Basic Understanding How Millimeter Waves Power the 5G Network

With the video content boom, people tend to keep glued to their phones. Low internet speeds, however, also play the role of spoilsport. As a consequence, consumers demand quicker transmission of data and more efficient telecom carriers' network services. The basis for 5G, the next generation of communications technology, was set by this requirement. While 5G is still in its preliminary stage, to decide its final shape, the entire industry is working together.

Challenges to the Next Generation Network Architecture

5G must be capable of transmitting more data faster than current mobile network base stations as the number of mobile users and their demands grow.

Wireless communication engineers must develop a series of completely new technologies to accomplish this. These technologies would enable the 5G data transmission latency to be less than one millisecond (compared to the approximately 70 millisecond latency of current 4G networks) and achieve a 20 Gbit/s (compared to 1 Gbit/s for 4G) peak data download speed.

What technologies would play a crucial role in 5G growth over the long term is still uncertain, but there are already some early contenders. Millimeter waves, small base stations, large MIMO, full duplex, and beamforming are used in these technologies.

There is one important problem facing wireless networks today: the growing number of users and devices are consuming more data than ever before. Nevertheless, telecommunications companies have to limit them to the same radio spectrum frequency band they have always used. This implies that a finite amount of bandwidth is allocated to each device, leading to slower speeds and frequent disconnections.

The lack of frequency band resources would become even more pronounced as the number of devices connecting to wireless networks increases. The restricted bandwidth of an incredibly narrow spectrum we continue to share. This has a huge influence on the experience of consumers. A practical solution to this problem, however, is given by millimeter wave technology.

What is a Millimeters Wave?

A radio frequency band that is well suited for 5G networks is millimeter waves, also known as extremely high frequency (EHF). Millimeter wave technology facilitates transmission at frequencies between 30 GHz and 300 GHz, compared to frequencies below 5 GHz previously used by mobile devices. Since they have wavelengths between 1 mm and 10 mm, these frequencies are called millimeter waves, while the wavelengths of the radio waves commonly used by smartphones are mostly several dozen centimeters.

So far, millimeter waves are only used by radar systems and satellites. However, some mobile network operators have already begun to use millimeter waves as well (for example, to transmit data between two fixed points, such as base stations). Nevertheless, an entirely new solution is the use of millimeter wave frequencies to connect mobile users to nearby base stations.

What are Millimeter Wave Technology's benefits?

There are two ways to improve wireless data transmission speed: increase the utilization of the spectrum or increase the bandwidth of the spectrum. Increasing the spectrum bandwidth is easier and more straightforward compared to the first approach. Increasing the usable bandwidth many times over without adjusting the use of the spectrum will increase data transmission rates by a similar amount. The problem is that the frequencies under 5 GHz that are currently used are already highly crowded, so where will we find new spectrum resources? The second of the two approaches uses 5G's use of millimeter waves to improve transmission rates.

The optimal signal bandwidth in wireless communication is about 5 percent of the carrier frequency, based on communication standards. Hence, the higher the frequency of the carrier, the greater the bandwidth of the signal. That is why 28 GHz and 60 GHz are the most promising frequencies for 5G among the millimeter-wave frequencies. The 28 GHz band can provide up to 1 GHz of available spectrum bandwidth, while each 60 GHz band channel can provide 2 GHz of available signal bandwidth (a total available spectrum of 9 GHz divided between four channels).

Comparatively, the 4G-LTE band's overall carrier frequency of 2 GHz has just 100 MHz of usable spectrum bandwidth. Using millimeter wave frequencies can also easily increase the spectrum bandwidth by a factor of 10, causing transmission speeds to increase massively.

What are Millimeter Wave Technology's disadvantages?

There is one big downside to the use of millimeter waves. Structures and other obstacles cannot be penetrated by millimeter waves. These signals can be absorbed even by leaves or rain. This is also why the small base station approach for enhancing existing cell tower infrastructure would have to be embraced by 5G networks.

The antennas used to receive them can be smaller since millimeter waves have high frequencies and short wavelengths, enabling small base stations to be installed. We can expect that 5G mobile communication will no longer rely on large-scale base station construction in the future, but rather on several small base stations. This will allow 5G to cover peripheral areas that large base stations do not reach.

Author Li Yirei of Silicon Talks said that the latest 5G band plans adopted by major carriers use more conventional frequencies below 6 GHz to ensure open-space signal coverage and use millimeter wave technology micro base stations to provide indoor ultra-fast data transmission.

Engineers expect that 5G networks can not only support mobile users, but also play a vital role in self-driving vehicles, VR, IoT, and other fields through the use of millimeter waves and other 5G technologies.

Researchers and businesses already have high expectations for 5G, promising customers that ultra-low latency and unparalleled data rates will be supported by it. If they can solve the remaining obstacles and find a consistent way to facilitate collaboration across the entire ecosystem, within the next five years, we can expect to see the commercial deployment of 5G services.

Completion

Several aspects of millimeter waves were explored, and how these waves provide a realistic solution to solving the crunch of mobile bandwidth. The technology is likely to quickly achieve broad-spread acceptance.

This article is written by the Eravant which is specialize in manufacturing electronic components, sub-assemblies for millimeter wave applications & Wr-22 Waveguide to Coax Adapter

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