Tomorrow’s Cellular Networks Will Generate $3.5 Trillion in Economic Output

Today’s cellular networks can guide you to a destination in an unknown city; tomorrow’s will transport you there.

The wireless standard known as 4G has untethered us from our living rooms and offices, allowing us to navigate unfamiliar roads and streets using voice directions from Google Maps, stream movies on Netflix while commuting to work, and interview a prospective hire on FaceTime during a flight layover. The next iteration promises to be even more transformative, because it will support communication among objects, as well as people. In a report released in January, IHS Markit, a London-based research firm, says the arrival of 5G, sometime around 2020, will elevate wireless to an elite category economists call general purpose technologies that includes the printing press and the steam engine. The study estimates that 5G will generate $3.5 trillion in economic output and 22 million jobs worldwide by 2035.