5G Technology Components: Spectrum (1/5)

In our last post "5G Technology Components", we had discussed about the 5G Technology Components. This blog series will cover the main changes brought in the Spectrum aspect and how it helps 5G deliver high speed data throughput.

5G radio is designed for flexible spectrum utilization to take advantage of all available spectrum options from 400MHz to 90 GHz including licensed, shared access and unlicensed, Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD) bands, and narrowband and wideband allocations. 

Following are the Spectrum options which 5G can utilize, along with the use cases it will be used to serve.

• Millimeter wave spectrum above 20 GHz can provide bandwidth even above 1 GHz, which allows a very high data rate up to 20 Gbps and extreme mobile broadband capacity. Millimeter waves are mainly suited for local usage like mass events, outdoor and indoor hotspots and fixed wireless use case.

• Spectrum at 2.5–5.0 GHz will be used for 5G coverage and capacity in urban areas by reusing the existing base station sites.The spectrum around 3.5 GHz is attractive for 5G because it is available globally, and the amount of spectrum is high. The bandwidth is typically up to 100MHz per operator at that frequency. 5G coverage at 3.5 GHz can be comparable to LTE1800 coverage if massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) beamforming is used. 

• Low FDD bands are needed for wide area rural coverage, ultra-high reliability, and deep indoor penetration. Extensive coverage is important for the new uses cases like IoT and critical communication.

In the next blog, we will discuss about the changes related to Bandwidth and how it helps 5G in delivering high data rates.