5G: Foundation of Next Generation

 

Every new generation of wireless networks delivers faster speeds and more functionality to our smartphones than the last one. 1G brought us very first cell phones, 2G let us text first time, 3G brought us online and 4G delivered the speeds that we enjoy today but as more users come online, 4G networks have just about reached the limit of what they're capable of at a time when user want even more data for their smartphones, and devices now we're heading towards 5G the next generation of wireless technology.

It will be able to hit a thousand times more traffic than today's networks and it'll be up to 10 times faster 4G LTE. Just imagine downloading an HD movie in under a second and then let your imagination run wild, that's what the coming gen will do. 5G will be the foundation for virtual reality, autonomous driving, the internet of things and stuff we can't even imagine. 

 

what exactly is a 5G network?

 

1. Millimeter Waves

Your smartphone and other electronic devices in your houses use very specific frequencies on the radio frequency spectrum typically those under 6 gigahertz but these frequencies are starting to get more crowded. Carriers can only squeeze so many bits of data on the same amount of radio frequency spectrum as more devices come online. 

We're going to start to see slower services and more dropped connections the solution is to open up some new real estate so researchers are experimenting with broadcasting on shorter millimeter waves those that fall between 30 and 300 gigahertz this section of spectrum has never ever been used before for mobile devices and opening it up means more bandwidth for everyone but. But there's a catch millimeter-wave cant travel well through buildings or other obstacles and they tend to be absorbed by plants and rain to get around this problem we'll need technology number 2.

 

2. SmallCell Networks

The wireless networks rely on large high powered cell towers for broadcasting their signals over long distances but remember higher-frequencies millimeter waves have a harder time traveling through obstacles which means if you move behind the one you lose your signal. Small Cell networks will solve that problem by using thousands of low power mini-base stations. 

These base stations will be much closer together than traditional towers forming a sort of relay team to transmit signals around obstacles. This would be especially useful in cities as the user behind the obstacle his smartphone automatically switch to a new base station in a better range of his device allowing him to keep his connection.

 

3. Massive MIMO

The MIMO stands for multiple-input-multiple-output. Today's 4G base stations have about a dozen ports for antennas that handle all cellular traffic but massive MIMO base stations can support about a hundred ports this could increase the capacity of today's network by a factor of 22 or more, of course, massive MIMO comes with its own complications. Today's cellular antennas broadcast information in every direction at once and all of those crossing signals could cause serious interference which brings us to the next technology.

 

4. Beamforming 

Beamforming is like the traffic signaling system for cellular signal instead of broadcasting in every direction it would allow a base station to send focus steam of data to a specified user. This precision prevents interference and it's way more efficient, which means stations could handle more incoming and outgoing data streams at once. 

Here's how it works say you're in a cluster of building and you are trying to make a phone call your signal is ricocheting off of surrounding buildings and the crossing  other signals from  the users in area of massive MIMO base station receives all of these signals and keep track of the timing and direction of their arrival. It'll then uses signal processing algorithms to triangulate exactly where each signal is coming from also plots the best transmission route back through the air to each phone. 

Sometimes it'll bounce individual packets of data in different directions off of buildings or other objects to keep signals from interfering with each other. The result is the coherent data stream that will only be sent to you.

 

5. Full Duplex

If you've ever used a walkie talkie, you know that in order to communicate you have to take turns talking and listening that's kind of a drag. Today's cellular base station has that exact same hold up a basic antenna can only do one job at a time either transmit or receive. This is because of the principle called reciprocity which is the tendency of the radio waves to travel both forward and backward along with the same frequency. 

To understand this it helps to think of a wave-like a train loaded up with data the frequency it's traveling on is like the train tracks and if there's a second train trying to go in the opposite direction on the same track you're going to get some interference. Until now, the sol has been to have the trains take turns or to put all of them on different tracks or frequencies. 

But you can make things a lot more efficient by working around with reciprocity researchers who have used silicon transistors to create high-speed switches that halt the backward roll of these waves. It's like a signaling system that can momentarily reroute to train so that they can get past each other which means there's a lot more getting done on each track a whole lot faster.

 

Conclusion

We're still working out many of the things with millimeter waves, Small cells, Massive MIMO, Beamforming, and Full Duplex. In fact, all of 5G is still work in progress. It will likely include other new technologies too and making all of these systems working together will be a whole other challenge but if experts can figure that out ultra-fast 5G service could be arriving in the next five years.

 

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