5G is the current buzzword. 5G Cities, Airports, Handsets, How to Activate 5G and What Not - you get to read a lot of these, making you feel that you may miss something if you are not upgraded to 5G. You can comfortably leave the fear of missing out aside and continue reading the story as we explain why 4G and Broadband are good enough for your everyday needs, at least for the next few years.
The 5G Experience in India
While we always emphasised 5G from an Experience and Enterprise use case perspective, there is little an end customer will get to experience and differentiate, at least for the time being, compared with the 4G or Broadband. Even if you experience 1 Gbps+ speeds on mobile, you would be using it to watch videos, stream music, upload or download, chat, etc. and perform the activities you can already do using 4G or Broadband. There are hardly any notable use cases you can enjoy on 5G as an end consumer now, which you cannot experience on 4G or Broadband.
Faster Data Consumption
You would finish off your data more quickly on 5G for events you do not even wish to. For example, the video you would have only partially watched may have finished autoloading completely, which is no use. So, by the time you realise and try to stop a wrong or redundant download, it must have already been completed, exhausting your data. Irrespective of free data or data limits, such experiences do not make any difference in usage except for satisfaction. All these experiences are not in the scope of a user and are necessarily not required just for the sake of it. Also Read: Know the Differences Between 4G and 5G
4G and Broadband are Good Enough for Every Day Usage
We need reliable connectivity and quality experience to continue using the way we use the Internet. The good latency delivered on Broadband connections serves everyday needs. The 4G speeds delivered up to 30 Mbps with good coverage or 100 Mbps+ on Broadband at Homes (depending on the number of concurrent users) are very much enough to cater to the Internet needs with the currently available use cases. High-Speed stable connectivity, coverage and reliability are what you need.
Broadband Infrastructure
Broadband or FTTH will have its existence and use case as the quality and service assurance delivered from fibre to home is reliable and fixed. All your Internet needs will be fully catered to with the services offered by broadband providers. A Broadband service provides worry-free Data limits so that you can switch to a Wi-Fi Network at home. Switching to Wi-Fi also saves your phone battery consumption, thereby extending its life. In the end, cellular networks have their concerns.
Recommended Internet Speeds for Video Streaming
5G Handsets in India
Most of the latest devices in the market support 5G, and your device must have already been 5G compatible. However, if you are using a 4G handset, there is no need to replace it with a 5G supported device before its purposeful usage. But, by the time you get to use the 5G services fully, this phone will be outdated, and you may look for an upgrade. Your existing 4G smartphone with Carrier Aggregation (CA) support should be fully able to cater to your Internet needs. So, there is no need to hurry to upgrade to a 5G smartphone if you do not have one. You can peacefully and fully realise the money you have invested in your existing 4G smartphone until its lifespan. You can check the complete list of 5G supported handsets by clicking here.
Notable 1-Year Wireless 4G Plans from Telcos
Airtel 1 Year Unlimited Plans
Visually Slide: Airtel 1 Year Plan Benefits Detailed
Jio 1 Year Unlimited Plans
Visually Slide: Jio Prepaid 1 Year Recharge Plan Benefits Detailed
Vodafone Idea 1 Year Unlimited Plans
Visually Slide: Vodafone Idea Unlimited 1 Year Recharge Plans As New Year is nearly around and if the validity of your existing recharge plan is nearing expiry, You can consider some of the above year-long plans to avoid monthly recharge hassles. These plans give you sufficient Data, unlimited voice and SMS benefits that cater to most of your wireless mobility needs.
Connectivity Needs:
While 4G caters to your Mobility Needs, Fixed Broadband should cater to your heavy Data needs at home, where most of the work or entertainment revolves around. Hence, you will miss nothing if a 5G Network is unavailable at your location.
Conclusion:
We have experienced Gigabit connections, and there is nothing we could do differently as an end user compared to our regular 100 Mbps broadband connection. A 1 Mbps speed should do for Music streaming, While a 20 Mbps for 4K streaming and similar speeds should suffice in most cases. Even if we get to experience 1 Gbps speeds on Mobiles, there is no requirement for such high speeds in any of the current consumer-centric use cases. However, the service providers should equally enable Gigabit speeds for us to realize the benefits of such high speeds fully. For example, if a Cloud Storage provider offers only 60 Mbps file transfer speeds through their CDN Networks, we can only experience those highest possible speeds. Although 5G has its benefits and use cases, it hardly makes a difference for an end customer in the current scenario.
