What is 5G?

April 11, 2019

by Matt Lloyd
Future of Tech

The Summary:

5G is an upgraded set of minimum standards for wireless communication to supersede the current 4G. It promises higher rates of data transfer and faster response times. It’s backed by a set of new technologies which makes this possible, making use of higher frequency radio waves. However, the use of higher frequency radio waves does reduce the transmission range. This means mobile coverage will consist of many smaller cell sites (transmitting and receiving stations), which may be planted on the tops of power polls for example.

The 5G network is expected to underpin a number of emerging technologies including the internet of things (lots of inter-connected devices requiring small amounts of internet connectivity) and real-time artificial intelligence.

We can expect the first 5g enabled smartphones in 2020, however, don't expect to enjoy the full benefits of 5G until we see broad 5G coverage in New Zealand (likely not until 2023-2025).

 
The Promise:

Better mobile broadband: Think of downloading a movie in 5 seconds versus 5 minutes. Cool, but not earth-shattering and likely to be used to justify higher prices for mobile plans. In the long-run however the 5g is more cost efficient and will lead to higher data caps for consumers.

Internet of Things: by 2020 it is estimated that there will be 30 billion internet-connected devices including things like ‘smart’ door-handles, coffee-machines, and lightbulbs. The 5G network will be capable of supporting all these additional devices, likely allocating them into a lower priority virtual ‘slice’ of the network. Making use of virtual slices will also allow for a higher priority ‘slice’ for devices needing ultra-reliable communication such as self-driving cars.   

Realtime-AI: The rapid response time of 5G (1-millisecond verses 20) becomes incredibly important for certain real-time artificial intelligence applications such as self-driving cars and advanced factory automation. Self-driving cars need a continuous and reliable stream of information to safely avoid a collision, the difference between a potential 20 ms delay and a 1 ms delay is significant.
 
AR/VR: Creating high-quality, immersive and Interactive virtual worlds will require huge amounts of data transfer and processing all done at seemingly instant speeds for the user. Besides gaming, other uses could be medical operations being completed by a surgeon remotely as well as virtually attending events such as music concerts.

The breakdown:

5G can be thought of as both the specifications and the enabling technology.



Small mm length wavelengths are at the heart of the technology that will enable 5G.
These small, high-frequency waves move the technology away from the current ‘cluttered’ wavebands, allowing for greater bandwidth to be allocated to the technology. For example, 4G has frequency bands between 2 - 8 GHz whereas 5G could have frequency bands between 30 - 300 GHz. This greater range equates to having a bigger pipe to send the data through.

In addition, the space in this ‘bigger pipe’ is being used more efficiently through an approach known as massive MIMO (multiple-in/ multiple-out). This is using additional antenna on both the transmitting and receiving device to boost capacity on the network. Current MIMO technology might use 2 - 4 antenna, whereas massive MIMO is proposing tens to hundreds of antenna resulting in a big boost in bandwidth efficiency. The smaller wavelengths used in 5G mean smaller antenna are needed, allowing a greater density of antenna per cell site to more easily achieve massive MIMO.

The use of these short wavelengths, however, comes at the cost of them being less able to bend around and penetrate through buildings and other obstacles as well as not being able to travel as far. This will be countered by the use of more numerous and smaller cell sites (enabled by the smaller antenna) located for example on the tops of power polls.

Network slicing is another concept that will be baked into 5G. This is a network architecture allowing it to be split into separate virtual networks each optimised to meet the needs of a specific use case. For example, entertainment (needing large data download speeds) vs self-driving cars (needing ultra-reliable and ultra-fast response times) vs IoT devices which only need to send and receive small amounts of data at a time and aren’t sensitive to delayed response times.   

Arco’s rating: 7/10

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