5G towers map

Here’s telltale sign your community is about get 5G towers: You’ll see white PVC tubes, typically with an orange cap, popping out of the ground . These pipes contain fiber lines that then connect all the 5G towers, as they have to be connected with fiber line to reach their promised high speeds.

5G, which stands for “fifth generation,” promises to raise Internet speeds by as much as a hundredfold over fourth-generation technology. 5G needs many more cellular antennas, called “small cells,” than 4G . That’s because it uses higher-frequency radio waves, which carry much more data but have shorter ranges.