Coming soon, your phone will find a 5G signal. I don’t know the technical details enough to say whether your existing phone supports the service. To be safe, I’ll say, “No.” Anyway, by the time 5G rolls out, you’ll most likely have a new phone anyway. Hopefully it supports those fancy new 5G cell towers when they appear.

I was fortunate when 4G rolled out. A town near me had 4G service. One day I drove about an hour away to sit in a Starbucks and enjoy 4G speeds. It was pretty nifty, but not so spectacular that I made that specific Starbucks my new favorite hangout.

The new 5G service will probably roll out in a similar manner, with certain locations blessed with the new service and their Starbucks experiencing a boost in sales.

But 5G is about more than speed.

Supposedly the new 5G connection also saves your device battery life.

Weird, right?

The secret is that the 5G system moves a lot of the processing off the device and onto the network. I don’t know how that works, but if it’s true, it would explain how the system becomes faster and how your gizmo can enjoy a longer battery life, with claims of up to one month between charges. (Yeah, I didn’t believe that one, either.)

Of course, all this talk has to wait on the reality. Once 5G is available, people will accurately report what the real numbers are versus what the marketing people claim. I do hope it’s all true, however. Faster cellular data service is always welcome.