Today marks the arrival of 5G for six cities across the UK. BT are launching it through their EE network in phase one of their rollout which will reach areas of London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast, Birmingham and Manchester.

It’s been suggested that we could see speeds of up to 20Gbps which means much faster browsing for consumers. The network will be able to support more than a million devices per sq km which means that consumers will experience a far superior connection when at stadiums or concerts. Currently 4G maxes out at 60,000 devices and causes frustration for users when they can’t access Facebook to check-in…

In order to access the network, consumers will have to have a 5G handset, with a 5G price plan and for now, be in the right location. At the moment there are only a number of handsets which have 5G capabilities, which include devices from Samsung, OnePlus and LG.

According to reports, there will be a phase 2 and phase 3 rollout which will eventually see a far superior service available by the time we reach 2023.

With the average consumer now spending over 6 hours per day consuming digital content and 79% of consumers spending time browsing apps, it’s more important than ever that internet speeds are fast and reliable.

This also opens up lots of opportunities for mobile app developers looking to launch new apps with 5G possibilities. 5G is a brand new network which is set to have a huge impact on the mobile app landscape. New tech, such as Cloud, IoT and AI drives new opportunities to enhance the solutions we create.

The benefits of 5G, such as ‘low to zero latency’, ‘high bandwidth’ and ‘increased connection density’ mean that we’ll be able to improve on the Smart City app concepts we’re currently working on…we can’t wait!