Does 5G already Exist? | Everyday Science

Does 5g already exist? The answer is Yes, 5G exists and it is revolutionary, but it is still not that popular.

The 5G technology is already a reality in many countries of the world, however, in many countries, the deployment is still in the testing phase.

5G Network Countries

Countries such as South Korea, the United Kingdom, China, Spain, Germany, France, Switzerland, and the United States already have fifth-generation technology networks (5G) for commercial purposes, and most manufacturers of smartphones mobile devices have already put them on the market phones capable of supporting fifth-generation technology.

Manufacturers such as Samsung, Qualcomm, Apple, Intel, Ericsson, Huawei, or Nokia are also betting heavily on developing new and better products with 5G technology.

Uses of 5G Technology

• 5G technology can be used to connect smart cities
• Offer data transfers at more than 1 Gbps
• Use it to offer high-speed WiFi
• Perform medical operations remotely and with total precision, thanks to its 1-millisecond latency and much more.

Also read: Advantages of 5g Technology

Two important things to understand about 5G technology

There are essentially 2 types of 5G networks. The first and most common is the NSA (Non-Stand-Alone), which is the most widespread technology today, and represents approximately 90% of all 5G connections in the world. On the other hand, we have SA (Stand-Alone), and it is the one that in the long term will replace the entire 5G NSA infrastructure.

What is the fundamental difference between the NSA and SA networks? That the NSA networks work on the current 4G or LTE infrastructure, while the SA networks we can say that are totally new and completely 5G, so they do not offer 4G coverage.

Two other very important concepts to understand are Sub-6 and mmWave. Well, sometimes it might seem that one and the other are married to a type of 5G network, that is, that the Sub-6 is for NSA networks and the mmWave for SA networks, but the reality is that it is not so.

Both the Sub-6 and the mmWave are present in 5G NSA and SA networks, so what is the difference? The Sub-6 has this name because it will be used for frequencies below 6 GHz, while the mmWave will be used for frequencies above 24 GHz.

This latest 5G technology will be the one that reaches the impressive speeds of more than 1 Gbps, and that will also have a latency of 1 ms, while the Sub-6 will be much faster than the 4.5G or 4G + networks, but will not reach the speeds Gbps of the mmWave.

However, the Sub-6 has the ability to offer greater coverage and be able to pass various types of walls and ceilings, since the mmWave has much more limited coverage since after 1 km the signal is lost.

Smart cities will have to make use of the mmWave, therefore, to have cars connected to the network, traffic lights, and everything necessary, many 5G base stations will need to be installed with this technology, and all this will be achieved when the deployment of SA networks is much more advanced.

Originally published at https://everydayscience.blog on May 5, 2021.