5G is no longer a phone story

It is becoming the backbone of everything we call "smart" today — from cars to humanoid robots.

When 5G rolled out a few years ago, the conversation was mostly about speed on our smartphones. Faster streaming, faster scrolling. Nice, but not earth-shattering. Today, in 2026, we're looking at a very different picture. 5G has quietly grown into the invisible backbone of a world in which more and more devices — cars, laptops, inverters, factory robots and soon humanoids — can no longer do without it.

If the Belgian state dares to entrust its critical communication to 5G…

The Belgian ASTRID network is the communication backbone of our emergency and security services: police, fire brigade, emergency medical teams, Civil Protection. For decades it ran on TETRA, a narrowband digital radio system. That era is over. Through Blue Light Mobile, ASTRID is evolving towards 5G. By 2035, TETRA will be replaced by broadband 5G communication. That is no small detail: emergency services will no longer just talk over radio, but share real-time video, sensor data, drone feeds and AI analyses — on a network that must always work, even when everything is on fire. If 5G is good enough to run police and fire brigade communication on, it is also good enough for your business-critical applications. ASTRID's migration may well be the best proof that 5G is no longer hype, but mature infrastructure.

Look around — 5G is already everywhere

Let's zoom out. Beyond our phones, cellular connectivity is already built into places you might not expect:

The common denominator? None of these applications can afford to stall because the signal drops for a moment in an underground car park, behind a thick concrete wall or in a 5,000 m² company hall. What was once a nice-to-have has become an operational requirement.

The real game changer: AI needs input

This is where it gets really interesting. The AI revolution everyone is talking about doesn't just run on large language models in data centres. It runs on input. On data. On billions of real-time sensors, cameras, machines — and soon on humanoid robots. The production of AI-driven humanoids is in full swing. Tesla (Optimus), Figure, Unitree, 1X, Agility Robotics, Boston Dynamics — the race has begun, and the first commercial units are already deployed in warehouses and factories today.

Anyone who thinks a humanoid robot will be satisfied with shaky office WiFi is mistaken. A robot walking through a factory hall — or soon making coffee in our homes — needs constant, secure, low-latency connectivity. 5G is not an option there. It is a requirement.

And it doesn't stop at robots. Autonomous vehicles, drones, smart cities, edge AI in factories: one by one, applications where the quality of the network sets the upper limit of what AI can do. AI is only as smart as the data it receives — and that data needs a highway, not a country lane.

Why WiFi can no longer do it alone

WiFi remains excellent for what it is meant for: local, indoor, reasonably predictable traffic. But today's world demands more:

Mobility: a laptop on the train, a robot rolling through a hall, a car on the move — WiFi stops at the wall.
Security: open hotel, café and airport WiFi remains an attack surface. Cellular auth is stronger by design.
Guarantees: WiFi is best-effort. 5G can deliver truly guaranteed bandwidth and latency through slicing and QoS.
Scale: thousands of IoT devices in the same building? WiFi access points become a nightmare. Cellular scales more naturally.

The future is not WiFi OR 5G. The future is both — smartly combined. And for everything that has to keep working the moment it moves outside: 5G.

Conclusion — connectivity has become strategic

Connectivity is no longer an IT checkbox at the end, at the delivery of a building or an investment file. It is a strategic pillar. Those who invest today in connected devices, a private 5G architecture or a well-thought-out IoT roadmap will build faster, safer and cheaper tomorrow. The question is no longer whether everything will become connected. The question is: will you be ready when it does?

Ready for the connected future? 

At Mercuron we build the connectivity infrastructure that makes your IoT, AI and business applications truly work: private 5G networks, indoor DAS, multi-operator and hybrid ASTRID/GSM solutions. Whether it's a factory hall full of robots, an office full of laptops, a fleet of connected vehicles or a building with hundreds of IoT sensors — we make sure the signal is there where it needs to be. 

→ Talk to our experts via www.mercuron.eu

Sources & further reading • ASTRID — Blue Light Mobile & evolution towards 5G (astrid.be). • Ericsson — Mobility Report, forecasts for cellular IoT & 5G adoption to 2030. • GSMA Intelligence — The Mobile Economy & 5G in Enterprise. • 3GPP — Release 18 / 19 (5G-Advanced) specifications. • IDC & ABI Research — Industrial & humanoid robotics market forecasts. • Tesla, Figure AI, 1X, Agility Robotics, Unitree — public product announcements 2024-2026