FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE, 4G WILL CONTINUE TO RUN AS NORMAL, SO YOU CAN KEEP USING YOUR EXISTING MOBILE DEVICES. AS THE 5G NETWORK BECOMES MORE MATURE, HOWEVER, AND WITH 5G SMARTPHONES BECOMING MORE THE NORM THAN THE EXCEPTION, YOU CAN EXPECT 4G TO BECO

Theoretically, 5G is capable of peak download speeds of up to 20Gbps, but the actual speed it can achieve depends on a number of variables such as the type of network technology used, signal strength, and the equipment you’re using to connect to it.

Real-world speeds in Australia are said to be a minimum of 100Mbps, which is still much faster than 4G (which typically averages around 20Mbps). It’s also faster than the average Australian broadband connection speed of 33Mbps.

The speeds you get on 5G can vary dramatically. Outside of Telstra HQ in Sydney, we averaged downloads of around 191Mbps, while standing outside Westfields at Bondi Junction yielded 406Mbps. Only two blocks away from the Westfields, 5G speeds plummeted to 36.8Mbps, which was actually slower than our 4G connection.

The good news is that you don’t have to rush out and upgrade your current smartphone just yet. 5G is still very much a work in progress in Australia, with base stations being progressively rolled out by Telstra and Optus, and Vodafone to join the ranks in 2020.

Current 5G coverage is patchy at best.

Telstra expects to have 5G within 35 Australian cities by the June 2020, with initial rollout focused on CBD areas. Optus’ 5G coverage is even spottier, skipping CBD areas altogether in favour of small pockets in the outer suburbs and regional areas. At the time of writing, Optus had built 232 5G sites so far, with an aim of more than 1,000 sites by

March 2020.

For the foreseeable future, 4G will continue to run as normal, so you can keep using your existing mobile devices. As the 5G network becomes more mature, however, and with 5G smartphones becoming more the norm than the exception, you can expect 4G to become more the ‘backup’ network used in less populated areas of Australia.

The main difference between 4G and 5G is the frequency bands they use. 4G builds on the 3G technology introduced in the early 2000s, which used lower frequency bands that were limited in the speeds and capacity they could offer. 5G, on the other hand, can support a broader spectrum of frequencies, which means less congestion and wider data throughput.

With Australia having one of the highest smartphone penetrations in the world, the move to 5G will unlock faster data speeds all round, as there won’t be as much competition for the available bandwidth.

That being said, the 5G technology that’s currently being used in Australia is limited to the 3.5GHz spectrum, which is not dissimilar to the spectrum used by the current 4G network.

To really unlock the potential of 5G, local carriers need to switch to mmWave 5G, which uses spectrum between 30GHz and 300GHz. Australian telcos will be able to bid for access to the mmWave spectrum next year, which means we probably won’t get the benefit of this faster connectivity until 2021 at the earliest.

Most of the discussion around the applications of 5G centres is on larger-scale innovations like self-driving cars, surgical medicine, robotics and smart cities. But what are the tangible benefits for everyday punters who are thinking about buying a 5G smartphone today?

As it turns out, the bottleneck on loading webpages and social media isn’t so much the network speed as it is the application processing on the device itself. We compared loading a complex web page over 4G and 5G,

and the difference between the two was negligible. Similarly, we didn’t notice an appreciable difference when streaming content on Netflix over 5G – from the point of pressing the play button, the content started playing just as quickly on the 4G network as it did on 5G.

Downloading content for offline playback, however, is where 5G really shines. From our fastest 5G connection point at Bondi Junction, we were able to download the entire season 1 of Stranger Things on Netflix, which is 1.9GB, in less than two minutes. The same download on a 4G connection took 7 minutes and 25 seconds.

Telstra says there are a few real-world applications that 5G users can enjoy now. In a blog post on the Telstra Exchange website, group executive of networks & IT Nikos Katinakis said the additional capacity offered by 5G made a big difference during the AFL

Grand Final 2019. The Melbourne Cricket Ground, which is where the grand final was played, is the first large stadium in the southern hemisphere to have dedicated 5G coverage, and this enabled Telstra to accommodate 28,000 people on the network during the game – with 5G users enjoying speed up to four times faster than 4G users.

Pro gamers have also given 5G the thumbs up. In 2018, pro eSports team The Chiefs tested Telstra’s 5G technology on the Gold Coast, and they reported an ultra-low latency of 5-6 milliseconds (which is around four times faster than the average latency of 4G).

As for the health risks of 5G, opinion is strictly divided. Those against 5G claim there are huge health risks, with cancer, infertility and autism among the numerous medical issues it can cause. Those in favour of the new technology say that the electromagnetic waves emitted by 5G are harmless, and that the initial fear mongering around 5G was based on faulty research.

In any case, Telstra, which currently has the broadest 5G coverage in Australia, says it has conducted extensive EME (electromagnetic energy) testing on its 5G network, and found the levels to be similar to 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi – and well below the EME safety limits (in many cases, more than a thousand times lower).

So is it worth upgrading to a 5G smartphone? Given the infancy of the 5G networks in Australia, and the fact that benefits are modest for now, there’s no real rush to join the 5G revolution unless you’re an early adopter. That being said, if you’re the type to hold onto your smartphone for several years, investing in a 5G device now will give you a certain level of futureproofing – particularly since vendors are reserving this feature for their very best devices.

WHAT ABOUT THE IPHONE AND PIXEL? WHILE SAMSUNG, LG AND OPPO ARE NOW OFFERING 5G CONNECTIVITY IN FLAGSHIP DEVICES, IT’S WORTH NOTING THAT APPLE, GOOGLE AND HUAWEI HAVE YET TO JUMP ON THE 5G BANDWAGON.

Huawei is a bit of a non-starter give its new phones won’t even support Google apps, let alone 5G (a result of the US trade ban). However, the Apple iPhone 11 and Google Pixel 4 are worth looking at given their popularity – notwithstanding their lack of 5G. The killer feature offered by both the iPhone 11 and Pixel 4 is exceptional photography.

Apple has equipped the flagship iPhone 11 Pro Max with a triple camera array that, for the first time on an iPhone, includes a dedicated wide-angle lens so you can include more of the background into each shot – a boon for landscape and group shots. Apple has also stepped up its low-light game, producing less noise and more detail in photos shot at night time. 4K video recording capabilities have also seen a boost with extended dynamic range and video stabilisation, and portraits are amazing from both the front and rear cameras – although the new ‘slofie’ feature (slow-motion selfie) isn’t something we really see catching on.

The Pixel 4 continues the tradition of offering one of the best – if not the best – cameras on the market. While Google has yet to offer a wide-angle lens on the Pixel (and, oddly, removed the wide angle lens on the front camera), it has added a second camera on the back for the first time that enhances the background blur for portrait photos.

GIVEN THE INFANCY OF THE 5G NETWORK IN AUSTRALIA, AND THE FACT THAT BENEFITS ARE MODEST FOR NOW, THERE’S NO REAL RUSH TO JOIN THE 5G REVOLUTION.