5G

Introduction

5G is a fifth generation mobile communications standard where data transfer rates of up to 10 Gbit/s are possible.

Compared to the 4G standard LTE 5G supports the following features

• Data rates of up to 10 Gbit/s
• Use of higher frequency ranges
• Latency from below 1 ms
• 100-times speed compared to LTE

South Korea was the first country to launch a nationwide 5G network on 2019-04-03.

The frequency spectrum used is divided into two bands

• sub-6GHz-Band, also called Frequency Range 1 (FR1) with 450 MHz to 6 GHz
• mmWave-Band, also called Frequency Range 2 (FR2) with 24250 MHz to 52600 MHz

For a long range coverage only long-wave and therefore low frequencies are suitable. The unused 700 MHz range would therefore be suitable for 5G expansion outside of the big cities. In the LTE expansion, the 800 MHz range was used. Here, the range coverage is at the expense of the bandwidth. At short-wave and thus high frequencies the range decreases. Thus, they offer more bandwidth and therefore data transfer rate. Extremely fast 5G networks with up to 10 GBit are only possible with channel bandwidths from 100 MHz. Currently, bands in the range from 24-86 GHz are considered. But this would be radio cells with only a few hundred meters diameter.

As with LTE also the 5G bands are numbered consecutively and not each cellphone offers all the following.

FR 1

FR 2

NSA & SA

The current 5G network still depends heavily on LTE. The expansion from 5G Non-Standalone (NSA) to 5G Standalone (SA) takes place primarily via software. 5G NSA typically operates 5G and 4G radio access with a 4G core, since the network operators do not use new hardware when introducing it. They will successively upgrade to 5G SA with 5G core.

Operators

In Germany Telekom, Vodafone, Telefónica and United Internet have auctioned 5G licenses. The launch took place

• 07/2019 Vodafone
• 09/2019 Telekom
• 10/2020 Telefónica
• 12/2023 United Internet

Overview

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