Millimeter Wave Opens New Opportunities for 5G Networks
5G Americas white paper details deployment status, opportunities, and challenges of mmWave spectrum
Millimeter wave or “mmWave” is short wavelength spectrum between 24GHz and 100GHz, which has the capacity to deliver gigabit wireless services in areas with very high customer demand for data. 5G Americas, the wireless industry trade association and voice of 5G and LTE for the Americas, today announced the publication of a white paper Understanding Millimeter Wave Spectrum for 5G Networks, highlighting the primary elements crucial to the development and deployment of 5G mmWave mobile communications.
One of the main attractions of mmWave is its large bandwidth, allowing operators to meet the growing demand for high speed data for typical deployment scenarios, cities, stadiums, malls, enterprise campuses or factories, and other places where data congestion is a problem. Other benefits of mmWave include ultra-reliable low-latency applications and backhaul to cell sites.
Chris Pearson, President of 5G Americas said, “The mobile wireless industry requires low, mid and high band spectrum for 5G to reach its full potential. MmWave technology is important to the progress of 5G networks, granting faster data speeds and much higher capacity compared to 4G LTE.”
While most 5G networks have so far been deployed in a variety of spectrum bands, including below 1 GHz and between 1 and 6 GHz, 5G New Radio (NR) is the first mobile technology generation to make use of the mmWave spectrum. This spectrum is generally best suited for short range transmissions and can provide a variety of benefits, from coverage extension at the edge of the network, to capacity enhancement, to backhaul.
This 5G Americas white paper covers the following topics, with lead authors from Intel Corporation and Qualcomm:
- Status update of mmWave spectrum globally and in the US
- Regulatory underpinnings of mmWave spectrum on 5G
- A detailed analysis of the mmWave channel
- Several use cases for mmWave
- Discussion of the technologies that allow mmWave to work.
- Operational aspects of mmWave.
- mmWave link budget and its performance characteristics.
Said Lola Awoniyi-Oteri, engineer, principal, of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., “Once considered impossible to use for mobile wireless communications, mmWave now is an opportunity to utilize massive amounts of spectrum for extreme capacity, high throughput and ultra low latency for services on devices beyond just smartphones and laptops.”
The paper Understanding Millimeter Wave Spectrum for 5G Networks is available for free download on the 5G Americas website. Blog post by Chris Pearson, and presentation slides are also featured on the 5G Americas website.
