Welcome to the tech policy podcast. I'm Evan Schwarger. On today's show, the next big leap in wireless

technology. As we go from 4G to 5G, what are the potential technologies that we're going to see?

How is this going to affect consumers? And what are the regulatory

barriers standing in the way? Joining me to discuss this is Peter Rossavi, president of Rossavi

research, a wireless technology consulting firm. He's been specializing in this technology for over 20

years. And he's written over 160 articles and publications on the subject, which you can find

at his website, which is linked

to in the show notes for today's episode. Peter, thank you for joining the show. Thank you for having me.

So before we jump in, let's kind of put this whole thing in context, because to a consumer,

when we hear 3G, and then it goes to 4G, and then it goes to 5G, that kind of belies the advancement because it makes it sound like

it's only one order of magnitude. But it really is not. It is each time we go to a new G,

it's a big leap. So what are, could you kind of put in human terms, both the speeds we're

talking about and the activities that you can do with these speeds.

Each G has been a huge leap in capability.

Each G really represents an entirely new platform.

1G was analog cellular.

2G was our first digital cellular in the 90s. And now we've worked

our way to 4G and the best known technology for 4G right now is LTE, long-term evolution.

That is a technology that is powering today's smartphones and letting people browse the internet quickly and access email and do social networking

and see videos on their phones and tablets and laptops and so forth. 5G is a whole huge new

quantum step beyond that. And when we talk about 5G, is that kind of like your home broadband connection,

which we generally think of as faster than 4G on average, depending on where you are in the

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