If you want to download a feature length movie, like Jurassic World, on your fancy, new, giant screen smartphone, you’re going to need patience. It’s going to take some time. Like, several minutes of your time. Because of 4G LTE. No matter which mobile provider you use, your so called “high speed” data plan isn’t really all that fast. It could take anywhere from six to 10 minutes before you can tap play and enjoy the film. That’s 10 minutes of your life that you’ll never get back. If this is as unacceptable to you as it is to me, I have good news for you. Verizon Wireless is working on a fix. The 5th generation of mobile data networks is upon us! Say hello to 5G.

Verizon Wireless surprised many telecommunications industry experts when it announced that it will begin field trials on its 5G network within the next 12 months. The year 2020 was the common estimate for when 5G would be available to consumers. With testing beginning earlier than expected, the ultra high speed network will almost certainly roll out to Verizon customers within the next few years. Roger Gurnani, Verizon’s Chief Information and Technology Architect, stated in an interview last week that he expects to go live with 5G sometime in 2017.

What’s the big deal with 5G? Well, it’s ridiculously fast. In early testing, Verizon has been able to achieve connection speeds that are 30 to 50 times faster than its 4G network. In fact, if you put 5G in a race against today’s fastest direct connection internet services, like Google Fiber, 5G would smoke them all. It’s the Usain Bolt of internet connections. Remember that feature film you were waiting for what seemed like an eternity to download over 4G? Forget about it. That’s an atrocity to which 5G will put an end. You’ll be watching your movies about 15 seconds after tapping the download button. Now that’s what I call On Demand viewing.

There’s a lot of excitement about internet-connected smart devices, collectively known as the Internet of Things, that are starting to hit store shelves. The IoT industry will be even more promising in the era of 5G. The connection is more responsive than 4G, and it’s up to 10 times as power efficient. Your alarm clock will be able to chat with your Keurig coffee machine, and your liquor cabinet will be able to request a refill from Amazon Instant, and it’ll all happen in the blink of an eye, and use hardly any power.

Verizon has yet to reveal the 5G launch cities. In December of 2010, it rolled out its brand new 4G LTE network to 38 markets in the United States. A similar in scale 5G launch towards the end of 2017, would make sense. That’s not too far away. Hopefully, you can put up with these painfully slow 4G speeds for just a little longer. We’ll be in the promised land of internet connections soon enough.

photo credit: Usain Bolt – The Bolt! via photopin (license)