5G Era Gets Launched

The Wall Street Journal has released a number of recent articles about 5G for smartphones, and it looks like the launch has finally started. Last week’s WSJ had an article on Thursday April 4, touting the launch of 5G with Verizon in parts of Chicago and Minneapolis, while carriers in South Korea deployed service in the Seoul metropolitan area the same day. It will be interesting to follow realization of the promised new speeds of 100 times faster, as well as the impact that might have on construction sites and the roll-out of new software and hardware.

eVolve MEP is working with a number of MEP contractors in the electrical and mechanical verticals, and everyone seems excited about the promise of higher bandwidth to extend onto the job site. The applications mentioned in a WSJ article from February 26, 2019 focused on everything from factory lines to driverless cars that would be impacted by 5G. Activities like watching sports on TV and getting real-time statistics may experience dramatic changes in coming months. The other big impact of 5G mentioned in the February article focused on healthcare and the ability for scanning and images to be easily shared. There are many parallels to the construction industry with the heavy 3D files that need to be passed back and forth from the architect to job site.

I thought we lived through amazing changes in the last ten years as bandwidth became more readily available in the home and office. But I don’t think we have seen “amazing” yet, as we may soon experience a ramp up of speeds over 100 times on what we get today with our mobile devices. “The 5G Economy,” by MIT Technology Review, describes the way 5G will overhaul business and economic policies to change what we do and how we do it.

How do you think this will impact your business? Do you have any applications that can’t be shared today due to bandwidth restrictions between offices or on the jobsite? Let us know your thoughts and also how eVolve MEP may help increase your productivity and profitability with eVolve Mechanical and eVolve Electrical solutions for prefabrication and Revit success.