What Is 5G Technology?
In recent years technology has advanced to staggering heights. One of the marks of advancement in technology is speed. At the end of 2017, the wireless industry came up with the first official 5G standard. One thing 5G brings is increased speed in data transmission. AT & T plans to launch mobile 5G in the US this year likewise Verizon, T-mobile is working on a network to launch next year.

But a standard does not mean all 5G will work the same or that we even know what applications 5G will enable. There will be slow but responsive 5G, and fast 5G with limited coverage. So sit tight and let us take you down the 5G rabbit hole to give you an idea of what the upcoming 5G will be like.

What is 5G Technology?

The G in 5G means it’s a generation of wireless technology. Most generations have been determined by their speed of data transmission. They are also marked by a break in encoding methods or ‘air interface’ which makes them incompatible with the previous generation.

1G was analog cellular. 2G technologies such as CDMA, GSM and TDMA were the first generation of digital cellular technologies. 3G technologies such as EVDO, HSPA and UMTS brought the speed of data transmission from 200 kilobytes per seconds to a few megabytes per second. 4G technologies such as WiMAX and LTE are now scaling up the speed to hundreds of megabytes and even gigabytes per second.

5G technology will come with 3 major differences from 4G: greater speed (to move more data) , lower latency (to be more responsive), and the ability to connect a lot of devices at once ( for sensors and smart devices). The actual 5G radio system known as 5G-NR will be incompatible with 4G. But all 5G devices, initially will need 4G because they’ll lean on it to make initial connections before trading up to 5G where it is available.

How 5G Technology Works?

5G uses modern modulation techniques some which are also used in 4G LTE. They are:

Carrier Aggregation: This is a technique used in LTE to improve the system efficiency. In carrier aggregation two or more carrier signals are aggregated to support wider bandwidth which allows even up to 100 MHz.

Small Cell Concept: In order to increase network, the cell is sub-divided into micro and pico cells. Spectrum usability allows more users in a small geographical area and handle network more efficiently.

·MIMO Concept: MIMO is a transmission technology with the usage of multiple antennas for transmission and reception. Simultaneous data transfer is possible using this technology thus offer efficient data rate. The more the number of antennas, the more transmission and reception can be done.

Wi-Fi off loading: Wi-Fi offloading is one of the main features of the future networks. It allows the user to connect using wi-fi network and the cellular network can be allocated to other users. It is useful for places where cellular network is poor and user will still have the option to connect to the network without cellular reception.

·Device to Device Communication: D2D communication is a technique where network authorize two adjacent devices to communicate with each other directly. Network will have the control over the devices and allow an operator to determine the traffic routing between direct and network path. During the absence of network, one device can still connect to the other device.

· Cloud – Radio Network Access: C-RNA is a network technology used for effective communication with a centralized information processing carried out remotely within the cloud system. The signal will be processed at a remote location and the base section will be connected with the most efficient fiber optic connections. It gives lot of advantages in system implementation, maintenance and highly efficient.

These are some of the techniques which are used in 5G technology. 5G is basically an improved version of 4G-LTE.

How Fast Will 5G Be?

As stated earlier AT & T and Verizon announced in 2017 that they will be rolling out 5G network later this year. While they haven’t explicitly stated the speeds we can expect when their 5G network arrive, but we know that they will be much faster than 4G.

At Mobile World Congress 2017, Samsung showcased its 5G home routers. It achieved a speed of up to 4 gigabits per seconds. That is 500 Megabytes per seconds, which would let you download a 50GB game in under two minutes., or a 100GB 4K movie in under four minutes. Just to give you an idea of how fast that is. The average Internet speed in Nigeria is 4.13 Megabytes per seconds, in the US the average Internet speed is 6.5 megabytes per seconds as at 2016.

However, Samsung’s router was right next to the transmitting 5G cell during the demonstration, meaning those speeds are probably possible only in a perfect scenario – where the 5G router is extremely close to the 5G radio cell without any interference, obstacles, or network congestion.

It is unlikely we would get “full” speeds at all time. Still, even with 50% of the performance we could be experiencing 2 Gbps speeds at home. And even 1Gbps – 25% of the “perfect scenario” would still be great compared to our current average internet speed.

When Does 5G Arrive?

There has been several testing of 5G network over the past year by Samsung, Ericsson and others. At the end of 2017, the wireless industry came up with the first official 5G standard so we should be expecting it soon. AT & T and Verizon are planning on rolling out 5G network in the US later this year expect access to really pick on in 2019. Earlier this year MTN conducted the first 5G network test in Africa. It achieved a throughput of over 20Gbps with less than 5ms latency which is “the highest on a mobile network in Africa”. This is a really great development but it’s funny and sad that the 4G technology in this part of the World is not even fully available yet and we already have 5G on the way.


What About Smartphones?

Your next Smartphone is going to be a lot faster in 2019 thanks to the launch of the world’s first 5G – ready mobile devices. Fast, broadband-equivalent 5G download speeds are coming to phones from 19 companies, including familiar names like LG, Sony, ZTE and HTC. All of these phone makers have signed onto use Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 5G NR modem, making way for multi-gigabit per second downloads and lower latency.

That means upcoming Samsung Galaxy S9,Note 9 and maybe LG G7 may be the very last flagship 4G- capped phones you upgrade to before 5G-ready phones launch. Beyond mobile devices, the 5G-ready Snapdragon X50 is supposed to further the idea of always-on PCs. Conveniently, Qualcomm recently partnered with Windows 10 laptop makers for the HP Envy X2 and Asus NovaGo. The chip company is also keen on a 5G future with VR, AR and XR (extended reality).

So starting from 2019 Smartphones will begin using 5G. This means it’ll likely be in devices that only exist in theory: the LG G8 and HTC 13 are good guesses. While Samsung and Google aren’t part of the today’s announcement. We’ll likely see the Samsung Galaxy S10 and Google Pixel 4 launch as 5G-ready phones, too.

Just because 5G-ready Smartphones will become available in 2019 doesn’t mean you will instantly get multi gigabits speeds. Some carriers won’t be ready to launch their 5G operations until closer to 2020. In other words we’ll all get to fast speeds slowly but surely.

The fifth generation of wireless network 5G will bring about lots of changes. It is going to bring about opportunity for properly connected smart cities, remote surgery, driverless cars and the “Internet of Things”. That is all for now on all you need to know on the upcoming 5G network. Please dont forget to share with friends, if you have any questions on this topic share them in the comment section and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
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Source: https://www.9jatechguru.com.ng/2018/03/what-is-5g-technology.html