What we learned about 5G in 2015

The much-anticipated 5G mobile standard won't be finished until 2020, but the people who will make it happen were busy throughout 2015 trying to define it.

One thing that's clear already is that 5G won't be like 4G. Rather than just making phones and tablets faster, the next generation of mobile technology will be asked to serve many uses, each with different requirements.

This was a year for sorting through those demands.

"A lot of progress has been made," said Tolaga Research analyst Phil Marshall. "Effectively, we're trying to find the right set of technologies to use."

While the needs are abundant, the choice of possible ways to meet them is also wider than ever. Ultra-high frequencies that until recently were considered impossible to use for mobile services could deliver much higher speeds. Emerging systems that can send data across the network in a trickle may let Internet of Things devices last years on tiny batteries. And researchers are working on reducing delays so messages we need for tasks like driving can be delivered on time.

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