5G — Truth Vs. Marketing
Introduction
With all the talks about 5G, and different companies now pushing 5G enabled phones, and other personal devices, I thought we should take a few minutes to understand — “WHAT THE HECK IS THIS 5G THING?”.
Companies, for their profit, will keep coming up with new technologies, and pushing it onto us, marketing them as “ground-breaking”. But it’s important that we take a few minutes to understand why, and on what you’re spending your money.
Now before we can actually discuss the 5G thing, there are some basic concepts we should cover.
How Do Devices Connect To The Internet?
In very simple terms, devices & the antenna send/receive packets of data by sending/receiving electromagnetic waves. If the electromagnetic waves travel via wires, it’s called a wired connection, otherwise it’s known as a wireless connection. Most common devices like phones, smartwatches, etc. are connected to a router via a wireless connection, which is in-turn connected a whole slew of devices by either a wired or wireless connection(s).
Now, take a quick look at the system below:
This is how most of the devices which exist on the internet are connected. It’s evident that the slowest link in all the links will limit how fast the data can transfer, i.e. how fast the internet is. The phone sends signals to the antenna (which ISPs like T-Mobile, At&t install), which in-turn are connected to other “servers” (high-end computers). For wired connections, we’ve started using something called glass fibers, which is glass stretched into thin hollow tubes, in which light travels from one end to another, transmitting information.
Since light is the fastest thing we know, the limitation comes down to the wireless link, which is why we’ve had 2G, 3G, 4G, 4G-LTE, and a few in between. And now we have 5G.
Waves — Wavelength, Frequency, & Penetration
Every wave has a few inherent properties, one of which is called “Wavelength”. It’s simply the length of a wave — the minimum non-repetitive section of a wave.
As the name suggests, it’s a length value, so it can be represented in meters.
Next thing we need to know is ‘frequency’, which is super complicated……Just kidding. Frequency is Speed of light/wavelength… that’s it. Which means higher the wavelength, lower the frequency; and vice-versa (since speed of light is constant in a medium..no pun-intended.)
Now the final thing is to get to know some facts:
- Higher frequency electromagnetic signals are faster, but they have less reach.
- Higher frequency signals have high energy, but they attenuate (reduce in power) very rapidly, and hence have low penetration depth (how far can they travel in a medium, or how dense a material can they penetrate).
Okay. That’s it. No more Physics or Mathematics. Now we simply need to look at what are the must know facts about 5G, (and other similar sounding technologies.)
What is 5G?
5G, or 5th Generation is the next iteration in the development of a faster, and more efficient wireless technology. Do not mis-understand, it is a very important step in being able to transfer massive amounts of information, and potentially moving away from wired internet installations in some cases. But it doesn’t mean that everything you’re hearing about this new technology providing 10–100s of times faster internet speeds is all truth. It’s like saying that if you have a car which can go up to 200 miles per hour, you can travel at that speed all the time. It might sound fantastic, but it’s practically impossible.
5G NextGen, or 5G NG is a new standard/architecture using is built to cater to the huge variety in network traffic which currently exists like smart devices connected to the internet, or you watching videos on YouTube, or reading this article. It promises lower latency, as well as higher data speeds in most conditions.
Signals using 5G technology can be split into two bandwidths (Bandwidth is just a range of frequency, like 1–6 or 6 Million to 60 Billion):
600 MHz — 6 GHz
Let’s break this down. Hertz (Hz) is the unit of frequency. So, 600 MHz refers to a signal with a frequency of 600,000,000 Hz. Hence this band constitutes signals with a frequency of 600,000,000 Hz to 6,000,000,000 Hz. This is the same band in which the current 4G and/or 4G LTE devices operate in. Because of this the improvements in speed are modest, ranging from 15 to 30% in certain scenarios. Most of the improvements are because 5G in this band uses a modulation format called 256-QAM. But advanced 4G LTE bands are also now implementing this modulation technique, more or less, leveling any benefits which 5G brought to devices operating in this frequency band.
24 GHz — 86 GHz
Similarly, this band ranges from 24,000,000,000 Hz to 86,000,000,000 Hz, and is also called mm-Wave band (or Millimeter Wave band, as the wavelength of signals are of the order of millimeters). It’s this band of signals all this fuss is about. Since this constitutes of very high frequency waves, it can support higher speed data transfers.
But remember how we discussed that the devices & the antenna send/receive packets of data by sending/receiving electromagnetic waves. Since the frequency of the signals is so high, it means that the energy required to generate these signals is very high. And if this is used in a battery powered device, like the phone or laptop you’re using right now, it’s going to have a negative impact on the battery performance.
There was something else we talked about before, about how higher frequency signals have low penetration depth. In fact, these waves are expected to have a maximum range of 200–300 meters. Current towers, which support 4G connection can have a maximum range of up to 20–30 miles, but are usually deployed every few miles in areas with higher concentration of devices. For e.g., if you’re in downtown San Francisco, you can expect a few towers providing service to the area. Now to support the same downtown area for high frequency 5G band, you’ll need a much larger number of towers. As a result, for being able to utilize the amazing 5G speeds, you will have to be (a) very close to a tower, and (b) in clear line of sight of the tower.
One More Thing…
Many companies are trying to be the first to the market with 5G solutions. Since updating the antennas, and waiting for the consumers to upgrade their devices might mean losing the market share to other providers. So, companies like At&t have started re-branding the 4G LTE wireless network to 5Ge. It’s just the old 4G LTE network, which, in my opinion, has been updated to use the 256-QAM modulation, hence providing improved speed, and reduced network latency.
I’m not trying to say that it’s a bad thing that the companies are upgrading the existing 4G network. Even when we do move to 5G wireless network, many areas all across the world will still rely on 4G networks which provide larger coverage area at lower power consumptions. But as a consumer, it’s our responsibility to understand any and all marketing jargon being used, and identify the truth in all of “fake news”.
P.S. Before concluding this article, I wanted to add a few lines about the 5GHz Wi-Fi which are currently available from internet providers like At&t. As the name suggests, this is a wi-fi network using the 5GHz wave, and has no relation to the 5G wireless network technology.
Conclusion
With all the hype of the new devices supporting 5G are being announced, it is important that all of us take a few minutes to understand what the technology exactly is, and what can it help us accomplish. As per the experts, the low & mid-band 5G are set to be deployed in the U.S in 2019, with the high-band 5G only being available starting 2020.
Which brings us to the biggest question of all. Should you hop onto the 5G band-wagon now, or wait and let the technology mature. Now understanding that different people have different uses of technology, what I can say is that, in my opinion, anyone who is looking to get the most value out of their purchases, and does not much care about getting hands on the shiniest new toy manufacturers are pushing out, 5G devices are not for you, at-least not yet. Specially devices like phones which most people in U.S. update every couple of years.
Hope this article helped you keep aside the hype, and understand the 5G technology for yourself. Thank you for reading !