5G, the next generation of telecommunications has been marred by conspiracy in recent months. Various myths have circulated for about a year now about how 5G is harmful, but the scandal climaxed when a baseless accusation emerged that the 5G towers cause Coronavirus in early April. By May, 77 towers had been set on fire by vandals as a direct response to this conspiracy.
There is zero evidence to suggest 5G towers – or the 5G signals – cause Coronavirus.
The name, 5G, refers to it being the fifth generation of telecommunications – the way phones interact with each other.
1G phones were analogue cell phones, first made available in the 1980s. 2G introduced SMS text messages and voicemail capabilities. 3G phones began appearing in 2001, their telecommunication networks supported internet access and increased data transfer rates. 4G expanded the broadband capabilities, allowing more advanced internet usage such as video calling and streaming.
Each new generation has roughly come out at the beginning of each decade since the 1980s.
5G promises higher internet speeds and larger bandwidths. Whilst this sounds like quite a muted upgrade compared to 3G and 4G, it has some exciting potential.
Modern mobile telecommunications use cell towers. These act as ‘transceivers’, they transmit and receive information from any nearby mobile phones in the form of radio waves. They have an maximum range of 35km, but are usually spaced around 1km apart in urban areas.
Radio waves are a form of electromagnetic radiation with a low frequency.
5G is different from 4G because it uses higher frequency radio waves. Higher frequency waves can carry more information and have higher bandwidth however, they are less penetrating and have a smaller range. Because of this, 5G has been split into 3 subcategories, low, medium and high-band. Each band requires different infrastructure and is appropriate for different environments.
Low-band 5G uses 600MHz-700MHz, a similar frequency range to that used by 4G. It provides slightly higher speeds than current technology and as the band with the most range, is appropriate for large rural areas.
Medium-band 5G uses higher frequencies than the low band – around 2.5GHz-3.7GHz. This would provide speeds up to 30 times higher than current 4G capabilities. It has a smaller range but is planned to be deployed in denser, urban areas to reach the highest possible number of devices. Most current 5G installations are medium band, EE is rolling it out in 80 cities and large towns in the UK.
High-band 5G use so-called ‘millimetre waves’, waves with a wavelength of approximately a millimetre. This high frequency radiation can’t penetrate through walls very well and has limited range. However, it can provide extremely high internet speeds, with the US company, Verizon, achieving speeds of over 1 Gbit per second. This is comparable to some home ethernet connections. Verizon promises that one day it may offer peak data rates of up to 10 Gbps.
To produce millimetre waves, telecommunications companies use small cells. In contrast to cell towers, small cells are the size of a laptop and have a range of around 500 meters. Initially they will be deployed in very densely populated places, like stadiums. Over time, the plan is to implement them on a larger scale across cities, providing billions of devices with ultrafast internet.
With millimetre waves offering such high speeds, there is speculation that it could replace home broadband. Instead of connecting multiple houses to fibre optic cables, 5G could provide easy-access internet with less installation and infrastructure required.
The main appeal of 5G is a more connected world. If the promises of a wide-scale deployment come to fruition, it could change our lives dramatically.
In industry, so called ‘smart factories’ will boom. Millions of connected robots will be able to collaborate flawlessly in every step of production with minimal human involvement. It will accelerate the current transition – being taken by most manufacturing companies – to automation.
‘Telesurgery’, where doctors perform surgery or other medical procedures from far away, using remote controlled equipment, may become a reality using the ultrafast connection.
The possibilities will become clearer as 5G becomes more widely used. We may have only scratched the surface of what’s possible. One thing is for certain though, it will change the way we live forever.