5G Vs Previous Wireless Network Generations

In broadband mobile networks, 5G (Fifth Generation Wireless technology is the planned successor of previous cellular telecommunication standards:

2G: -     GSM

2.5: -    GPRS

2.75G: --EDGE

3G:       -UMTS

4G: -      LTE GSM: - Global System for Mobile Communication

GPRS: - General Packet Radio Service

EDGE: - Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution

UMTS: - Universal Mobile Telecommunications System

LTE: -   Long Term Evolution

And now the recent standards of 3GPP is 5G NR (New Radio).

1G -All about voice.

2G - Voice + SMS.

3G - Voice + SMS + Data.

4G - Has everything whatever in 3G but having faster data and lower latency.

5G - Has everything whatever in 4G but having faster data and lower latency.

The speed increases and the technology used to achieve that speed also changes. For ex., 1G offers 2.4 kbps, 2G offers 64 Kbps and is based on GSM, 3G offers 144 kbps-2 mbps called as UMTS, whereas 4G offers 100 Mbps - 1 Gbps and is based on LTE technology.

1G- Analog

2G-Digital

3G-Broadband

4G- IP

5G-WiMAX

 Spectrum Allocation in India

 2G: - 900MHz, 1800 MHz

3G: - 2100 MHz

4G: - 850 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2300 MHz

5G: - Low Band: -700 MHz, Mid Band: -  3.3GHz, High Band: - 26GHz

Technology becomes more software centric, logical, flexible and open from closed and hardware centric as we move from 2G to 5G.

 Difference between 4G and 5G

 Throughput:

The key difference between 4G and 5G is speed. 4G can currently reach top speeds of up to 100 Mbps, though real-world performance is generally no more than 35 Mbps. 5G has the potential to be 100 times faster than 4G, with a theoretical speed around 20 Gbps, much higher peak data rate, though user experience bit rate will be much lesser.

Latency:

 5G promises low latency as low as 1 ms, while 4G latency between 10-50 ms, lower latency gives advantage of faster download speeds. Typically, network latency is measured from the device, up to the radio, down through the baseband processor, back out into the core, and then to the application itself.

Base stations:

 Another key difference between 4G vs. 5G is that 4G transmits signals from cell towers. However, 5G mostly uses small cell technology due to its millimeter wave (mm-wave) frequency levels, here range is very short due to high frequency. Compared to 4G, more antennas to be used in 5G because of higher frequency band, though it will still use cell towers for its lower frequency spectrums as well.

Available 5G still requires the existing 4G network and this is the reason it’s called 5G NSA (non-standalone) and once it’s become standalone 5G, it will come to its maximum benefits as far as speed, latency and its applications are concerned.

5G enables new business model and technical innovation across all industries through network slicing concept dividing the network into several slices based on requirements and applications.

There are 3 types of applications or use cases offered in 5G.

Embb (Enhanced mobile broadband): - This Provide huge bandwidth on demand, high data use cases like UHD Video Streaming and Gaming.

 Mmtc (Massive Machine Type Communication): - Maximum no. of device and sensor connections, though high data rate not required here. IOT (Internet of things), sensors for air and water quality management, parking management are few examples.

 URLLC (Ultra Reliability and Low Latency Communication): - This require Fast and uninterrupted wireless connectivity as required in Autonomous (Self driving) cars.

5G provides considerable higher data rate, faster response time and smaller energy consumption and its applications which based on real time communication which not happened before in any of the previous mobile network Generations.

5G will fix another standard for throughput, latency, capacity and real time data communication.