5G

5G is the fifth generation of mobile communication systems and the successor to 4G LTE. Its theoretical maximum speed reaches 20Gbps (about 20 times that of 4G), latency falls below 1ms (roughly a tenth of 4G), and it supports one million simultaneous connections per km² (about 10 times 4G). Commercial services began rolling out country by country from 2020.

The biggest way 5G changes the QR code experience is in the quality of the content that opens after a scan. On 4G, loading a video or an AR experience after scanning meant several seconds of waiting, and that wait drove users away. With the high speed and low latency of 5G, high-definition video plays the moment the scan completes and AR objects appear instantly.

Large-scale events also benefit from 5G. Even when tens of thousands of people scan QR codes at the same time in a stadium or concert hall, 5G's massive connection capacity makes network congestion far less likely. This is precisely the situation in which 4G repeatedly produced the complaint "I scanned it but the page won't open".

In IoT applications, 5G's ultra-low latency enables real-time control tied to QR codes. Scan the code affixed to a machine on the factory floor and live operating data is streamed to the display over 5G — industrial uses of this kind are spreading.