The All New Fastest 5G Network - All You Need To Know

 

Source- Daily Sabah

Fifth-generation cellular technology (5G) is the next great leap in the speed of wireless devices. The rate and speed at which mobile users can download data to their devices through a 5G network will increase. Through this, the latency or lag they experience between both sending and receiving information is very high. 5G aims to provide data rates 10 to 100 times faster than the current 4G networks. Users are aiming to see download speeds on the order of gigabytes per second (Gb/Sec). This is much faster than 4G speeds of ten megabits per second (MB/s).

 

Use of 5G Network

The 5G network is important because it will enable new apps that aren't possible today, said Harish Krishnaswamy, associate professor of electrical engineering at New York's Columbia University. For one example, a 5G network can download a movie to a phone or tablet in seconds at a gigabit per second. Those kinds of data rates could power a virtual reality app or autonomous driving cars.

 

5G Rollout

Technologies that interact with and evolve with the consumer environment, such as augmented reality or self-driving cars, also require very low latency without requiring high data rates. For that reason, the goal of 5-G is to achieve latencies below the 1-millisecond mark. Mobile devices can send and receive information in under a thousand per second. This information is immediately visible to the user. The rollout of 5G will require new technology and infrastructure to achieve this speed.

 

New Network

Everything from the first generation of mobile phones to wireless networks operates on the same radio-frequency bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. These radio-wave highways are becoming congested with cellular traffic as more users use the network and demand more data than ever before. To compensate for this, cellular providers want to increase the frequencies of millimetre waves.

 

Frequency Level

Millimetre waves use frequencies from 30 to 300 GHz. These are 10 to 100 times stronger than the radio waves now used for 4G and WiFi networks. Since radio waves are on the order of centimetres, their wavelengths vary between 1 and 10 millimetres, so they are called millimetres.

 

Cell Towers for Communication

The high saturation of millimetre waves can create new lanes on the communication road. But even this has a problem in that millimetre waves are easily absorbed by foliage and buildings, and these, called small cells, require very close base stations. Fortunately, these stations are much smaller and require less energy than traditional cell towers. These can easily be placed on top of buildings and light poles.

Ionizing Radiation

Ionizing radiation is the reason we wear sunscreen outside. That's because short-wavelength ultraviolet light from the sky has enough energy to knock electrons out of atoms. This causes damage to skin cells and DNA. Millimetre waves on the other hand are not ionizing because they have longer wavelengths and do not have enough energy to directly damage cells.

 

Non-Ionizing Radiation

Foster says the only danger of non-ionizing radiation is overheating. Foster, who has studied the health effects of radio waves for nearly 50 years, said. Radiofrequency (RF) energy can be really dangerous at high exposure levels. Thus it can produce burns or other heat damage. But these exposures typically occur in occupational settings near high-powered radiofrequency transmitters or medical procedures.

Illnesses

There has been a lot of public outrage over the adoption of 5G echo concerns over previous generations of cellular technology. Sceptics believe that exposure to ionizing radiation can still cause a range of ailments, from brain tumours to chronic headaches. Over the years there have been thousands of studies investigating these concerns.

 

Conclusion

In 2018, the National Toxicology Program released a decade-long study. It found some evidence of increased brain and adrenal gland tumours in male rats exposed to RF radiation emitted by 2G and 3G cellphones. The animals have been exposed to radiation levels four times the maximum allowed for human exposure. 

Foster says many opponents cherry-pick studies that support their argument and often ignore the quality of experimental methods or the inconsistency of results. Foster acknowledges that more studies are needed on the health effects of 5G networks, although he disagrees with many of the conclusions that sceptics have about previous generations of cellular networks.

- Written by Kundena Nikhil