What is 5G, and what can we expect from it - Android
5G networks are now available in much of the world, promising faster data speeds and lower latency to consumers. Smartphones are some of the first devices to support 5G, starting with premium-tier handsets but now quickly reaching less expensive models too.
In addition, this latest networking technology opens up avenues to new industrial applications and is a critical element to build widely connected “smart cities.” 5G is the next step to provide better networking in our increasingly technological world. However, not every country, region, or even national carrier has its 5G network up and running yet. If you’ve been wondering what is 5G, here’s everything you need to know about the current state of the industry and what to expect.
5G stands for fifth-generation network and is the successor to 4G LTE networks that have been in operation for the last decade. The promise is faster data speeds, low latency connections, and a host of new use cases, from VR jobs to smart cities. To do this, 5G makes requires new high-frequency radio technologies, device modems, and technologies like beamforming.
The 5G standard is the combined effort of companies around with world working in partnership to create a unified technology to be used around the world. The official 5G specifications are published by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The ITU’s IMT-2020 preparations and 3GPP Release 15 specification lay the foundations for early 5G technology and rollouts.
There are quite a few new components to 5G, so here’s a breakdown of some of the key phrases:
High-frequency mmWave base stations, sub-6GHz WiFi-esque small and medium cells, beamforming, and massive multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) are all used to build faster 5G networks. But there are also major changes to data encoding and infrastructure network slicing that are seldom talked about. These are all new technological introductions compared to today’s 4G LTE networks.
In addition, the 5G standard is split into two key parts – Non-Standalone (NSA) and New Radio (NR). Today’s first 5G networks will be based on NSA, and are planned to eventually transition over to SA once that part of the specification is finalized in the coming years. But more on that later.
The big difference between 5G and 4G is the new technologies used by the former. These include radio frequencies, spectrum sharing carriers, and bandwidth block sizes. But these lead to practical improvements, such as faster data speeds and lower latency for 5G versus 4G customers.
For example, 5G users should experience data speeds above 50Mbps, while 4G LTE-A customers may average around 20Mbps. Likewise, 5G boasts sub-10ms latency while 4G customers regularly experience 50ms or much more. However, the exact speeds and latency on any given network has a lot of variables, including the type of 5G or 4G network deployed by your carrier. The table below details some of the more technical differences between 5G and 4G.
| 5G New Radio (Release 15) | LTE-Advanced Pro (Release 13 & 14) | LTE-Advanced (Release 10 to 12) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ideal Data Rate | > 10 Gbps | > 3 Gbps | > 1 Gbps |
| Ideal Latency | > 1ms | > 2ms | ~10 ms |
| Frequency Support | Up to 40 GHz | Up to 6 GHz | Up to 6 GHz |
| Channel Bandwidth | Up to 500 MHz | Up to 20 MHz | Up to 20 MHz |
| Max carriers | 16 (LTE + NR) | 32 | 5 |
| Max Bandwidth | 1000 MHz | 640 MHz | 100 MHz |
| MIMO antennas | 64 to 256 | 32 | 8 |
| Spectrum Sharing | mmWave & NR Dual Connectivity NR-based LAA+ NR MulteFire LTE-U | LAA / eLAA LWA MulteFire CBRS / LSA LTE-U | LTE-U (Rel. 12) |
The bottom line is that 5G is faster than 4G LTE and will offer lower latency too, which is important for real-time applications, such as gaming. Because of the new radio technologies involves, receiving 5G’s benefits requires new hardware. 5G smartphones still run just fine on 4G LTE networks, but a 4G phone cannot make use of a 5G networks’ faster data speeds.
Read more: 5G vs Gigabit LTE differences explained
There are only two core principles to understand what 5G aims to do and how it does it. The first is to make use of much more wireless spectrum, as more spectrum means more capacity and faster speeds for everyone. To achieve this, 5G turns to new, high-frequency networking technology, such as the often talked about millimeter-wave (mmWave). These are known as 5G New Radio (NR) technologies.
Although lots of carriers like to talk up fancy advancements in New Radio technology, 5G networks actually combine a bit of everything. The various technologies can be thought of in three tiers, which Huawei explains neatly in many of its papers.
Low bands that can be repurposed from radio and TV make up the “coverage layer” at sub 2GHz. This provides wide-area and deep indoor coverage and forms the backbone of the network. There’s the “Super Data Layer” made up of high-frequency spectrum known as mmWave that suits areas requiring extremely high data rates or population coverage. Then the “coverage and capacity layer” sits between 2 and 6 GHz, which offers a good balance between both.
mmWave coverage will likely be limited to dense urban centers, will sub-6GHz and existing 4G LTE bands continue to cater to broader network access. The end result is a network that looks like the image below.
In summary, 5G works by leveraging the benefits of a wide range of wireless spectrum, both old and new. This provides consumers with faster and more reliable coverage not just in densely populated cities, but in rural areas and network edges too.
Take a closer look: How does 5G actually work?
Given some of the marketing from US carriers, its quite easy to mistake 5G and mmWave as the same thing. However, mmWave isn’t actually used in most initial global 5G deployments. Even where it is used, it’s almost always in conjunction with sub-6GHz spectrum.
These two slices of spectrum are uniquely important. Sub-6GHz occupies WiFi-like signals and just above traditional 4G LTE frequencies. Sub-6GHz typically encompasses the region of 3 to 6GHz, giving it flexibility in terms of range and performance that makes it the backbone of 5G networks. It can be used to expand indoor coverage as unlicensed WiFi or moderate distances outdoors with more powerful base stations.
mmWave is the very high-frequency technology that most people think of when 5G is mentioned. mmWave frequencies range from 17 to 100GHz, with around 20GHz typical of current deployments. These high frequencies offer higher speeds but have poor range and line-of-sight requirements compared to sub-6GHz. This limits mmWave’s use cases to densely populated areas that require a bandwidth boost, such as inner cities and large public venues, such as sports arenas.
Because mmWave is a drastic departure to the frequencies previously used in wireless communication, it requires new base-station and user-device hardware. It’s more power-hungry too. As such, it’s more expensive than sub-6GHz and isn’t as widely supported outside of premium-tier smartphones. That’s right, some 5G phones don’t work with mmWave.
Whether you need a mmWave smartphone depends entirely on whether your carrier supports the technology and if you’re in an area that has it. Verizon, for example, sells specific handset variants that work with its mmWave network, while you’d have to consult the spec sheet of a third-party device for compatibility.
The industry is undergoing a (relatively) smooth transition from 4G LTE into 5G, by appending existing networks with faster 5G New Radio data pipes. In other words, existing 4G LTE infrastructure still handles all the Control Plane, such as verifying your subscription, routing traffic, etc. This is what is known as a non-standalone (NSA) network, as the 5G data pipe still relies on the 4G LTE behind-the-scenes infrastructure.
Eventually, 5G networks will transition over to a standalone (SA) topology, where the 5G Core handles the Control Plane itself. Besides introducing the Control Plane over 5G radio technologies, Standalone supports more flexible Network Slicing and subcarrier encoding.
Network Slicing is a form of virtual networking architecture enabling greater flexibility to partition, share, and link parts of the back-end network together. This will allow network operators to offer more flexible traffic, applications, and services to their customers. This idea is seen as key to realizing ideas such as autonomous vehicles and smart cities. Network slicing can already be done with 4G networks, but 5G aims to improve on the range of flexibility and standardize support.
The first 5G networks are based on the non-standalone specification, before bigger changes with the full standalone specification after 2021.
The changes to subcarriers are a little harder to explain. Technologies encompassed by this include scalable OFDM and sub-carrier spacing, windowed OFDM, flexible numerology, and scalable Transmission Time Intervals. Put simply, frames that carry data can be bigger and faster when higher throughput at high efficiency is required. Alternatively, these frames can be made smaller in order to achieve much lower latency for real-time applications.
Faster data is obviously great for downloading huge files, but 5G isn’t a huge game-changer for day-to-day mobile use. Most 4G LTE networks are speedy these days, and you don’t need 100Mbps speeds to browse Twitter. Not forgetting that 5G rollouts are still in their early stages, meaning there’s a good chance coverage may be spotty or even non-existent in your area for the time being.
For that reason, we wouldn’t recommend customers go out and buy a new smartphone just for 5G alone. 4G smartphones from the past couple of years are still perfectly serviceable and still represent good bargain purchases. That being said, an increasing majority of new flagship and mid-range phones support 5G networking. If you are in the market for a new handset anyway, a little 5G futureproofing is probably a good idea. That way you’ll be set for when 5G becomes much more widespread over the next year or two.
26/08/2020 07:45 PM
26/08/2020 07:25 PM
26/08/2020 04:00 PM
26/08/2020 01:30 PM
26/08/2020 01:03 AM
26/08/2020 08:30 AM
26/08/2020 02:52 PM
26/08/2020 03:55 PM
2014 © Canadian apps and news
