A non engineer could look at 5G this way: a capital improvement project the size of the entire planet.
That’s because the 5G rollout essentially involves replacing one wireless architecture created this century with another one that aims to lower energy consumption and maintenance costs. Some would add that it’s also a huge gamble on the future of transmission technology, betting heavily on the willingness of consumers to upgrade.
However, early returns are promising on the U.S. 5G rollout, which began earlier in 2019. In fact, Goldman Sachs has upped the number of 5G devices expected to be deployed next year from 50 million to 120 million.
There are a lot of working parts in the new 5G architecture. For a non engineer, perhaps one of the most important things to know is that 5G technology focuses on using unique radio frequencies that are higher and more directional than those used by 4G. The directionality of 5G is important because 4G towers send data all over, which can waste power and energy and ultimately weaken access to the internet. 4G networks use frequencies below 6 GHz, while 5G uses much higher frequencies in the 30 GHz to 300 GHz range.
The larger the frequency, the greater its ability to support fast data without interfering with other wireless signals or becoming overly cluttered.
5G also uses shorter wavelengths than 4G, which means antennas can be shorter without interfering with the direction of the wavelengths. 5G can therefore support approximately 1,000 more devices per meter than 4G. On 5G, more data more quickly gets to more people with less latency and disruption to meet surging data demands.
It’s also important to understand that even though 5G phones are now available, it will take a while to realize the full potential of 5G (at least several years) as the major carriers build out their 5G networks.
One of the first differences consumers will notice is the ubiquitous interconnectivity of Internet of Things devices. 5G has been designed to seamlessly connect a massive number of embedded sensors in virtually everything through the ability to scale down in data rates, power and mobility to provide extremely lean/low-cost solutions.
The number of hardware connected devices is expected to be in the billions. 5G and IoT together will more or less bring every item on the shelf to the internet by creating digital twins for them.
While cybersecurity is a concern due to so much data being interconnected, the benefits are considerable in just about every field from transportation to healthcare. For the average person, the interconnections between vehicles and municipal infrastructures like lights and traffic signals will become commonplace as will the ability to operate home appliances, alarms and electricity input/output remotely or on-site from a single control.
Want to know more about 5G? Tonex offers 5G Wireless Training for Non Engineers, a 2-day course that covers the basics of wireless communications applied to 5G.
Additionally, Tonex offers 20 more cutting edge 5G Wireless courses with titles like:
LTE Advanced Pro Training (3 days)
5G Cybersecurity Bootcamp (4 days)
5G Wi-Fi Offload Training (2 days)
5G and mmWave Antenna Engineering Training (3 days)
Mobile Broadband Transformation Training Bootcamp (4 days)
For more information, questions, comments, contact us.