5G is slowly but surely stepping forward as the Obama administration recently pledged that they will be allocating several hundred million dollars in the next 10 years to help develop the new network standard.
If there is one thing that today's society cannot have enough of is the access to the Internet. 5G is not a magic bullet that will instantly make connections faster but it does promise better bandwidth, connectivity and more.
It could still take several more years before 5G devices are released for commercial consumption. Most of the technical applications are geared towards new tech for the military and even the connected self-driving cars.
The Obama administration's funding pledge for the 5G network standard will mostly come from the National Science Foundation, PC Magazine has learned. They will start developing four advanced wireless testing platforms that will be deployed in several cities starting next year.
Cities that want to have the new testing platforms will have to compete for it. The winners will get city-wide radio antennas that will be a crucial part of the 5G tech testing for several years.
NSF is also planning to commit over $350 million for prizes, workshops, test and more programs to help push the 5G tech development forward. The network standard is also big for the Internet of Things industry as IoT products can make use of 5G for better connectivity.
There are also several companies interested in funding 5G development. The NSF said that their programs will continue even after U.S. President Barack Obama leaves the office by November, TechCrunch reported.
Nokia, Oracle, Intel, HTC and Samsung already have plans for 5G. Interestingly, the larger giants Microsoft, Google and Apple has not yet laid out their plans and intentions for the new network standard.
The Obama administration is dubbing their 5G development project as the Advanced Wireless Research Initiative which hopefully will continue beyond his office term and remains as his legacy for the several years to come when 5G has finally become fully developed. 5G is expected to bring 100 times faster Internet download and upload speeds compared to 4G and LTE networks today.