5G Technology

Ms. T. A. Dhumal (tadhumal@coe.sveri.ac.in), Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, SVERI’s COE, Pandharpur

If you take scroll outside today, you will see a lot of people with mobile phones, tablets in their hands are making calls using the internet to catch up on the news, watch videos, or interacting with others via facebook, twitter including you. In doing so, we all are using a mobile data network. Many of these applications consume a lot of bandwidth, so telecommunications companies across the world always try to talk about upgrading to the latest generation of mobile data to help speed things up. 5G wireless technology promises a rich reliable and hyper connected world. 5G generation wireless or 5G is the latest iteration of cellular technology, engineered to greatly increase the speed and responsiveness of wireless networks. 5G is the term to describe the next-generation of mobile networks beyond the 4G LTE mobile data network of today.

Knowing the features of 5G technology –

• 5G technology will provide for fast action and avoid errors.
• The uploading and downloading speed of 5G technology will be touching the perk.
• 5G technology will be providing large broadcasting of data in GB which supporting almost 65000 connections.
• Remote diagnostics is also main of 5G   technology.
• 5G technology will be providing up to 25 Mbps connectivity speed.
• 5G gives carriers more options in terms of airwaves than 4G did. Most notably, it opens up “high-band,” short-range airwaves that didn’t work with 4G technology. But 5G can run on any frequency, leading to three very different kinds of 5G experiences—low, middle, and high.
• The key thing to understand here is that 5G speeds are directly related to how wide the available channels are, and how many are available.

How 5G Works?

Now that we know what 5G is, it’s a good idea to understand how it works, since it’s different from traditional 4G LTE. First, let’s talk spectrum.

Spectrum

Unlike LTE, 5G operates on three different spectrum bands. While this may not seem important, it will have a dramatic effect on your everyday use.

Low-band spectrum can also be described as a sub-1GHz     spectrum. It’s the primary band used by carriers in the U.S. for LTE, and bandwidth is nearly depleted. While low-band spectrum offers great coverage area and wall penetration, there is a big drawback: Peak data speeds will top out around 100Mbps.

            Mid-band spectrum provides faster speeds and lower latency than low-band. It does, however, fail to penetrate buildings as effectively as low-band spectrum. Expect peak speeds up to 1Gbps on mid-band spectrum.

            High-band spectrum is what delivers the highest performance for 5G, but with major weaknesses. It is often referred to as mm Wave. High-band spectrum can offer peak speeds up to 10Gbps and has extremely low latency. The main drawback of high-band is that it has low coverage area and building penetration is poor.

How fast is 5G?

The standards set by IMT-2020 performance targets and are somewhat complex, but here’s a general rundown:

Peak data rate: 5G will offer significantly faster data speeds. Peak data rates can hit 20Gbps downlink and 10Gbps uplink per mobile base station. Mind you, that’s not the speed you’d experience with 5G (unless you have a dedicated connection) — it’s the speed shared by all users on the cell.

Real-world speeds: While the peak data rates for 5G sound pretty impressive, actual speeds won’t be the same. The spec calls for user download speeds of 100Mbps and upload speeds of 50Mbps.

Latency: Latency, the time it takes data to travel from one point to another, should be at 4 milliseconds in ideal circumstances, and at 1 millisecond for use cases that demand the utmost speed. Think remote surgeries, for instance.

Efficiency: Radio interfaces should be energy efficient when in use, and drop into low-energy mode when not in use. Ideally, a radio should be able to switch into a low-energy state within 10 milliseconds when no longer in use.

Spectral efficiency: Spectral efficiency is “the optimized use of spectrum or bandwidth so that the maximum amount of data can be transmitted with the fewest transmission errors.” 5G should have a slightly improved spectral efficiency over LTE, coming in at 30bits/Hz downlink, and 15 bits/Hz uplink.

Mobility: With 5G, base stations should support movement from 0 to 310 mph. This means the base station should work across a range of antenna movements — even on a high-speed train. While it’s easily done on LTE networks, such mobility can be a challenge on new millimeter wave networks.

Connection density: 5G should be able to support many more connected devices than LTE. The standard states 5G should be able to support 1 million connected devices per square kilometer. That’s a huge number, which takes into account the slew of devices that will power the Internet of Things (IoT).

What can 5G do?

• Improve broadband
• Autonomous vehicles
• Public safety and infrastructure
• Remote device control
• Health care
• IoT

Advantages of 5G

• Data rates of about 10 Gbps or higher can be achieved which provides the user with better experience and download and upload speeds will be higher.
• High resolution and bi-directional large bandwidth shaping.
• 5G mm-wave can achieve latency rate less than 1 ms. which will leads to immediate connection establishment and release with the 5G network by 5G smartphones. Hence traffic load is decreased on 5G
• Possible to provide a uniform, consistent and uninterrupted, connectivity across the world.
• Technology is able to gather all networks on one platform.
• 5G offers 10x decrease in latency, 100x traffic capacity 10x connection density, 3x spectrum efficiency, and 100x network efficiency.
• Easily manageable with the previous generations.

Disadvantages of 5G

• 5G types of equipment are costly, requires skilled engineers to install and maintain a 5G network. This increases the cost of 5G deployment and maintenance phases
• 5G technology is still under process and research is going on.
• 5G smartphones are costly. Hence it will take time for the common man to make use of 5G technology.
• Security and privacy issue yet to be solved in 5G
• Coverage distance of up to 2 meters (in indoor) and 300 meters (in outdoor) can be achieved due to higher losses at high frequencies (such as millimeter waves).
•  5G mm-wave may suffer many such losses (penetration loss, attenuation due to rain, foliage loss, etc.

References:-

1. https://medium.com/@mail.appfity/5g-advantages-disadvantages-7826136b8109
2. Qualcomm:- https://www.qualcomm.com/invention/5g/what-is-5g
3. https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/what-is-5g/
4. https://www.sdxcentral.com/5g/definitions/5g-technology/
5. https://in.pcmag.com/cell-phone-service-providers/104415/what-is-5g
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G