We’ve long noted how the “race to 5G” was largely just hype by telecoms and hardware vendors eager to sell more gear and justify high U.S. mobile data prices. While 5G does provide faster, more resilient, and lower latency networks, it’s more of an evolution than a revolution.
But that’s not what telecom giants like Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T promised. Both routinely promised that 5G would change the way we live and work, usher forth the smart cities of tomorrow, and even revolutionize the way we treat cancer.
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For a while there, there was an effort to get all U.S. wireless on one unified standard. But with increasing international hostilities and less U.S. government coherence, there are growing concerns that 6G could actually split into two completely different 6G standards in use by the U.S. and China. On the plus side, the fractured disagreements on what 6G should look like means at the very least, we’ll be spared the same kind of mindless hype that plagued 5G. Maybe.