The Story of 5G
Do you remember the first time you held a phone in your hands? The magic of calling was so incomprehensible at the time that we might have come up with absurd theories to convince ourselves. Remember how we used to look behind the television to catch the performer red-handed? Something like that.
Now, we know the term ‘Networks’ and how they work- so this time, let us delve into generations of cellular networks and meet the youngest in the family, 5G.
A Short History
5G stands for ‘Fifth Generation’. In the tech world, every generation builds upon the best features of its predecessor. This implies that every generation is implicitly better than the previous one. 0G, also referred to as pre-1G, is the earliest. It was called so because the technology was pre cellular mobile technology.
Then came 1G. During late 1979, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph Company, Tokyo commercialized 1G mobile network. It was based on AMPS(Advanced Mobile Phone Systems) and it used FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access).
FDMA was the channelization protocol for 1G. It works by splitting the bandwidth into multiple channels.
Only voice calls were available and them being the analog signal type, were prone to interferences. 1G was also not secure, it could easily be tapped.
2G or second generation was the generation that made the ‘G’ notation popular. Launched in 1991, it provided data services too. Voice signal type was made digital thereby increasing voice quality and security. The channelization protocols used here were CDMA and TDMA.
CDMA stands for Code Division Multiple Access. Here transmitters send information over a single channel while TDMA works by having different time slots.
Primarily North America used IS-95 standard which was based on CDMA while elsewhere GSM standard was adopted which used TDMA. GSM stands for Global System for Mobile Communications.
Two other terms used in this context are circuit switching and packet switching. What are they? Devices need to be connected to communicate, for that we use switching. In circuit switching there is a dedicated path between sender and receiver while in packet switching, data is divided into small pieces called packets. 1G used circuit switching. The GSM technology was improved in 2G to accommodate packet switching. This led to an intermediate generation called 2.5G.
Upgradation of existing networks from 2G to 3G led to the formation of two families- 3GPP and 3GPP2.
3GPP, founded in 1998, is a global cooperation of many standardizing committees, ARIB, ATIS, ETSI TTC being some of them. 3GPP overlooked networks that descended from GSM while 3GPP2 overlooked networks that came from CDMA2000. It was build to support high speed data. The LTE (Long-Term Evolution) technology which was part of 3GPP technologies was continually improved to become the backbone of 4G networks.
4G networks are the most widespread generation of cellular networks now. They theoretically offer 100Mbps downstream and 30Mbps upstream speed. Faster downloads and less buffering is a feature of 4G-LTE networks. Voice quality is at its best till date, and so it has contributed towards the integration of instant messaging and social media into our day to day lives. Life has never been the same way before.
Then,
Why 5G?
The newest born yet the most powerful one, 5G aims to deliver multi-Gbps peak data speeds. It is designed to connect everyone and everything to everyone and everything else. 5G also has the ability to support the advancements in IoT and AI. The International Telecommunications Union conceived 5G as early as 2015, when they realized the shortcomings that 4G LTE may face in the future. Remember the 3GPP mentioned earlier? Since the era of 3G, 3GPP has been responsible for putting down the technical specifications of wireless networks. The case with 5G isn’t different.
Wider bandwidth technologies like sub-6 GHz and mmWave constitute the frequency ranges in 5G. mmWave stands for millimeter wave correspond to frequencies greater than 24GHz. They can cover only smaller areas but they have high downlink speeds and can keep large numbers of people connected. Sub-6 GHz on the other hand cover larger geographical area, but correspond to frequencies less than 6 GHz. 3GPP also developed a new radio access technology to set a global standard for air interface of 5G network. This is known as 5G NR or 5G New Radio. Along with this OFDM(Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing) principles are also part of 5G.
Maybe the biggest hurdle which 5G will face is the need for deployment of new networks; the devices and networks which we have been using till now may not have the potential that 5G demands. To come to terms with this, 3GPP has defined 5G NR NSA(Non stand-alone). This uses the existing infrastructure to provide 5G services. Then there is 5G stand alone which holds no association of any sort with the existing 4G infrastructure.
It is great news that 5G is already being deployed by many operators and we have no doubt that it is here to stay! Thanks to its forward compatibility, 5G has the capacity to be used to support the technical adventures of the future of humankind.
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