[tomkat]

Samsung executives see the technology enabling a wide range of rich applications

Maybe my inner curmudgeon is showing, but that kind of inane jargoneering deserves a wave my sceptre and banishment of guilty tech writers to Somalia.

[Moonman62]

Technically they never achieved 4G. The definition was changed instead.

[hinckley buzzard]

5G -- great. What's a G?

[tet68]

the company expects that it can commercialize the technology by 2020.

Yet I expect that by 2020 it will be outdated.

[william clark]

Great, because I can’t wait to watch How the West Was Won in full Cinerama on my phone.

[Bratch]

This technology will go into effect about the same time companies put a cap on downloads.

[InterceptPoint]

This sounds more like point to point to me. But maybe a steerable very high gain antenna. Who knows. Don’t expect to see it in the iPhone 6.

[Vigilant1]

There are a lot of challenges with this technology. Because of the high frequencies used, the max distance from a tower is very short. It will be line-of-sight transmission only with no penetration of buildings. This can be mitigated to some degree by using lots of microcell sites, but that is only going to work in urban areas. It is impractical in lower density areas. Expect to be still using 4G when you are out in the boonies. You will not be able to use inside your home unless you get a 5G microcell box.

Another challenge is latency. It still takes about a third of a second to send a data packet from one coast to the other over the internet. In dynamic and information-dense situations like online gaming, latency will remain an issue. Time for quantum bit entanglement technology? ;^)

[puppypusher]

5th Generation WiFi would be great but it won’t be worth a damn without an American Internet system based on Fiber Optic cable.

When all of that comes along then 5G will be worth something.

[johniegrad]

If you watch movies on your phone, data plans are going to be very expensive.