Research Paper about 5G Technology

The area of telecommunication that has caught my attention is the 5G technology. We have all heard of 5G and how much faster it is supposed to be compared to the older 2G, 3G and 4G networks we use to run on. My interest has peaked, and I now have some questions that I will research and find out exactly what is a 5 network? How much faster is 5G when compared to previous G’s. How do they implement 5G, what is required? What is the cost of expanding this 5G network? Who is promoting or funding the expansion of the 5G network? Lastly, is this trend going to last if so, how long before 6G comes out if it’s possible? Are there any disadvantages to having the 5G network? I suppose it is all about staying ahead in the current technologies especially for companies that rely on speed and reliability in the ever-growing telecommunication markets.

The evolution of telecommunications networks from 2G to 5G were no small tasks as they are a drastic improvement of each other. The 2G network started it off in 1991, it had a theoretical speed of 9.6 to 14.4 KB/s. This is quite slow, making most of the modern-day functions impossible especially watching YouTube and Netflix on your phone. It utilized TDMA and CDMA technology. The primary use for this was essentially just to make phone calls.

However, in eleven short years later in 2002, 3G was introduced and was much better technology. It used CDMA 2000 and transferred data at a speed of 3.1 mb/s. This would allow a user to stream in low quality. High-definition streaming has a minimum requirement of 5 mb/s which wasn’t possible on a 3G network. In 2008 they made some improvements upon 3G and called it 3.5G network or 3G+, which would allow for HD streaming at a rate of 14.4 Mb/s and used the HSPA technology. HSPA consists of two mobile protocols High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High-Speed Data Uplink Pack Access (HSUPA) which increased performances up to 4 times on the 3G network.

Then our current and most popular phone network is the 4G. I say this because even though 5G is advertised it has not been fully implemented yet. 4G was being introduced in the same year as 3.5 was implemented in 2008. There are two types of 4G networks, 4G WiMAX and 4G LTE. They are direct competitors of each other, but they are compatible with each other. One of the differences that I found to be interesting is that WiMAX uses microwaves and LTE uses radio waves. The biggest difference between the two is that WiMAX has a max bandwidth of up to 40 MHz and LTE-A has a max bandwidth of 100MHz. The next difference is that the mobility speeds of the two are drastically different and can be the reason while mobile phones are preferred to be on LTE. WiMAX can handle mobility speeds of 120 km/h and LTE can handle mobility speeds of up to 450-500 km/h. Not that you ever really see anyone going 200+ mph, but WiMAX will not be able to handle going above 75 MPH. This is probably why the US uses LTE as a standard compared to WiMAX.  

5G is one of the hottest telecommunication trends out at least that is what is being advertised. What exactly is it when compared to the earlier 4G LTE phone service that was before provided? 5G promises faster speeds of up to 20 times faster than 4G LTE. But to better understand 5G we will have to understand its predecessors because this isn’t exactly brand new at the moment it is more of an evolution of 4G LTE. There are now two types of 5G. There is the NSA or Non-Stand Alone which is what we now use and the SA or Stand Alone. 5G NSA is essentially a mixture of 5G and 4G LTE technology that is the transitional phase into full 5G SA. The reason for this NSA phase is because during prior upgrade switches there were some underlining problems that effected just a full-on switch from let’s say 3G to 4G. The NSA version of 5G isn’t as capable as the fully implemented 5G SA network because of the 4G LTE still being used with 5G. For example, even though it is claimed to be 5G it still uses call and connection management of a 4G network. Which is offering the same speed as the latest updates to 4G LTE.

How is 5G able to get up to 20 times the speed of 4G LTE? The first and simplest answer to this question is the frequencies that they work on. 4G operates on a lower frequency band that allows it to reach 6 GHz. 5G however operates on a radio band at frequencies 30 GHz to 300 GHz. Higher frequency travel at a much faster rate. This is not the only reason for the increased speeds. These radio waves will have much better bandwidth due to the decreased traffic when compared to 4G LTE.