With the advent of new 5G technology and the roll out of this technology across the United States and the world, a lot of our customers have asked the question. "Do I Need a 5G Fleet Tracking Device for my Fleet?". The answer to this question is no, not right now.
Why don't you need a 5G GPS Tracker or telematics device? The answer is pretty straight forward. Telematics, Fleet Tracking Devices, and GPS trackers
don't use a ton of data. 5G technology is made for hi throughput's of data. This means its designed to transmit a lot of data in a short amount of time. For things like online gaming, videos, screen sharing, and other high data applications 5G is great. For the applications that are currently prevalent in the Fleet Tracking market right now, it is basically overkill. We have designed our devices to be data efficient. This means we wisely use the data packets to pack in a ton of information, and use as little data bandwidth as possible. Our devices were used to use a small data pipe like 2G/Edge cellular technology, but we have evolved our technology to utilize 3G and 4G as well.
So why aren't all of our devices 2G since we designed around that size of a data pipe? The short answer is network coverage. In internet of things (IoT) and fleet tracking, coverage is king. Basically we want to make sure we have you covered wherever you go. In the US and in many countries many of the 2G/Edge networks are being shutdown, this means that a city that was previously covered by a 2G network will no longer be. Since we want to make sure you are covered everywhere we have continued to upgrade our devices to include 3G and 4G since most of the carriers in the US are going to retire their 2G systems and rely heavily on 3G/4G/ and in the future 5G.
So when should I consider buying 5G or the latest 4G device? When 3G networks begin to be shutdown you should make sure you switch. In the US this won't happen until about 2023-2025, but in other countries this may happen sooner. At that point in time we will have 4G and 5G devices ready to go.
Another reason you may need 5G devices? One great application for Fleets is the use of live video monitoring of your drivers and the roads they are driving in. This use will become mainstream in the next few years as the 5G technology starts to cover a wider area of the country. Right now the cost of live streaming is a little bit cost prohibitive. In the next few months Global-View.Net 's fleet tracking system will start incorporating live streaming video as one of our services, the cost may be a little high at first but it is great for early adopters and businesses that need this type of technology immediately.
So as a quick recap, 5G technology will be awesome and useful down the road. Right now there isn't enough 5G coverage anywhere in the world to warrant the use of the technology for Fleet Tracking Services and GPS Tracking Systems. In a few years as worldwide networks beging to launch and implement 5G cells and emitters throughout the country we will leverage the technology to incorporate live video streaming and live time route optimization into our system. In the mean time utilizing a 3G or 4G device is ideal as they have the most coverage and provide the most reliability in most places.
If you have any questions about fleet tracking services or GPS Tracking Devices and would like us to address it in our blogs, feel free to shoot us e-mail at info@global-view.net . We will be happy to share our knowledge and expertise with you and your colleagues.
Thanks and have a great 2020!