5G Technology- Towards the 4th Industrial Revolution in Wireless Communication

Mobile or wireless communication is regarded as one of the greatest inventions in human civilization. In the modern era, no one can admire of living a life without having a phone, it has become an essential human need. How can a non-living thing create such a huge impact on modern day life? The answer is simple because in the modern day life needs to be free from aggravations and so the technology giants are working harder to behold the grievances faced by the common folks.

In earlier days, sending a message between two people from two different places was just merely a dream. With the invention of the telephone in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell, the face of communication had changed and revolutionary changes came to light. This invention switched a new light amongst the society and gradually the phase of new technologies plundered. Due to the evolvement of such sophisticated technologies and advancement in connectivity, the nature of communication across the globe significantly improved.

Quite simply, the “G” stands for Generation, as in the next generation of wireless technologies. Each generation is supposedly faster, more secure and more reliable. The reliability factor is the hardest obstacle to overcome. 1G was not used to identify wireless technology until 2G, or the second generation, was released. That was a major jump in the technology when the wireless networks went from analog to digital. It’s all uphill from there. 3G came along and offered faster data transfer speeds, at least 200 kilobits per second, for multi-media use and was a long time standard for wireless transmissions regardless of what you heard on all those commercials  

Modern-day Wireless technology is based on the IEEE 802.11 standard that uses radio waves (RF) for transmitting data among devices. It has become part and parcel for almost all people and companies, considering the same functionality as a wired communication technology, but with significant characteristics such as mobility, flexibility, low cost, ease to deploy etc. The recent wireless technology deployed across the globe is 4G, i.e, fourth-generation wireless technology (though it is not fully functional everywhere) but the developed world has already started to explore the new dimension, i.e, 5G which is supposed to be launched by 2020.

A BRIEF DIFFERENCE AMONG 3G, 4G, AND PROPOSED 5G

	3G	4G	5G
Deployment	2004-2005	2006-2010	By 2020
Bandwidth	2Mbps	200 Mbps	>1 Gbps
Technology	Broadband with /CDMA/IP technology	Unified IP and seamless combination of LAN/WAN/WLAN/PAN	4G+wwww
Service	Integrated high-quality audio, video and data	Dynamic information access, variable devices	Dynamic information access, variable devices with all capabilities

5G will make communications so fast that it would resemble real-time, putting mobile internet services on a par with office services. Although lots of groundwork has to be done on a 5G cellular network to define the standard parameters and to achieve the better performance over existing 4 G technology. 

Some typical features of 5G may include:

SUGGESTED 5 G FEATURES
PARAMETER	SUGGESTED PERFORMANCE
PEAK DATA RATE	Up to 10 Gbps ( may be exceeding)
NETWORK CAPACITY	10,000 times capacity of current network
LATENCY	< 1ms
CELL EDGE DATA RATE	100 Mbps
BANDWIDTH	1000X PER UNIT AREA
PERCENT AVAILABILITY	ALMOST 100%
COVERAGE	ALMOST 100%
NETWORK ENERGY USES	REDUCTION UP TO 90%

FEW NEW TECHNOLOGIES THAT MAY INCORPORATE WITH 5 G

Communication engineers are investigating few new technologies that might be incorporated with 5 G technology. Some of the prominent technologies may feature as:

Smart efficient antennas: Antennas are the most important part of the wireless communications. Efficient and smart design of antenna can make the signal omnidirectional, mitigate the interference and power consumption by increasing the strength of the signal.

Concept of cognitive radio technology: This concept enables communication engineers to access the radio spectrum in an efficient way, to improve the modulation scheme in a better way. It provides the optimum use power spectrum ensuring the best data flow among the users

Pervasive/ Ubiquitous network: This concept allows users to connect multiple wireless networks and also move seamlessly between them. It aims to create connectivity experiences that are

faster, more reliable, more personalized, highly available and secure in today’s mobile world, customized to match specific business needs.

Group cooperative relay: Cooperative diversity is a cooperative multiple antenna technique for amending or maximizing total network channel capacities for any given set of bandwidths which exploit consumer’s diversity by decoding the cumulated signal of the relayed signal and the direct signal in wireless multihop networks.

LEADING COMPANIES WORKING ON DEVELOPMENT OF 5G

Notable advancements in 5G technologies have come from Nokia, Qualcomm, Samsung, Ericsson and British Telecommunications with growing numbers of companies forming 5G partnerships and pledging money to continue to research into 5G and its application. Qualcomm and Samsung have focused their 5G efforts on hardware, with Qualcomm creating a 5G modem and Samsung producing a 5G enabled home router. Both Nokia and Ericsson have created 5G platforms aimed at mobile carriers rather than consumers. Ericsson created the first 5G platform and that claims to provide the first 5G radio system. Ericsson began 5G testing in 2015.

5G technology going to be an incipient mobile revolution in the mobile market. Through 5G technology now we can utilize ecumenical cellular phones. 5G technology has extraordinary data capabilities and has the facility to tie together unrestricted call volumes and illimitable data broadcast within the latest mobile operating system. Maybe in coming days, 5G technology surmounts the world market. 5G Technologies have an extraordinary capability to fortify Software and Consultancy. The Router and switch technology utilized in the 5G network providing high connectivity. The 5G technology distributes internet access to nodes within the building and can be deployed with the cumulation of wired or wireless network connections. The current trend of 5G technology has a glowing future.

References:  Ankur Jyoti Sarmah, Associate Editor (Electronics & Engineering) 5G Technology