Alan Pentz, Corner Alliance

As far as impact (and pros), I anticipate huge increases in bandwidth, which will enable the development of futuristic technologies, such as autonomous cars and artificial intelligence. This will also accelerate the use of an unlicensed spectrum/millimeter wave spectrum.

Some cons include limitations in distance—the wave spectrum can only accommodate over short distances, which omits many rural areas. Running fiber to these areas is also economically infeasible.

In the long-term, fiber optics/5G could create a different internet outside of urban areas, compounding the divide between the “haves” and have nots.” But it is a necessity, in order to maintain a national competitiveness with China and the multipolar world.

RJ Bardsley, Racepoint Global

In reality, 5G’s biggest impact will be in driving efficiency in machine-to-machine or IoT implementations. But for most brands—including networks and phone makers—the important thing about 5G is the consumer promise. That promise starts with speed. The way it will be marketed to consumers is all about faster download speeds and better communication—latency-free conversations and movies downloaded in a minute. There will be a lot of industry-specific impacts—for example, the insurance industry is gearing up for new ways to use vast sums of immediate data to impact rate pricing and risk management.

But the challenge with 5G is that right now, marketing is way ahead of reality.

The long-term downside is that the consumer experience will not be immediate. Carriers will have to manage a major temporary letdown as consumers realize they will have to wait for much of the 5G promise. In fact, there is a significant risk to brands overpromising and underdelivering on the 5G experience.

Jim Turner, Intelligent Fiber

In the many schools of thought around 5G, some proponents believe that 5G will ultimately replace landlines and cell towers, meaning that fiber build-outs will be crucial to communication.

5G is a fiber-intensive technology and trying to manage spectrum, with minimal wavelength reach, presents a new challenge to the transport industry.

In order to keep up, existing fiber infrastructure will undoubtedly need to be updated as new buildouts occur to meet the high speed, high user bandwidth demands.

Matteo Fragnan, CSTeam

5G will arrive in 2020, and in order to achieve the goal of the “Gigabyte Society”, as said by European Union, there will be need of a huge fiber optics web, especially of FTTH type.

But this kind of infrastructure is expensive, so in the less profitable areas, fiber optics web should be funded by public administrations. If that will happen, then the physical infrastructure providers (PIPs) might adopt less expensive and hard to sustain pricing models for the network providers.

Alex Yang, Tuya Smart

When it comes to smart home technology, there’s never enough bandwidth to go around. 5G will be a key technology to address this by making smart home devices go further, and eliminating some of the barriers to adopting IoT technology in the home and office.

By addressing the coverage issues that can sometimes happen with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or other communications technologies, 5G will help free connections, allowing for more devices to go online and become connected, while paving the way for real-time experiences with AI.

Reuben Yonatan, GetVOIP

The old days of PSTN are dying, and we’re thrilled to have been on the leading of VoIP. However, 5G is right around the corner, and those who do not prepare for that reality will experience a similar fate as those who failed to adapt to VoIP.

To that end, we’re preparing for a future of further unified communications:

• Personal and business lines and devices will merge into a single device.
• Less emphasis will be placed on physical location due to more remote capabilities.
• The Internet of Things will grow beyond smart refrigerators.
• Into automated workflows and personal lives will streamline many users’ consumer habits to the point that many decisions will be made subconsciously or behind the scene.

Yaniv Masjedi, Nextiva

Users are going to see even greater diversity in the functionality of their daily handheld devices. We’ll likely see further unification between desktops, laptops, tablets, and cell phones.

Those who do maintain household lines will have express purposes for them, as their last holdout use of serving as a fax or business line will soon be irrelevant.

Away from home, 5G will also allow users to maintain in direct contact with their place of business or residence through a control panel linked to any number of IoT-enabled devices.

Chris Shuptrine, Adzerk

The advent of the 5G era is being looked upon with a lot of anticipation both by the technology aficionados and laypeople.

5G promises to connect people through an exceedingly smart network and an equally smart array of gadgets. This promises to take innovation to a hitherto unimaginable level. But for that to happen, the existing network infrastructure requires a massive revamp and upgrade.

For one to fully leverage the capabilities of a 5G network, one needs to look at a much denser fiber network than is currently available. This translates to a huge demand for an enhanced fiber network.

Samantha Hugo, Hugomatica

Fiber optics is the backbone technology that is now connecting cell towers to the internet. That enables carriers to move much more data between cell devices and the internet and back. And 5G is the mobile portion of the cellular network which also is providing higher capacity and speeds.

So with 5G and fiber, everyone will be able to access 10 times as much data as before.

Fiber to Cell Towers + 5G = More Entertainment + Higher Cell Phone Bills

With fiber connecting cell towers and 5G, the capacity and speed for data downloads is going increase approximately tenfold. Currently, the average consumer uses 2 gig of data per month.

In the past, the available bandwidth was quickly consumed by new applications or behaviors. Suddenly, streaming higher quality video will be faster (with less buffering), and therefore, that will be a temptation that is hard to resist.

So over the next several years, average consumer usage could increase to 20 gig per month.

How will that impact consumer CELL PHONE BILLS?

Here is the deal. If you have an unlimited domestic plan, you should be fine for data usage in your home country. If you do not have an unlimited plan, then your 2 gig plan could easily be exceeded.

So, you could be paying $20 a month for 2 gig of data before fiber optics plus 5G were deployed . . . and if you don’t move to a higher plan, and you use 20 gig of data, you could end up paying $290 per month (assuming $15 per gig for data above the 2 gig amount).

For international travel, the impact could be much larger. Although most people try to minimize their data usage when traveling, it is easy to forget and 5G will make constant data connectivity even more additive.

With a rate of $2.05 per Meg for data above 2 gig for some countries, even a 1 gig overage would be an extra $2,050 cell bill. Imagine going over by 10 gig (hard to do before 5G), that would be an extra $20,500 charge on your cell bill!

Tyler Cooper, BroadbandNow

The future of both wired and wireless technology in America is not set in stone.

In an ideal world, the entire nation would be wired up with ultrafast fiber optic cables, but running lines to even a single home can cost thousands of dollars, which presents challenges in scaling to rural communities.

5G represents a promising opportunity to bring robust wireless broadband service to millions, but municipal issues with small cell technology and concerns over cybersecurity may hamper the technology’s progress in the near term.

As we look to the future, both of these mediums have a role to play in closing the digital divide and bringing high-speed broadband connectivity to every American household, alongside ambitious moonshot projects like Low Earth orbit satellite arrays.

As for which technology will be dominant in the future? That remains to be seen.

Lexie Smith, GeoLinks

While different technologies, I do believe fiber and 5G share a commonality when we look towards the future. Neither technology is a “one size fits all solution.” Fiber is great—but it’s incredibly expensive and slow to deploy, making it an unrealistic solution for much of rural America.

5G’s promise to deliver higher bandwidth, lower latency, reduced packet loss, and overall increased system capacity than its 4G and 3G predecessors, is still generating both high expectations and severe skepticism. There are still countless issues with the technology, such as your hand or body blocking the signal.

Ultimately, when we look towards the future of broadband and IoT, all existing technologies—from fixed wireless, to satellite, to fiber, etc.—have advantages and disadvantages. However, they all solve a need and, when used together, can eventually close the digital divide.

Jamie Cambel, Gobestvpn.com

Pros

Things will simply run faster. Not only will 5G reduce latency, but overall download and upload speeds will be increased as well. I’ve even read that 5G offers maximum latency of 4 ms down from 20 ms on LTE.

Cons

Although it will be relatively simple to install proper devices to leverage 5G in homes and offices, it will still take resources to roll out. For large corporations, this rollout may be a bit troublesome if they are not well-prepared.

The impact on users is generally good. Faster response times means better user experience across all fronts. I hope telcos won’t use this as a reason to bump up the prices, but I have a feeling they will.