...AND CHEAPER...:

What pretty much everyone agrees on is that this next generation of wireless, when it finally does arrive, will have a broad impact  beyond fast phones -- from self-driving cars to remote surgery.

"5G is the enabler of what I would call the connected society that today's current technology wasn't engineered to handle," John Stankey, CEO of the AT&T Entertainment Group.

Laxdal of Ericsson places 5G into three broad categories. The first is what he calls "critical" machine tech communications, where you're remotely controlling something that needs to be precisely and securely managed over the air. This could be remote control surgery, remote control mining, self-driving vehicles.

A second category is for practically every other connected machine or thing: wind turbines, jet engines, connected water, connected vineyards.

And the third is mobile broadband. Indeed, all the experts expect apps to emerge that will exploit the increased broadband on your phone, for business use and for play. Think augmented reality, virtual reality, game and entertainment.

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