What is 5 G mobile telephony technology?
There have been three significant new generations of mobile technology: 2G replaced analogue with digital; 3G began the switch to data-centric networking, and 4G completed that move. 5G continues with high bandwidth mobile networking. Furthermore, 5G provides mobile high and low bandwidth connectivity to the Internet of Things (IoT) and low latency for very high-performance industrial control systems.5G New Radio (NR) provides seamless connectivity in three frequency areas both licensed and unlicensed (Frequency allocation examples from EU):
- Low bandwidth in 600/700 MHz
- Middle bandwidth in 3.1 – 4.2 GHz
- High bandwidth in 26/28 GHz and later in 38 GHz areas.
5G NR uses OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) multiplexing that combines multiple subchannels within a channel (as LTE and Wi-Fi) and is both robust against interference and efficient in its use of frequencies. The distributed MIMO (multiple-in multiple-out) antenna uses a spatial channel technique that increases bandwidth for multiple devices in the same area. Unlike the LTE, 5G radios minimise the control traffic and always-on signals.
The migration from LTE is slow since the 5 G will require new infrastructure. Therefore the Return-of-Investment becomes a major constraint to the introduction of new services. The 5 G will eventually fulfil the following requirements:
- Peak data rate: Peak data rates can hit 20Gbps downlink and 10Gbps uplink per mobile base station.
- Real-world speeds: User download speeds of 100Mbps and upload speeds of 50Mbps.
- Latency: 4 milliseconds in ideal circumstances, and at 1 millisecond with 10-9 to 10-5 Block Error Rate for Ultra Reliable Low- Latency Communications (URLLC).
- Efficiency: Energy efficient when in use. Drop into a low-energy mode when not in use. Ideally, a radio should be able to switch into a low-energy state within 10 milliseconds when no longer in use.
- Spectral efficiency: improved spectral efficiency over LTE, coming in at 30bits/Hz downlink, and 15 bits/Hz uplink.
- Mobility: With 5G, base stations should support movement from 0 to 310 mph. This means the base station should work across a range of antenna movements — even on a high-speed train.
- Connection density: 5G should be able to support 1 million connected devices (most of them IoT) per square kilometre.
The 5G provides only the last wireless part of the connection. The NR base stations need to be connected to the 5G core through fiberoptic cables and routers (Juniper, for example, delivers 4Tbps per card slot). Computing infrastructure needs to be on edge also, which requires new kind of distributed cloud computing (HPE server with Intel Xeon, Nvidia GPU, 1,5TB memory and 16TB storage).
The 5G base station structure will introduce smaller antennas in slimmer boxes (in each lamp post over the road, apartment routers, etc.) but also large antennas high in towers (low bandwidth in lower frequencies).
How 5G may Affect Society and Business?
In the beginning, the 5G operators may focus on:- 5G fixed wireless broadband services deliver internet access to homes and businesses without a wired connection to the premises. Network operators deploy base stations in small cell sites near buildings to beam a signal to a receiver on a rooftop or a windowsill that is amplified within the premises. Fixed broadband services are expected to make it less expensive for operators to deliver broadband services to homes and businesses because this approach eliminates the need to roll out fibre optic lines to every residence.
- 5G cellular services that provide user access to operators' 5G cellular networks. These services will begin to be rolled out in 2019 when the first 5G-enabled mobile phones will be available.
At home and in personal mobile telephony, the change may be the following:
- Television feeds are provided through 5 G so terrestrial, and satellite broadcasting may vanish
- Fixed home Internet accesses may be replaced by the personal mobile access
- Online cloud gaming will introduce more Virtual and Augmented Reality features in a social context
- The home will have a plethora of IoT devices connected and providing a continuous feed of data (besides the platform operator) to owner, maintainer, supplies provider and personal doctor.
- Any place a worker likes (home, café, train, car, tent in the wilderness) becomes a potential workplace.
In business and society, the change may be the following:
- Remote operations will become the norm in healthcare, manufacturing, shipping, trucking, maintenance, flying.
- Smart factories arrange the supply chain differently because of the fully connected value chain.
- Smart cities will rearrange their safety, traffic, infrastructure maintenance, electricity, water and drainage.
- Vehicles on smart roads will communicate with each other and make traffic safer and more efficient.
- Industrial Internet will accelerate the 4th Generation Industry to provide more agile and faster cyber-physical products.
- Any construction or system will have numbers of connected IoT devices to provide better data for operations, robotics and automation.
- Schools may give up the classroom centred education entirely.
What are the Opportunities for Military?
The military are usually late adopters of revolutionary technologies, but if they end up evolving faster with positive experiences from other parts of society, they may experience the following advantages:Force Generation (acquiring personnel and material, training, warehousing, mobilisation)
- Attaching IoT sensors to all items and persons, connecting them to data collection and analysing will give up-to-date information of readiness, life-cycle and improvements
- Creating AR and VR environments, connecting all units to train large troops and their Command and Control will save a massive amount of time and money
- Integrating simulated, wargamed and live-fire training through connected units provide versatile and faster improvement in practice.
- Keeping the reserves up to basic knowledge level becomes more cost-effective through connected AR and VR environments.
Force Support (Logistics, administration, HR, Finance, Facility management)
- Goodbye the office and HQ buildings and welcome digital workplaces with UHD video presence where ever you go
- Rid of your HR staff and replace them with connected IoT and self-service applications. No attendance recording, physical fitness status, or appraisal data problems.
- 4th Generation logistics will deliver supplies in JOT way with less loading/unloading and midlevel warehouses. You lose nothing because it is connected.
- No need for surgeons on the battlefield since they can do essential operations remotely.
- No reactive maintenance since wear and tear can be sensed and maintained predictively.
Force Utilisation (Operations)
- Video and immersion virtual reality-based information operations both affecting own forces and adversary’s moral.
- Know your own connected forces better than Sun Tsu ever dreamed possible.
- Commanders presence does not require physical presence.
- Remote-control everything that enemy cannot affect using EW or Cyber means.
What are the Security or Safety Concerns?
There are emerging concerns on the security of an increasing number of connected devices on a single technology. The 5G will provide better protection than LTE using the following features:- Network slicing means that 5 G operator may establish multiple independent virtual networks to separate users, devices and applications from each other. This will help in limiting the damages to one attacked domain.
- Virtual networks are equipped with Software Defined Networking and Network Functions Virtualisation and compliant with cloud computing security. This will help in creating flexible service domains.
- 5G network subscriptions will be protected by a network authentication application (NAA) within the device for network identification, authentication and encryption. Any secure tamper-resistant entity storing the NAAs must be capable of being audited and certified by a third party.
- Virtual Radio Access Networks separate the controlling of the 5 G infrastructure and user data from each other. It also makes it safer to run several commercial mobility services over the same 5 G infrastructure.
The safety issues of increased electromagnetic radiation have raised concerns among the population and scientist. There are two sources of added non-ionising radiation in mobile telecommunication:
- Mobile phones radiating 0,1-2 W: There are existing limits for mobile phones specific absorption rate (SAR) in US 1,6 W/kg and EU 2,0 W/kg. The energy is not enough to heat the skin or organ near the phone. The WHO has declared cell phones to Class 2B carcinogens like pickles, coffee, and aloe vera extract. Hands-free applications will take the phone further from users’ body and decrease the possible exposure.
- Base stations radiating 200 W: Lower frequency and more extensive base stations density radiate more effectively since the usage of massive MIMO beaming, 200 W power and higher frequencies than LTE. All base stations will comply with IEEE C95.1 standard for safety in frequencies between 100 kHz to 300 GHz. Persons working around base stations shall not be exposed to more than 50 Wm-2 power density. Any person in public shall not be exposed to more than 10 Wm-2.
