user's request to a response will be unprecedentedly short. For example, an 8GB high-definition movie can be downloaded in just 6 seconds, while in a 4G environment it takes 7 minutes.

"Zero latency" is not only reflected in download and browsing speeds, otherwise it would be a waste of resources. Healthcare and autonomous driving must rely on 5G's "zero latency", such as virtual surgery and instantaneous sensing for autonomous driving. Therefore, the ultimate goal of 5G is the Internet of Things and smart homes, where all connected devices can communicate with each other in a very short time, such as your mobile phone, computer, lights, car, sweeping robot, air conditioner, hub...

A bold scenario is that billions or even trillions of devices and people will be able to communicate with each other with zero delay, and all aspects of life will be further automated and intelligent. Of course, this is too cyberpunk, but 4G is absolutely unable to realize this fantasy. Only 5G can bring about an interconnected world of instant information.

5G still faces many challenges, such as coverage costs, power consumption costs, transformation and expansion projects, user costs, and building a dedicated ecosystem. However, no matter how many doubts there are, 5G is still an inevitable technological development.