What is 5G, and is it actually better?

5G is simply the fifth generation of mobile network technology, the successor to 4G LTE, designed for faster data speeds, lower latency (the lag between request and response), and the capacity to connect far more devices at once, which matters for everything from streaming to the growing web of connected sensors and, eventually, self-driving cars. In the best conditions it is dramatically faster than 4G, downloading in seconds what used to take minutes.

The real-world experience is more uneven than the marketing, because 5G comes in flavors. High-band (millimeter-wave) 5G delivers the eye-popping gigabit speeds but travels very short distances and struggles to pass through walls, so it mostly exists in dense urban pockets and stadiums. Low- and mid-band 5G covers far more ground with more modest speed gains over 4G, and that is what most people actually connect to, which is why your 5G icon sometimes feels barely different from LTE. It is a genuine improvement that is still filling in. One thing 5G definitively is not: a health threat. The conspiracy theories linking 5G to illness, which peaked during the pandemic and led to actual cell-tower vandalism, have no scientific basis; 5G uses non-ionizing radio waves well within established safety limits, the same fundamental technology as previous cellular generations.