What You Should Know About 5G

It Is Confusing

The four major carriers in the US now offer some version of 5G wireless. These four have released 5G in three flavors – low-band, mid-band, and high-band. These are incompatible and perform differently from each other. And, the most widespread version of 5G isn’t much faster than 4G. So why the fuss? Think of 5G as a long-term investment that will bear fruit over the next decade.

The Bands

The low, middle, and high bands give carriers more airwave options than 4G. The three bands also provide very different 5G experiences. The low band operates below 1GHz, and these frequencies are the oldest cellular and TV frequencies. They travel far but aren’t very wide, and most channels are used for 4G. So this 5G is slow and acts like 4G. Mid-band 5G operates in the 1 – 10GHz range that covers most cellular and Wi-Fi frequencies. Their range is up to half a mile and usually carries the most 5G traffic. Rural networks are likely to get a mix of low and mid-band 5G. High-band 5G or millimeter-wave, or mmWave, is the latest in 5G technology and operates in the 20 – 100HGz range. The range is very short, about 800m from the tower, but the speeds are very fast. To use this band, carriers will have to install many small, low-power base stations to provide coverage to a wide area.

How It Works

Like any cellular network, 5G uses a system of cell sites that divide an area into sectors and sends encoded data through radio waves. Each cell site has to be connected to a network through a wired or wireless backhaul connection. When it uses the same airwaves as 4G, it gets 30% better speeds thanks to more efficient encoding. Most 4G channels are 20MHz, and each channel is bonded together up to 160MHz at a time. A 5G channel can be up to 100Mhz and bonded up to 800Mhz at a time. Think of each channel as a highway lane. So the 5G highway is much wider than 4G, has less traffic, and higher speed limits. That’s why we hear that 5G offers crazy gigabit speeds.