What is 5G | How Do 5G Work | Ultimate Guide To 5G

With every network generation, we have got faster speeds and lots of functionalities. 1G gave us cellular connectivity, 2G gave us the ability to text, 3G brought us online, and 4G just had a blast! And the game isn't stopping here!

Now it's time for 5G, the Next Generation of wireless communication, and in this article, I am going to tell you about what is 5G? How does it work? And what all you need to understand about this new technology? Imagine, downloading a movie in just under 5 seconds, or lag-free gaming, all this is just 1% of 5G. Visualize what more can 5G do. Now before explaining about 5G, I would like to give you all an insight into how the network works. To date, all the network devices make use of frequency less than 6 GHz, but over time, due to an increase in the users and devices, this radio frequency spectrum is saturated. It means the frequency spectrum is packed, due to which the speed is getting slower because this frequency spectrum can carry only a certain amount of data, whose limit is already saturated!

What to do next?

This is why we need a solution, and 5G is going to give us that. 5G is based on a millimeter-wave technology, in which the frequencies of more than 6 GHz and up to 300 GHz can be used. Fortunately, this millimeter-wave frequency is empty to date!. And if we can use this frequency too, then traffic will be less, the data packets will transfer faster, and the network won't be so crowded. Hence, the use of these millimeter waves is the first technology that is going to be used in 5G.

First Technology

But, there is a problem, millimeter waves cannot travel long distances as compared to the radio frequency waves, which is still being used, and the millimeter waves cannot go through obstacles. It means that these millimeter waves cannot go through buildings, and they tend to get absorbed by the trees and the rain.

Second Technology

So to solve this problem the second 5G technology (which has been made available) is the Small cell Network. The network towers, usually transmit signals in a large area, but as we know, mm waves cannot travel long distances, and they cannot go past the obstacles, so as a solution to this, there will be a large number of, small cell base stations rather than having a single big tower. They will reflect these signals around the obstacles and reach us, and our device will automatically connect to the nearest base stations.

Third Technology

The third 5G technology is called massive MIMO. MIMO means Multiple inputs and multiple outputs. Nowadays, 4G base stations have a dozen no. of ports, which handle the cellular traffic. But since 5G is much faster, we will need more no. of these ports, so the 5G base stations will have a hundred of ports rather than a few, which will easily handle this fast-cellular traffic, and increasing the no. of ports will increase the data handling capacity of these ports by 20 times.

Fourth Technology

But these have their own set of problems. If there are hundreds of ports in a small space, then there will be a lot of interference between the signals they transmit. To solve this problem, there is 4th technology or the 4th 5G technology called the Beam formation. To understand beamforming, you can simply view it as focusing on one user at a time. These base stations will send a focused beam of data to a specified user at a specific time.

This will avoid the interference that was there in between the ports. Thus the ports on the base station can handle more input and output at the same time.

Fifth Technology

Now it’s time for the 5G technology no. 5, which is called Full-duplex, now what does it do? well if you have ever used a walkie talkie, you may be knowing that only one person can speak at once, and to listen to another person, one has to wait after saying something. So, the cell towers and the base stations do the same, they either receive or transmit in the given time. Due to this, the base stations cannot receive or transmit at the same time, and thus, the time required of the process is more.

So, this 5th 5G technology is based on the concept called the Reciprocity. Reciprocity means, the radio wave traveling on a particular frequency, can travel in both forward and reverse directions. For example:- Let’s consider a train which is full of data, and the track on which it is traveling, is at a particular frequency, now on this track, if the train is traveling, and there is another train coming from the opposite direction, then there is going to be an interference, and if there is interference, there will be loss of data.

Due to this, the data connectivity is very slow, as at a moment data is either transmitted or received and to tackle this issue the researchers have been working on silicon transistors, which are capable of high-speed switches so that both the incoming and outgoing signals can be provided with a temporary route to go around each other at the same time. This will allow input and output to occur at the same time.

Conclusion

So, these were the 5 basic technologies which 5G is going to use, but the biggest problem 5G is facing is, to set up 5G a whole new infrastructure is required. When the 2G or the 3G network were making progress, then to move from 2G to 3G and 3G to 4G the network operators just needed to upgrade the existing cell towers. But to bring in 5G, the cellular network companies will have to build new cell towers and build up new infrastructure to support 5G, and due to all these reasons, 5G cannot be explained properly. It is still evolving and there is a possibility that more new technologies can come up.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article and have briefly learned about 5G technology. Also, check out my article on Emerging Technologies in 2020.