More than five years since 5G first started rolling out in London, and essentially the entirety of the city is now within the connection’s grasp. This extends to Soho, where users from every corner (with the right phone) can expect to connect to 5G masts to experience all the possible benefits that the tech has to offer. The question is, how much is this actually noticeable, and how has it changed online access for the average user?
Looking at this question through the lens of mobile online connectivity, we want to explore the real-life changes that casual users might have missed. Has 5G fulfilled its promises in online access and speed, or has the system fallen short of reaching its true potential?
A Quick Reminder
In case you’ve forgotten, 5G is developed as the next step up in speeds from the former 4G connectivity technology. The term simply refers to the fifth generation, and despite common beliefs, it’s not an outright replacement of 4G. 4G has better range and penetration than 5G, but 5G has far higher potential speeds and can handle a higher number of active users per tower. Because of these factors, 4G and 5G often overlap and work in tandem, and it’s not viable for 5G to completely replace 4G everywhere.
5G in Action
Before we look at the effect that 5G can and might have, we need to look at a typical use case. Streaming on systems like Netflix and YouTube is common here, but for a more interactive demonstration, we'll use online casinos as a baseline. For this, let’s look at some games and examples seen if you play Slingo online titles. These releases, like Slingo Mine Frenzy and Slingo Cash Eruption, offer the cutting-edge of online casino gaming. Despite this, they’re still highly efficient, requiring little in the way of data downloads.
Even though these websites and games are so small and streamlined, it’s still possible for them to perform poorly or break on 4G systems. This isn’t a fault of the games or websites; it’s a reflection of the realities of connection quality that can underperform on 4G networks. Speed is rarely the issue here; it’s more the number of active connections per user, which can become overwhelmed on 4G systems. The same can be said with disconnections when watching video streams, calling friends, or trying to upload to social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram.
If you have ever experienced random drops or disconnects on older mobile internet despite good speeds, overloaded connections could likely be the culprit. 5G towers can handle up to ten times the number of simultaneous connections per tower, and because they have a lower range than 4G, there are more towers in a given area. Thanks to these elements, connection drops are far rarer than they used to be, so disconnects and strange behaviour become increasingly rare.
The big issue here is that there isn’t really a way for the user to know exactly when 5G kicks in, or when it saves you from a connection that would have dropped on older systems in the busier parts of Soho. 5G has made mobile internet in Soho far more reliable than anything we had in the past, but it’s not natural for the average person to try to quantify this kind of change. This can cause us to underestimate it, despite 5G doing a huge amount of work in the background to improve user experience.
Whether looking at any other common mobile use today, 5G’s advantages constantly come into play. Even though we don’t notice them, they’re working behind the scenes, and they’re helping protect us against a constantly growing number of online devices from flooding local internet services. If nothing is going wrong, it’s because something’s going right, and to really appreciate 5G, sometimes we need to take a step back and appreciate how far we’ve come.
