Better streams, faster downloads and internet annoyances solved: The changes you’ll actually see on 5G

With more streaming services entering the market, Australia’s demand is higher than ever. But one problem remains when commuting.

With all the talk about 5G and its massive promised improvements, you’d be forgiven for wondering what it means for you.

While the technology has been heralded as life-changing, many potential advances will be in areas we won’t see in our day-to-day lives.

You might eventually notice augmented reality goggles in your workplace that make it easier to perform complex tasks, and you may one day eat food planted, grown and harvested by autonomous agricultural equipment.

But the 5G networks being rolled out in Australia by Optus and Telstra are a few years away from reaching those lofty heights. So what exactly can you expect?

This 5G tower looks pretty much exactly like any other mobile tower, but there are differences with new network.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR VIDEO STREAMING?

Video streaming on platforms such as Netflix, Stan or Disney+ is now the largest driver of data consumption on the National Broadband Network after surging 25 per cent in the past year, pushing to 258GB a month per customer on average.

Put simply, we love to stream and as more platforms enter the game, this is unlikely to go down. Worryingly, that’s testing the network’s capacity and causing congestion. 5G may go some way to alleviating this by getting some people off the NBN and on to 5G internet plans, which promise faster speeds and lower latency. But the real benefit will be when you’re trying to stream on the go. The 4G networks made it possible to reliably stream high definition videos on our phones, helping fill many a commute and giving us all a welcome respite in the awful dead space between the screen at your work and the one at your house.

5G promises to do away with the bothersome buffering that can ruin many a binge watch.

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If only this poor unfortunate woman had a 5G connection, she could be looking at her phone too.

Additionally, the increased capacity on 5G equals more people sending more data at once, meaning sardine commuters won’t turn on one another when everyone on a packed trains clogs the network trying to stream at the same time.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR MY MOBILE?

5G is designed primarily for data use and isn’t actually being used for calls, so you likely won’t notice any difference could use the faster speeds for smoother and higher quality video and audio calls using apps such as Skype or FaceTime.

Soon the design language of this operating system won’t be the only historical relic in this image.

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WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR DOWNLOAD SPEEDS?

5G offers theoretical top speeds that will eclipse those offered on 4G, with speeds up to 10Gbps, more than 30 times 4G. This has exciting applications, especially for businesses that transfer huge amounts of data over the internet. The speed increases should lead to increased productivity. For those surfing the web on phones or downloading podcasts, the increased speeds mean this should happen instantaneously, cutting out the annoying loading times.

HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO THE NBN?

While telcos will offer home internet plans using the 5G network, they insist these services will complement the NBN rather than compete with or replace it. This is despite offering faster speeds, lower latency and unlimited data for about the same price as the most popular NBN bundles.

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Optus has a 5G Home Broadband plan offering speeds faster than the NBN for around the same price, but the company insists it’s not competing with nationwide network.

“The 5G home service will be a complement to the NBN, so if you’re on some of those technologies which are capped out in terms of capability, you may look at 5G as delivering greater capability, particularly those areas where there’s more limited technology,” Optus vice-president of regulatory and public affairs Andrew Sheridan told news.com.au. The NBN was primarily intended to bridge the digital divide between city and country areas by building communications infrastructure in places it isn’t commercially viable to do so. This is unlikely to change with the introduction of 5G, as it’s expensive to roll out and makes sense for businesses to focus on areas where they can sign up more customers. Optus previously told news.com.au it had discussed the idea of working with the company in charge of the NBN on 5G, which it said it’s open to.

“We have long stated we believe the NBN access network and 5G will be complementary technologies in the future. It’s important to remember around 97 per cent of data in Australia is carried over fixed line networks … we expect fixed broadband data growth to more than double in the next four years,” an NBN spokesperson said.

Perhaps the most noticeably distinct advantage the 5G home broadband plan has over NBN is you don’t need to wait for a contractor to connect your property to the network and can simply plug in the supplied modem.