Mobile Phone Technology

A familiar question - why is 4G not good enough? 5G has 3 (potential) impovements over the 4G network namely more capacity, faster communications and lower latency. With some or all of these features many more applications become possible.

The ITU (International Telecommunications Union) defined three uses for 5G:

• Enhanced Mobile Broadband [EMB] this is what the consumer sees with their phone. 5G will provide a fast and competent network for mobile broadband.
• Massive Machine Type Communications [MMTC] away from the mobile customer this is the industrial customer who have sites that are controlled via sensors and actuators. This is Industrial level IoT.
• Ultra - reliable Low Latency Communications [URLLC] eeal Time Operations. The 5G network is capable to sending data over the 5G network so that the time the data arrives is both fast and with low latency.

Some Examples:

1. Video / TV Video on demand will become a better experience with little or no bufferring and no need to download the video on the home broadband prior to watching. The same will be true for live or on-demand TV.
2. IoT, Connected Homes, Health and Smart Cities. Adding smartness to our homes has grown over the past decade with smart alarms, security cameras, heating management as well as plugs, lights and switches. Plus the smart meters. All of which need mobile connections to connect remotely. Often these items work in isolation but with a bit of a redesign and more use of mobile communication smart home systems will develop.
   What about fitness and healthcare? Again remote monitoring of an individual for fitness or health reasons has major benefits for society and with a significant proportion of the population being monitored an better network is needed. Our health and fitness can be monitored 24/7 and whilst out and about
   Smart Cities are starting to be built with information systems, giving details of nearest parking spaces, public transport, as well as adverts potentially providing income to support these developments. Additionally control systems such as traffic management, visitor management, crowd control can be achieved with 5G.
3. Improved Broadband Much of the urban UK has improved broadband with fibre to the property. However in rural areas there has been less progress in updating the home and business broadband. Even with FTTP, the fibres only solve the static problem. Many people require broadband on the move be that walking, or travelling by car or train. The higher speed and greater capacity of 5G will enhance the mobile broadband experience of many allowing working on the move or indeed anywhere / anytime. A better mobile broadband can be used where the best static broadband is FTTC or worse. 5G speeds can easily out perform many of these older broadband solutions.
4. Real-time control What applications require real-time control in a mobile environment? Not driverless cars of Air Traffic Control (ass seen in an early 5G advert). This is definitely an area for development but really we have not as yet addressed this, many application work just as well over fibre broadband. But where there is no fibre broadband nearby, such as along our roads and rail, 5G may be the solution.
5. VR - Virtual Reality Virtual Reality can enhance a film experience, can make computer games all the more encompassing. They can add to the experience at sports or music venues with the ability to see things that are not in eyesight, or repeat the "good bits". For example at a football match the crowd only see a goal once, highlights could be sent to the crowd on their phone with perhaps VR glasses. What about VAR streamed as it happens? Cricket, being a slower paced game, could easily show virtual images showing wickets just as shown much later on the TV. A high capacity network would be required to achieve this and 5G wil be the solution.