5G Explained

Have you ever been in a crowded stadium and just took a photo with your phone and tried to publish it, but an extremely bad signal stopped you?
Or tried to open some website on my smartphone, and it was loading it in more than 15 milliseconds? 5G should help with that.

Topics in this article:

5G & Older Mobile Generations

The fifth generation of mobile networks should be a significant evolution from previous generations. This is how I started a video about 5G a few years ago. What has changed since then?

In 5G, the emphasis is on smarter and faster digestion of large amounts of data and the famous internet of things, where an insane amount of devices are connected to fulfill given tasks.

If you are an unlucky gamer without a cable and have to play over WiFi or 4G LTE, you're going to like this.
The advantage of 5G is its low latency, which is the faster response time of a device reaching another device.
Here is an interesting table showing how much faster 5G is compared with previous generations when it comes to latency.

3G networks had a response time of around 100 milliseconds, 4G is around 30 milliseconds, and 5G will be as low as 1 millisecond.
Wireless plus 1 millisecond latency equals insane!

Speed is also a lot faster than in the previous version.

How Does 5G Work

How does it work?
About coverage. Like today, if you ever noticed, when you run out of 4G signal, your device connects to 3G. 3G will go into history soon.
Or if you are very unlucky, like Bob in this picture, there is completely no signal.

But let’s say we are not in Bob's position. The same is true with 5G. When you are out of 5G signal, you will be connected to 4G.
5G will also work together with 4G. There will be situations when you are connected to both 5G and 4G simultaneously.
Densely populated areas have priority and there are placed short range 5G small cells or macro cells with longer
coverage range. It depends on population density and terrain.

While back in rural areas, 4G macrocells with long range coverage still humbly offer its service for some time.
Small cell coverage is very short, between 10 and 100 meters. So imagine how many of these cells are placed to ensure continuous 5G coverage.

5G Spectrum

But why is the coverage of small cells so small?
It is because of the spectrum that is given to 5G. 4G frequencies vary from 800 MHz to 6 GHz.

In 5G frequencies in which small cells work between 30 and 100 GHz.
The wavelengths of those signals are in millimeters, their penetration is weaker, and all the surrounding noise is affecting and weakening them much more than signals with a higher wavelength.

5G uses MIMO, or multiple input multiple output antennas and because of the high frequencies of the 5G spectrum, antennas are smaller than antennas used on 4G cells and a lot of them are placed on 5G cells to support high number of connections.
On the user side, to be able to connect to 5G cells, devices and mobile phones use MIMO antenna technology.

5G & Health

Is 5G bad for your health?
I was recently asking random people about 5G and some of them claimed that this is extremely bad for our health.

The conclusion from the World Health Organization is next:
“Despite extensive research, to date, there is no evidence to conclude that exposure to low level electromagnetic fields is harmful to human health”.

What is your opinion on this? Feel free to express yourself in the comment section below.

So, if 5G is providing faster speed, low latency, and improvements to old or completely new business opportunities.
How can I sign in?

First, you’ll need to make sure that 5G is available in your area.
Then you should get a compatible device that supports 5G. Today, they are getting less expensive.

I also recommend you to check what is RESTful API on my other Medium article for free.

Final Words

For 5G to expand all around the world, it will take around 5 years and maybe even more, so be patient, and until that happens, stick with cable if you are gaming.

I hope you learned something new and found useful information in this article. And that’s it. If you appreciate my work and want to support me, become my Patreon member. Thank you.

If you enjoyed it don’t forget to like it, and if you want to see more content like this, help me by sharing this article. Good luck.

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