Digitally Curious

CHAPTER 6THE PROMISE OF 5G

The GSM mobile standard dates back to 1987 when representatives from 13 European countries sat around a table in Copenhagen and signed the Groupe Spécial Mobile memorandum of understanding. This committed them to working together to create and deploy a digital mobile phone system across Europe. They hoped for 20 million users by the end of the century; by the time 2000 arrived, they had a quarter of a billion.

5G refers to the fifth generation of the European Global System for Mobiles (GSM) standard. According to leading consumer research agency GWI, 40% of people in the UK said they had 5G available on their phones.¹ Still, one in four say they have a poor or very poor understanding of 5G, according to a Vodafone UK report from June 2023.² That means millions of people are unaware of the additional, true benefits that 5G and the next phase of 5G will bring.

I’ve been associated with mobile technologies since before 1G, let alone 5G. Back in Australia in the late 1980s I worked for Telstra, the country’s leading telecommunications company. They launched the first automated mobile service in the mid-1980s. The technology consisted of “car phones”, where there was a fixed handset with a large box containing the radio transmitter in the boot.

Interestingly, these first mobile services had the dialling prefix “007”, presumably because those using it would truly feel like they were James Bond.

In 1987, Telstra launched a more sophisticated mobile ...