2023 Author: Bryan Walter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 22:24
The International Telecommunication Union has published a draft of the IMT-2020 standard, also known as 5G (fifth generation mobile data networks). The document is available for review on the organization's website.
The technology of the fifth generation of data transmission in cellular networks has been under development over the past several years. Compared to the previous generation (4G), 5G networks must support faster data rates and more mobile devices to connect to a single cellular base station.
According to the published document, the IMT-2020 standard provides for one base station of a cellular network with a bandwidth of 20 gigabits per second for reception and 10 gigabits per second for transmission, and for user devices 100 megabits per second and 50 megabits per second, respectively. The actual data transfer rate for the end user will depend on the number of clients connected to one station, while the 5G network must support the connection of up to a million client devices over an area of one square kilometer.
In order to save energy, the 5G standard proposes the use of communication modules that are disabled during idle time. It is assumed that the changeover between the operating and energy saving modes should occur in 10 milliseconds. The signal delay in a 5G cellular network should be no more than 4 milliseconds.
It is expected that the final standard will be approved in 2017 and, most likely, will not undergo significant changes compared to the preliminary version. Once the standard is officially approved, the number of 5G devices will start to grow, and it can be assumed that some of the leading mobile device manufacturers will introduce new models with IMT-2020 support as early as the end of 2017.
Although 5G does not officially exist yet, consumer electronics manufacturers sometimes indicate support for the standard in device specifications for marketing purposes. For example, this is exactly what the Chinese ZTE did, which presented the world's first 5G smartphone at MWC 2017.
Earlier, the largest American mobile operator AT&T Mobility, from January 1, 2017, disconnected the first generation iPhone from the mobile network, turning off the 2G network. The digital designation of generations of mobile networks does not imply backward compatibility and each generation is an independent set of technologies, and the first generation iPhones do not support 3G, so smartphones will no longer work as a phone.
