T3 India – April 2019

5G guide

46 T3 Tomorrow’s Technology Today APRIL 2019 WWW.T3INDIA.COM

As you might have guessed from the
name, 5G – the fifth generation of mobile
technology – is the successor to 4G. It’s due
to start arriving (lightly) this year, and the
difference between the abilities of 4G and
5G is stark. On paper, 5G is faster than any
currently available Wi-Fi tech, and faster
even than any home broadband available
anywhere outside South Korea. 4G LTE,
the fastest standard currently available in
the India, is around 100 times slower than
5G when considering theoretical lab
maximums. That’s huge. It’s also not
entirely realistic; in real-world applications,
5G may introduce a 50 times increase in
speed, though we’d wager it’ll be less than
that when all is said and done.
Those numbers, even if they’re not
wholly likely to be what we end up getting,
are still impressive, and it’s important to see
them in context. They’re easily enough to
pull in entertainment content; the BBC
requires 2.75Mbps to stream high-definition
content from iPlayer, while Netflix asks for
around 25Mbps for streaming its Ultra HD
video. Even if new colour technology, frame
rates or the move to 8K bumps those
requirements up still further, there’s
cavernous headroom in the top-end
1,000Mbps bandwidth of the 5G spec to cope
with it. If we only see speeds of 200 or
300Mbps, that’s still comparable to the best
home broadband connections available
today.
5G reaches those speeds in a few ways.

First, it uses multiple antennas, allowing it to

take advantage of Massive MIMO, which

is similar to the tech used in modern Wi-Fi

routers. Put simply, MIMO involves opening

up multiple data streams from and to your

device simultaneously, for a theoretically

faster and more consistent connection.

BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS

5G uses frequencies in a similar range to the

current bands, and most 5G modems will

also include backwards compatibility and

fallback should a true 5G signal not be

available. But that’s not all: it also takes

advantage of a new region of the radio

spectrum. The 5G New Radio spec (AKA

5G NR, more on that later) does its magic by

utilising so-called millimetre waves in the

EHF band, running at somewhere between

30 and 300GHz. The shorter wavelength

(emitting pulses between 10mm and 1mm

apart, hence the name) means these

frequencies are capable of huge amounts of

bandwidth. Consider, if you will, the quality

of AM radio, which has a long

wavelength, with the much shorter-

waved FM – the difference in signal

quality and consistency is stark, because

FM’s higher frequency helps it carry a

much more detailed signal in the same

time window.

Data capacity isn’t the only

advantage. Improved latency – jumping

from an average of between 30-60ms on

4G LTE to as little as 3ms – means 5G

data can get from one place to another

much faster. 5G radios, in theory, should

also be much smaller. The same is true at

both ends of the communication; devices

will be able to shave off space

(particularly if they’re able to drop Wi-Fi

modules) and 5G transmitters will end

up much less intrusive than current

masts. Naturally, this also leads to better

power efficiency, giving smart devices

the battery life they so sorely need.

Again, this is mostly theoretical, and

it won’t all come at once. The 5G rollout

is likely to focus on delivering faster

wireless broadband first, before

introducing additional infrastructure to

improve latency and support massive

numbers of smart devices. The service

you get on day one will not be the same

service you get as the network matures

• both in terms of upgrades that are
  likely to happen, and the speeds that will
  be available once the network becomes
  more congested with devices.

The 5Grollout may

focus on delivering

faster wireless

broadband first