Last Updated on December 2, 2023 by Tim FitzGerald
Fifth-generation mobile telecoms, known as 5G, is the next step change in mobile networking, very similar to the changes in previous generations of mobile telecoms technology. These changes are made possible by new and faster data transmission technologies and the new and faster processors for mobile telephony.
5G is a new digital system for transmitting data over the air. It uses a 5G-NR (New Radio) interface, along with other new technologies, that will, in the future, utilise much higher radio frequencies (28 GHz compared to 700-2500 Mhz for 4G) to transfer much more data over the air for faster speeds, reduced congestion and lower latency. Until the introduction of mmWave, 5G will use much the same radio frequencies as existing 4G.
This new radio interface, which will use the millimetre wave (mmWave) spectrum, enables more devices to be used within the same geographic area; 4G can support about 4,000 devices per square kilometre, whereas 5G will support around one million. The high-density capacity of mmWave technology will be particularly useful in city centres and where large crowds gather, but not necessarily in suburban or rural areas where the existing radio frequencies will be used since mmWave radio signals travel much shorter distances.
Just as the mobile phone has significantly replaced the need for a home phone, 5G has the potential to displace some of the wired telephone and broadband networks. People could use a 5G WIFI router instead of paying for in-home wired broadband – this will suit renters who don’t necessarily want broadband contracts tied to a property.
The latest high-performance microprocessors in mobile phones now enable affordable mobile phones to create and display HD video as well as voice and messages. Mobile phone manufacturers predict that hundreds of millions of new phones will be sold in the next few years. Pricing will drop significantly as production ramps up.
The same technology of high-performance microprocessors will be used in the nodes of the 5G network to process the gigabytes of data passing through these nodes every second. The latest high-performing antenna technology will be used to optimise the use of the radio spectrum.
https://www.mobilephonehistory.co.uk/history/time_line.php
https://rantcell.com/comparison-of-2g-3g-4g-5g.html
https://www.raconteur.net/technology/5g/4g-vs-5g-mobile-technology/
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/05/rootmetrics-test-5g-mobile-broadband-speeds-in-4-uk-cities.html
Safety
Much has been written about the safety of 5G technology. Almost none of this stands up to scientific scrutiny. In the UK, most 5G implementations in the next few years will use radio frequencies already allocated to existing mobile phone use. The power limits have not been changed. Therefore the public will not be exposed to any sinister radiation from 5G masts; nothing more than we are already exposed to.
The vast majority of radiation absorbed by one’s body is from mobile phone handsets and not from mobile phone masts. We all have the option of not carrying a mobile phone which will reduce the amount of radiation to which we are exposed by 10,000 times.
Let us consider the radio power of various transmitting devices:-
– WiFi uses about 100mW of power
– A mobile phone uses < 200mW of power
– A mobile base station used about 20W of power
– A microwave oven is about 800W
By way of comparison, the Crystal Palace TV tower in London used 200kW when transmitting analogue TV and it did so for many years with few ill effects being seen in the population of London.
| Gen – Date | Terms Used | Typical Data Speeds | Theoretical Data Speeds |
| 1G – 1985 | Analog, ETACS | – | – |
| 2G – 1993 | GSM, GPRS, CMDA | 64 kbps | 64 kbps |
| 3G – 2004 | UMTS, HSPA+ | 2 Mbps | 20 Mbps |
| 4G – 2010 | LTE, WiMAX | 50 Mbps | 1 Gbps |
| 5G – 2020 | 400 Mbps | 10 Gbps |
Early implementations of 6G are expected in the 2028-2030 timeframe.
