You’re standing in a crowded coffee shop, watching your phone’s battery percentage plummet. You have two bars of 5G. You try to send a photo, and it spins. And spins. Meanwhile, telecommunication giants are already in the boardroom drafting the marketing copy for 7G.
You aren’t crazy for feeling tech fatigue. The relentless march from 3G to 4G to 5G and now 7G isn’t a triumph of human ingenuity. It’s a self-serving survival mechanism for telecom vendors who ran out of real problems to solve.
Innovation isn’t about building a better future anymore; it’s a survival mechanism for vendors who ran out of real problems to solve.
Let’s look at the facts on the ground. 5G isn’t even fully deployed. The broad masses still don’t have reliable 5G SA (Standalone) access. I recently looked at tests out of Germany where users activated 5G SA for free with Telefonica. Sure, it saved battery compared to older non-standalone networks. But it was riddled with hand-over failures, dropping calls when switching between 5G, LTE, and older GSM networks.
The infrastructure we have right now is buggy, incomplete, and actively frustrating to use. Yet, a new paper on Arxiv is already asking, “Will There Be a 7G?” The answer is yes, but not because we need it.
The telecom industry is trapped in a perpetual ‘G-cycle’. They need a new ‘G’ every few years to justify R&D budgets, sell new networking equipment, and push new smartphones. But we’ve hit the asymptote of connectivity. More ‘G’ doesn’t mean better service.
We’ve hit the asymptote of connectivity. More bars and higher ‘G’s’ don’t mean better service; they just mean a faster drain on your battery.
Think about it. What does 7G actually offer that 5G doesn’t? Holographic calls? Sub-millisecond latency for brain-computer interfaces? The use cases are purely theoretical. As one industry observer pointed out, there are a million other things more important than 7G for the next 15 years. We are building solutions in desperate search of a problem.
When a technology outpaces consumer demand, the marginal returns diminish to zero. Worse, they go negative. Pushing for 7G means complex network hand-overs, increased background processing, and hardware that drains faster trying to keep up with protocols it barely understands.
You don’t need a 7G network to download a movie in one second if your phone dies before the credits roll.
Next time you see a glossy commercial promising the 7G future, don’t marvel at the technology. Look at your phone. If your battery is draining and your signal is dropping, you’re experiencing the reality of the G-cycle. It’s time we stop buying the hype and demand they fix what we already have.
FAQ
Q: Is 7G just a way for telecom companies to make more money?
A: Exactly. The 'G-cycle' is a vendor survival mechanism. Once 5G infrastructure was sold, they needed a new narrative to justify their R&D budgets and sell the next generation of networking equipment.
Q: Should I upgrade to the newest network generation as soon as it's available?
A: No. Wait for the technology to mature. Early adoption of new 'G' networks usually means worse battery life, buggy hand-overs, and incomplete coverage. Let the telecoms fix their own mess first.
Q: Will 7G ever be necessary?
A: Not for at least 15 years. We've hit the asymptote of connectivity where 'more' actively degrades the user experience. Until a completely new paradigm for computing arrives, 7G is a solution searching for a problem.