While it's not available everywhere, there are several reasons to consider 5G in your home should it roll out in your area.

What is 5G Wi-Fi?

Similar to how you get Wi-Fi in your home today, 5G will be able to bring internet to your home through direct wireless connections, whether through existing wireless services like microwave or satellite, or through direct wired connections like cable or fiber optics.

5G Wi-Fi is simply Wi-Fi that provides internet access through 5G towers. One way of working is through a base station that is wirelessly connected directly to fixed terminals in a venue, such as your home or business. This is called fixed wireless access.

You can also use a hotspot to convert your mobile network connection to Wi-Fi for local devices such as tablets, game consoles, laptops, and more.

Why Use 5G Internet?

First, it's incredibly fast -- with a minimum theoretical speed of 20 gigabytes per second (2.5 gigabytes per second) per cell, more than 10 times faster than 4G and likely faster than many types of wired home connections quick.

On the other hand is the extremely low latency standard that 5G networks need to comply with. This means that with 5G Wi-Fi, everything you do on the Internet today is much faster, such as downloading files, sharing data, uploading videos, playing online games, streaming movies and more.

All of your devices can connect to the internet without experiencing congestion, video buffering, random disconnects, and other bandwidth-related issues, meaning even more bandwidth-hungry devices such as extensions can be used at home Realistic headset.

5G can also provide reliable internet in areas where there is no existing infrastructure to provide decent internet or no internet at all. Those most likely to benefit are places where wired access is unavailable, such as rural areas, new construction sites and developing countries.

Another benefit is reduced costs. Much of the expense associated with network infrastructure, especially high-speed technologies like fiber optics, is the hardware between the provider and the home or business. For a traditional wired network, that means a lot of wiring and other equipment, much of which disappears in a 5G Wi-Fi system.

5G mobile providers could offer massive improvements over existing fixed broadband (FBB) providers, so this competition has the potential to reduce FBB costs or provide existing FBB customers with a service that is competitive with 5G providers.

Why 5G is better for Wi-Fi than 4G

Some service providers are implementing 5G networks using relatively high frequency bands, a portion of the radio spectrum not used by 4G networks. This opens up room for more traffic on the network, translating into faster speeds and higher capacity networks to deliver all of the above.

5G also offers a greater focus than 4G. This means that the radio waves provide a focused beam that can be directed at specific users on demand at super fast speeds, which is exactly what you need for wireless internet service in your home.

Where can I use 5G Wi-Fi?

It's available in the US, Canada, and most other countries. See Worldwide 5G Availability for all the details.

You can't get it everywhere because not all companies have upgraded their infrastructure to support the technology. 5G availability depends on many factors, including your location and service provider, but right now most are adding new locations to their network every few months.

In fact, according to the Ericsson Mobility Report for the end of 2022, "FWA is growing strongly, with 300 million connections expected by 2028."