Business View Magazine - November 2016

Business View Magazine - November 2016 67 nent American sports venues, airports and shopping centers around the United States. This work is para- mount to ensure that in-building coverage and con- nectivity can handle both present and future data de- mands. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), it is widely anticipated that 5G (5th Gen- eration) commercial networks will be in the market- place by 2020. Wireless carriers like Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile are already in the process of planning 5G trials in the United States in order to pave the way for this technology. The ITU states that 5G networks will have a peak speed of 20 Gbps (bil- lions of bits per second), or 20 times the peak speed specification of today’s 4G LTE networks, which stands at 1 Gps. To place this speed into perspective, this could result in a two-hour movie being downloaded in a matter of minutes. NATE member companies have developed and maintained every generation of com- munications networks and will help make 5G networks a reality in the future. The next time you utilize your smartphone to watch a YouTube video or stream a movie on Netflix, remember that NATE is on the forefront of making these next gen- eration technologies and modern day conveniences possible.