There's plenty of confusion about the soon-to-be wireless standard 5G. Verizon and AT&T are offering what they call 5G service to parts of Houston, but we're gonna need a lot more cell towers.
What is 5G? It's not a philosophical question, but it's a theoretical question right now. True 5G is faster than current cable Internet offerings and up to a hundred times faster than the current 4G. But you need to be close to a tower. Virtual reality expert Alan Smithson told the CBC VR is a bear.
"As you increase the resolution of these screens of course you have to push more data."
And more data will be available, once we build all those additional cell towers.
"We're in 2028 and everybody wears a pair of glasses now instead of a smart phone and those glasses now recognize you; your name pops up; I know who you are, maybe your Linked-In profile pops up."
5G promises to enable all sorts of stuff, like self-driving cars and virtual shopping and a lot more Big Brother.
University of Toronto Professor Alberto Leon-Garcia says 5G is a key to the environment.
"Make better use of energy, transportation better, the ability to deploy sensors, collect data and then do smart things to reduce the carbon footprint, for example, all of those are possible in the near future."
Most experts say good 5G coverage is years away.