5G: A Simplified Explanation

Posted on 05 Jun 2021

Over the past two decades, we all witnessed radical evolution in broadband technologies. Sometimes it is hard to imagine how things were done in up to 1990s without wide availability of internet, wireless broadband, fiber networks etc. This evolution was primarily driven by the ever-increasing need for connectivity among humans and the want of speed. If you take wireless network technology evolution, between 1995 to 2005, most of the traffic carried by networks was from voice calling and text messages. Today, it is DATA that consumes much of the available bandwidth.

 

Year after year, the world’s requirement for bandwidth has been rapidly growing and will continue to do so. You might ask, why the requirement for bandwidth and is it not speed that has been driving the technological evolution. Answer is, they are directly replated. Speed to end user can be only achieved by increasing the bandwidth from the network side and reducing signal processing latencies. If a cell site can offer 300Mbps (4G/LTE CAT6) pipe with say X number of channels covering 1000 active users, average speeds experienced by users is roughly (X-0.15X)/1000. I.e. if all 1000 subscribers are simultaneously using data, average data speed per user will be lower. Now if the same cell site can offer 5 times more channels, average data rates in the same scenario can substantially increase.

 

The need for a platform that will accommodate higher bandwidths and channels is crucial for capacity as well as faster data rates. 5G, the latest version of broadband technology was introduced in 2016 to achieve the same. Deployments began after 3 years in 2019 and it is predicted that 5G coverage will reach 20% of the world population by 2025. This technology is said to be a game changer which can revolutionize how people and machines communicate.

So, what makes 5G special and what is it all about?

 

 

Key Features

5G is designed to offer massive improvements compared to previous technologies:

a.       High Speed – Up to 20 Gbps (Download) and 10 Gbps (Upload)

b.      Low Latency – Almost 0s latency

c.       Enhanced connection capacity – 1000x more capacity than 4G

d.      Also, can be deployed with 4G/3G/2G fall back or 5G only.

 

High Speed

5G uses frequency spectrums that are significantly higher than those being used for 4G, 3G and 2G. Because these specific higher frequency bands are not used for other communications, governments across the globe can offer much larger frequency spectrums to network operators.  By using these larger bandwidths 5G can offer higher data rates and large network capacities. Theoretically, 5G speed can reach up to 20GBps (Download) and 10GBps (Upload). 4G on the other hand has a theoretical speed of up to 1Gbps (Download) and 300Mbos (Upload).

 

Low-Latency

5G also aims to provide low latency communications as compared to the earlier generations. This is achieved through a technique called “Network Slicing” in which the network is divided into virtual connections that provide different amounts of resources for each type of traffic. Because of this, network resources will be properly allocated to where it is required and therefore improving both latency and efficiency.

 

Enhanced Connection Capacity

One of the main use cases of 5G is IoT or Internet of Things. IoT has been known for many years but there is no available technology that can fully support its requirements. But now that 5G is here, IoT can be a reality. 5G makes it possible to connect 1000x as many devices compared to 4G. This is made possible by the enhanced data rate, band width and latency. 5G networks can accommodate thousands of devices simultaneously communicating without hiccups. Cars, mobile phones, home appliances, factory equipment and many other type of machines will now be able to connect to the internet using 5G.

 

Frequency Spectrum

5G Utilizes 2 frequency ranges known as FR1 and FR2. FR1 is the Sub 6GHz band, from 410MHz to 7125MHz. The FR2 on the other hand includes frequency bands from 24.25 GHz to 52.6 GHz. Unlike 4G which supports only up to 20MHz of bandwidth, 5G can support 5MHz to 100MHz of bandwidth in FR1 and 50MHz to 400MHz of bandwidth in FR2.

 

Challenges

Low frequencies propagate better than higher frequencies. For example, Milli Meter Wave (mm Wave) signals tend to have a range of only a couple of hundred meters while low band signals canhave a range of a couple of hundred kilometers. This is the biggest drawback of 5G. Because it is using High frequencies (UHF, SHF and EHF), the range of distance that the signal can travel is extremely low compared to lower Bands used in 4G and 3G.

Furthermore, indoor penetration is also a big issue in 5G. Because high frequencies are easily absorbed by any medium it passes through, 5G signals cannot penetrate walls the same way 4G or 3G signals do. A mobile phone user for example has to go on a rooftop or outside the house to use 5G.

Network Operators will have to deploy significantly more number of sites if the goal is to provide a wider area of coverage. This means that 5G will require an enormous amount of investment to be implemented in large scale. It will be highly unlikely for 5G to be accessible in almost all locations the same way as 3G and 4G. Most probably, it will only be available in major cities.

 

Conclusion

 

The benefits of 5G clearly outweigh its challenges. This makes 5G a very promising technology that has the potential to really open a lot of new frontiers in communications, transportation, business and many more- the possibilities are limitless. As 5G deployment accelerates all across the globe, we all look forward to enjoying all these advancements that 5G can bring in the near future.