The Next Generation of Wireless — “5G” — Is All Hype

[Commentary] When it comes to hype, “5G” is this year’s “cold fusion.”

The meaning seems obvious — our current communications system is 4G, so of course we must already have the next generation in line. Telecom executives play on this perception. Lowell McAdam, the CEO of Verizon, says 5G is “wireless fiber.” (And I thought fiber was fiber.) SK Telecom says it will soon be able to transfer holograms and enable virtual reality over 5G networks that are 100 times faster than current 4G LTE connections. Noise about 5G is incessant and triumphant, a constant drumbeat of predictions crowing about the arrival any day now of seemingly costless, ubiquitous, instantaneous, unlimited connectivity. The “5G” story is far more complex, calculated, and contingent than anyone in the carriers’ PR departments wants you to know. There is no 5G standard — yet. This “wireless fiber” will never happen unless we have… more fiber. In order to work, 99% of any “5G” wireless deployment will have to be fiber running very close to every home and business.

[Crawford is the John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a co-director of the Berkman Center]