5G, the next generation communication standard, will support the Internet of Things, smart cars and more.
A new mobile standard won't appear until 2020, but the specifications are in full swing and it's clear that 5G will be very different from 4G. We are talking about increasing the speed of information exchange for mobile phones and tablets, and many other solutions, each of which has its own requirements.
Ericsson Predictions
How will 5G technology work and why is it needed if ultra-fast mobile Internet already exists?
Ericsson thinks the future looks like this.
Autonomous and networked vehicles will exchange information with each other. In the event of an accident, the car closest to the scene of the accident will report it to all cars following it. This will allow them to slow down in advance or, in the event of a traffic jam, calculate a new route.
The car's sensors will more accurately measure weather conditions and send data via the 5G network to help the car calculate the best route.
In publicThe 5G network will allow real-time tracking of the number of waiting passengers at stops. The bus driver will skip the stop without passengers, and the dispatcher will send additional vehicles to the places where they accumulate.
In the 5G era, all home electronics will be interconnected. If earlier, when moving from one room to another, you had to carry a portable device with you in order to continue, for example, listen to your favorite radio station, now the speakers in different rooms will communicate with each other and listening will continue from the interrupted place. In addition, it will be possible to monitor the energy consumption of each device or find out how much electricity is produced by solar panels.
The 5G network will change emergency services by enabling reliable emergency communications and prioritizing police and emergency services. And firefighters in helmets with cameras will broadcast the image to the command and receive assistance in complex rescue operations.
5G technology
Last year we managed to streamline most of them, but the selection of technologies that ensure their practical application continues.
Among them:
- ultra-high frequencies, which previously seemed impossible to achieve, will provide much greater speed;
- Evolving systems, sending data in tiny chunks, will keep IoT devices running for many years to come;
- reduce delays for tasks that require immediate response.
5G network speed
Score5G standard speed increase compared to the previous one is ambiguous. The Ericsson company managed to reach growth in 50 times - up to 5 Gbps. Samsung hit 7.5Gbps with a solid 1.2Gbps signal in a fast-moving car. The EU-China partnership intends to increase the speed of 5G by 100 times. NTT DoCoMo, the Japanese cellular operator, is working with Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Samsung and Nokia to reach 10 Gbps. And scientists from the University of Surrey suggest a speed of 1 Tbps. Mobile network speeds are expected to increase another thousand times over the next 10 years.
Growing speed will require better antennas and equipment, as well as an expanded spectrum of frequencies. In the US, the process of distributing this resource has already begun.
Internet of Things
With the cost of connection falling, more and more devices have access to Wi-Fi. The concept of connecting phones, coffee and washing machines, headphones, lamps and everything else into a single network is called the Internet of Things. By 2020, it is expected that there will be more than 26 billion such devices in the world. And the number of connections will be even greater.
The ability of things to “feel” with sensors and remotely execute commands will find applications in urban planning, smart home technologies, heating and electricity control systems, security, he alth monitoring, public transport, retailing.
The Internet of Things requires a small connection speed, but for a huge numberdevices. Dedicated narrow band networks are already in operation, and 5G developers want to be part of this process.
Thus, telecommunications networks will have to support not only mobile users, but also "smart" things. The new standard is designed to help manage such heterogeneous traffic.
Delays
Obviously, the new generation 5G network will support unmanned vehicles and augmented reality applications. In this case, the information must come in real time. The time of reception and transmission in 4G networks exceeds 10 ms, which is extremely long. The future standard may completely change the network architecture with the movement of data storage from data centers to end nodes, including smart devices.
A moving car, for example, needs information about the location of the nearest vehicle. Existing networks with the flow of such data for three cars are not able to cope. Large data transfer delays require data to be hosted locally.
Next generation networks are expected to be as responsive as possible. The delay in data transmission will not exceed 1 ms, even if the terminal moves at a speed of 500 km/h. This latency will be a major driver of new technologies such as city driving and remote surgery.
Reach consensus
If the position with the definitionrange of potential technologies improved in 2015, the technologies themselves are still being developed. It is required to decide which 5G technologies are needed in the first place, and which ones will be implemented after. This is unlikely to happen in 2016.
Despite the lack of a standard and confidence in the priority of technology, manufacturing companies are trying to lead the development and implementation of 5G technologies in order to gain a favorable position in the future.
Nokia announced in April 2015 that it was acquiring Alcatel-Lucent for $16.6 billion, while U. S. telecommunications company Verizon Wireless announced that the first 5G network in the US will be available as early as 2016.
First signs
Prototypes of 5G networks have already appeared. The first 5G network was launched in South Korea. SK Telecom unveiled the new technology at the opening of a research center that will develop it. And for the XXIII Winter Olympic Games in 2018 in South Korea, the company plans to build a 5G network throughout the country.
NTT DoCoMo also intends to launch a 5G network in Japan in time for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics.
5G vs US
The 5G standard, like previous standards, is being developed by the 3GPP consortium and approved by the ITU, the International Telecommunication Union. Producers do not want to stand aside either. In October 2015, some regional groups agreed to meet every six months to develop a common position on the 5G standard.
Such an agreement wasreached in September 2015 between the EU and China. Ericsson and TeliaSonera have reached an agreement on a strategic partnership to provide the mobile operator's customers in Tallinn and Stockholm with 5G network access in 2018
And very little is left to wait for the 5G network to be launched in the Russian Federation. MTS and Ericsson have entered into an agreement to work together on fifth-generation technologies, which will result in the first test 5G network in Russia at the World Cup in 2018, two years earlier than the 5G network in Japan. To do this, in 2016, the LTE-U project will be implemented to use LTE at a frequency of 5 GHz, used to connect Wi-Fi access points. Ericsson Lean Carrier technology will also be tested, which organizes traffic distribution and reduces inter-cell interference, increases transmission speed and coverage, and helps in network planning.
As you can see, the countries of the world agree on cooperation in this area. Everyone except the US, which is used to taking the lead in everything.
4, 5G prepares for the future
Qualcomm has unveiled 4.5G LTE Advanced Pro technology, which is planned to be rolled out over the next four years. This will allow the company to support both the broader spectrum required for 5G and previously deployed LTE networks, which will reduce latency and increase throughput.
Network features:
- high throughput due to spectrum aggregation;
- Support 32 operators simultaneously andincreased throughput through frequency aggregation and distribution of network traffic between operators;
- 10x latency reduction compared to LTE Advanced using existing towers and frequencies from 1ms to 70µs;
- use of incoming line resource for outgoing needs;
- increasing the number of antennas at base stations to increase coverage and signal strength;
- Improve the energy saving of IoT devices by narrowing the range to 1.4MHz and 180kHz (up to 10 years on a single battery);
- 1Gbps for vehicle, pedestrian and IoT device sharing;
- Scan the environment without turning on Wi-Fi or GPS on your mobile device.
Technological barriers
The Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications in Berlin is experimenting with frequencies of 40-100 GHz, Samsung is using 28 GHz in its experiments, and Nokia is using over 70 GHz.
The operation of devices in the millimeter wave range has such a feature as extremely unsatisfactory signal propagation, the power of which drops significantly with distance from the base station. In addition, signal interference can even be caused by the human body.
Solution - MIMO
The way out is to use MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) technology, when several signals are sent and received simultaneously. Now it is used in LTE and WLAN. For high frequencies, Massive MIMO is used - reception optimization technology when mobile devicesplaced dozens of small antennas and hundreds in the transmitter.
Antenna maker SkyCross has created a 4x4 MIMO system that can be used in a 16x10cm terminal. This is significantly larger than LTE antennas. For example, LG G4 is 15x7.6 cm, Samsung Galaxy S6 is 14x7 cm, and Apple iPhone 6 Plus is 16x7.8 cm. its size and power consumption were not presented. Thus, the creation of a small mobile device with 4 antennas will be a challenge for designers.
The development of portable terminals will also require a lot of effort. A spokesman for Texas Instrument says that new technologies will be required to create chips capable of transmitting data at high frequencies.
In 2015, the 5G standard project was officially named IMT-2020. It is a pity that the rest of the process is still not in sight.
