5G: More Perspective In The Acronym Jungle!

Although up until a few years ago people lived completely without flexible data volume, today mobile end devices without mobile Internet access are unimaginable. In order to be able to use mobile data volume on smartphones, tablets, laptops etc., different mobile radio technologies and mobile radio standards are now used, for example GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, LTE and 5G. In the following article you can find out what the various mobile phone acronyms mean, where exactly the differences are and which mobile phone standard seems to be the current one.

Portable use of the Internet has become an integral part of our current day-to-day business. Whether answering business e-mails, processing customer inquiries or organizing appointments: Thanks to the increasing spread of time-independent and location-independent working methods, increased use of dynamic end devices and the variety of innovative office and productivity mobile apps, it now seems commonplace in a number of companies to use mobiles while on the go to act online.

But mobile Internet is by no means simply mobile data volume!

Because depending on the service provider, area and contribution, the portable data is transmitted via different mobile phone networks, which are based on different mobile phone technologies and mobile phone standards – plus they are therefore differentiated by different speed levels.

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What is 5G?

5G is currently the latest cellular standard for cellular networks. It is dubbed the fifth generation of mobile communications technology. Like its predecessors Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and Long Term Evolution / (Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE/ LTE+), 5G was further developed and standardized by the standardization organization 3rd Generation Partnership, 3GPP for short.

The goal of the new mobile communications standard is to surpass its competencies as well as the goals of its predecessor LTE (4G) and to set innovative standards in terms of data speed, latency period, device density, availability, energy efficiency, durability and data security. This means that the new mobile communications standard goes well beyond digital telephony and fast mobile Internet. On the one hand, this is seen as a response to the global increase in data traffic, which is being driven by the Internet of Things, a number of streaming services, and big data. On the other hand, it sets the direction for the mobile gigabyte world.

How does 5G differ from its predecessors!

Compared to our predecessor standards LTE (4G) and UMTS (3G), the new mobile communications technology offers high data rates of ten gigabits per second and latency times of less than one millisecond. This makes real-time communication between people, devices, machines and things possible for the first time. To extend the range, 5G supports a significantly larger spectrum and for the first time new technologies are incorporated such as:

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing, OFDM for short: OFDM is a modulation technique that works very flexibly and enables the combination of several variable carrier frequencies with different bandwidths plus intervals.
Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output, MIMO for short: MIMO is about the process that allows data transmission via parallel connections through the clever use of many transmitting and receiving antennas and stands for a higher data throughput.
Beamforming: With beamforming, transmission power is collected and optimized in certain spatial directions. This allows signals to be emitted in a targeted manner in the direction of the end device that is ready for use.
Small Cells: Small Cells compress existing antenna locations when there is a particularly high demand in order to increase network capacity and reliably avoid network overloads at major events or in train stations, airports and city centers.
Network slicing: With network slicing, the mobile phone network is divided into application-specific levels depending on requirements, with the aim of operating several virtual sub-networks in parallel. The subdivision makes it possible to provide exactly the resources that various uses require.

What are the advantages of 5G?

The advantages of 5G compared to LTE are obvious.

For companies:

Data rates up to 10 Gbit per second
Latency times below 5 milliseconds
Consistency up to 99.999%
An optimized machine-to-machine interaction, or M2M for short, to automate production
Improved linking and control of production, systems, warehouses and logistics
The interaction of the systems in real time, almost M2M
An optimized robot and machine control
Guaranteed network availability via private campus networks, i.e. closed 5G networks for a local company site
Intelligent maintenance
Digitally remote-controlled operating theaters

Compared to LTE, consumers benefit from:

A faster, high-speed mobile network for interaction and multimedia uses such as mobile games, streaming, 4K video
Optimized network coverage and network stability
Innovative usage scenarios in everyday life such as augmented reality in real time
Lower radiation disposition due to a number of small smart cells instead of a larger transmitter
Even better mobile telephony in the future through Vo5G (Voice over 5G)

The ancestral gallery of mobile communications

Retrospectively, a fresh, decisive generation of mobile communications is developed and introduced every decade or so. It all started in the 1980s with the first generation of mobile communications. This was still the analogue cable network, with which one could only speak on the telephone. In the early 1990s, the very first digital cell phone network was developed using a GSM standard. In addition to telephony, mobile data transmission could now also be implemented using the mobile radio standard.

However, this took an extremely long time, which is why GSM was first expanded with the mobile radio standard GPRS and then with Edge, which was able to transfer data faster. In 2000, the third mobile generation was introduced with the corresponding UMTS standard. With the new mobile communications standard, it was finally possible to be mobile online. With the introduction of LTE Advanced in the 4th edition, the innovations of the 3G network were improved again and it was possible to transfer even more data. The fifth generation of mobile communications, on the other hand, is no longer just an evolution of the previous mobile communications standards. Due to high data rates, short latency times and a higher frequency spectrum, it is an important driving force for the coming digitization.

The course for the gigabit society has been set!

With this rapid development and spread of mobile phones, tablet PCs and laptops, portable data communication has become increasingly important. Every previous generation of mobile communications has enabled new applications that have enriched and changed life.

With 5G, a mobile communications standard is now here that provides important technical requirements for the digitization of our society. But just because 5G seems to be the most modern mobile communications standard right now doesn’t mean that work isn’t already being done on the new technologies.