Analysis of Engineering Students Acceptance and Usage of 5G Technology: A Case Study of Gannon University

Abstract

It has been around 20-25 years since the internet was first developed for public use, and since then the number of users has been increasing exponentially. In a recent report, there are around 313 million internet users, out of which 276.8 million are mobile internet users and internet penetration is 90.3% (Johnson, 2021). With the development of wireless telecommunication technology and mobile devices, use of the internet access has been increasing. From the first generation (1G) of cellular networks to the current 5th Generation (5G), there has been a huge improvement in the data rate, coverage, and security that made it possible to have the internet on mobile phones. The internet in mobile devices has existed since 2G and was used for checking emails and browsing the web (Yamauchi et al., 2005). It is important that users should accept new technology. In this study, acceptance, and usage of the 5G technology that was investigated in a survey of students from the engineering discipline of Gannon University. This work describes the usage of a statistical technique called the technology acceptance model to determine the engineering students perception of the degree to which the 5G technology is accepted and useful. It aims to answer the research questions of whether perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use a ect the actual usage of 5G technology among engineering students, as they tend to bend towards new technology because of the high involvement of technology in engineering studies. This work aims to answer, to what extent perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use determine the usage of 5G technology among the selected group of participants.