Half of Small UK Businesses Say 5G Mobile is Overhyped

A new Consumer Intelligence survey of 1,068 UK SMEs, which was commissioned by broadband ISP Onecom and conducted between May and July 2019, has found that 51% of small and medium sized businesses feel the benefits of ultrafast 5G (mobile) technology are being overhyped.

The survey also discovered that only 29% of SMEs had a very good understanding of what 5G is, when it will be available and what its benefits are likely to be. By comparison a further 41% said they understood the mobile technology “quite well“, while 22% had an average understanding, 7% said they had very little knowledge of it and just 1% didn’t know about it at all.

At present 5G networks, which tend to promise lower latency times (faster) and multi-Gigabit broadband speeds (mobile broadband), are still in their infancy with limited access to spectrum (hampers speed) and very little coverage across the United Kingdom. However more radio spectrum bands are due to be released in 2020 and coverage is set to improve significantly next year, which should start to help realise some of the early performance claims.

In the longer term Onecom expects 5G to power a range of business products and services, fuelling adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) and further strengthening the digital infrastructure available to enterprises. In the short-term, they believe 5G can help businesses get better connected, at far higher speeds.