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Hello, all been busy while all the other stuff has been going
on. Although there is still limited availability of both
5G phones and networks, both traditional cellular
I hope that you, your friends, and your family are all providers and ISPs are currently offering 5G service
well and staying safe from the various risks to in select locations around the U.S.
health and wealth that the COVID-19 pandemic has While the 5G focus for many current smartphone
brought to the U.S.! It seems increasingly clear that users has been the possibility of enhanced cellular
this will not be a short-lived scenario; as infections service, to enable faster streaming and other Inter-
continue to grow in number and spread across the net services on cell phones, some ISPs are also
country, our economic recovery will be gradual at building 5G infrastructure designed to provide home
best as Americans follow healthcare recommenda- and/or business Internet service. For example, Veri-
tions to minimize contact with others. (Even when zon is currently offering 5G broadband internet,
such restrictions are softened or eliminated, it is called “5G Home”, in areas of six cities around the
likely that many of us will voluntarily continue to ob- country. Service is expected to start October 1 .
st
serve them to safeguard our own health and the According to the company, there will be no data
health of our family.) Best to plan for the long haul! caps and customers can expect speeds ranging
In our June newsletter I wrote about how this pan- from 300 Mbps up to around 1 Gbps, depending on
demic has affected our technology world. On the location.
one hand, technology has become more important For more 5G details, check out this Lifewire article,
as many employees are now working from home just updated on August 1, 2020: https://
and most children finished the school year from www.lifewire.com/5g-availability-us-4155914.
home (both of which are likely to persist at least
through the balance of 2020 and perhaps beyond). I haven’t seen anything much about Wi-Fi 6 either,
On the other hand, availability of at least some tech although I have noticed Wi-Fi 6 routers starting to
products had diminished because of supply chain appear on tech retail websites. But, as the saying
interruptions and increased demand. (I mentioned goes, “It takes two to tango”. As I understand this
availability issues – and cost increases – for a pop- technology, to take advantage of Wi-Fi 6 speed and
ular Logitech webcam in my June column. Now, throughput both your router and the internal Wi-Fi
two months later, this webcam is still out of stock at “radios” in your computers must have Wi-Fi 6 capa-
Best Buy and still being sold at a high mark-up by bility. (If you think back to when Wi-Fi 5 came along
isolated sellers on Amazon.) But there is some ap- - known then as “ac” Wi-Fi - many of us owned com-
parent good news on the availability front. There puters that would only connect at W-Fi 4 (“n” Wi-Fi)
were inserts from Office Depot and Staples in Sun- speeds. To take advantage of the faster network
day’s Chicago Tribune listing quite a few computers potential we had to either buy a new computer or
and peripherals on sale, so it does appear that sup- buy a USB Wi-Fi 5 adapter.) However, when I
ply chains are beginning to fill up again. searched on Amazon for “Wi-Fi 6 adapter”, the prod-
ucts that showed up are all based on PCIE cards
Probably because of the pandemic, political and that would be installed in a desktop computer.
financial news in recent months, the two big tech
rollouts planned for 2020 have become almost So, we’ll see how this technology evolves. Mean-
anonymous. I had to do a web search to find any- time, chances are that our home networks are al-
thing about the current status of 5G wireless. It
turns out that the various wireless providers have (Continued on page 4)
July/August 2020 3
