Facepalm: As the UK cellular provider EE powered its 5G network over six cities, one reporter for the BBC went live to show the speed of this new technology with a wireless broadcast only to find out that the new bandwidth burned its way through their data plan, delaying the broadcast by 15 minutes.
5G networks are slowly but surely coming. With the technology promising to deliver unprecedented bandwidth, those who get to experience it often share benchmark videos and screenshots of gauges running into hundreds of megabits and gigabit speeds.
The UK's BBC media corporation decided to demonstrate the capability of EE's 5G cellular network in London's district of Covent Garden, reports Gizmodo. The experience of technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones addressed two major issues concerned with the roll out of this technology to the public. One is the network's patchy coverage and availability that can greatly affect the broadband's speed, and second is how quickly it can go through a data plan, which it did for the media outlet as shared by the reporter himself.
The BBC Breakfast segment was delayed for sometime, not because of the 5G network but the SIM card that was used for the livestream had capped its data limit. This goes to show what consumers can expect from 5G data plans as their networks and devices make the move to this technology.
4K streaming is likely to become the norm for more people as data traffic shifts to a super highway of speed, but keeping a check on general usage and particularly media consumption would need to be more strict. Cell phone data bills are certainly going to get expensive once carriers start rolling out 5G data plans for the masses.
Image credit: Reuters