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Canada’s plan to build a 5G network, which could be in place around 2020, has come into sharp focus in recent months, following the arrest by Canadian authorities of a high-level executive at China’s Huawei Technologies. Ottawa is now under increasing pressure to block Huawei from developing its 5G technology in Canada, as experts warn it would present a national security risk.

But what are 5G networks exactly? And why the security concerns? Here, we give you a (very) brief explainer on what 5G is, and why it matters:

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What is 5G?

Fifth-generation networks, or 5G, are essentially a faster and more reliable version of wireless connectivity. They come after four generations of past improvements. 2G brought us text messaging, while 4G introduced video streaming and other capabilities, which gave us access to a host of new mobile services like Uber and Spotify.

5G marks a massive leap forward in such wireless technology. Unlike earlier networks, which essentially connected devices through one-way interactions, 5G would have countless points of connectivity, creating something that could be thought of as a grid pattern, or what experts call a “network of networks.”