As featured in Acceleration Economy Network

Lately, a lot of folks have been questioning the value of 5G at the edge. Can’t we just use Wi-Fi? We can just set up a Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) network for our Internet of Things (IoT) devices and technology. Is 5G even ready to make a difference? I don’t see the difference on my smartphone. These are all very good questions and concerns. So, why does and will 5G matter at the edge?

Here is the thing, 5G is not only an evolving technology in its early stages; it is even earlier in its deployments across the globe. There are markets that don’t have much 5G, and those that do are barely getting off their old LTE core networks. We have a long way to go. As I mentioned before in my piece on Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC), the technology is nascent with few operators having really made a meaningful and mainstream foray into it.

So, what is there to get excited about? There is quite a bit if you are looking forward to some of the 5G features that are coming to the edge that make it quite differentiated from alternative forms of wireless and wired access for your distributed edge applications. Let’s go through some of them.

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