LitePoint’s Director of Product Marketing Adam Smith and VIAVI Solutions’ Director of Marketing Kashif Hussain agree that mid-band spectrum, the 2.5 to less than sub-6 GHz space, is the spectrum sweet spot and that making effective use of it is critical to successfully deploying and scaling 5G. “Spectrum is the number one thing that differentiates 5G rollout from country to country,” Smith stated. “There are some countries that have been very aggressive at opening spectrum for 5G.”
Do understand what #5G actually is? Watch this on-demand discussion between two members of Corning’s Advanced Technology Team, Art King and Shirish Nagaraj, as they dig deeper into 5G, its capabilities, and what they think it will take to get us there!
Nokia has declared more than 3,000 patent families to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) as essential for the 5G standard, reflecting its continuing leadership and strong momentum in cellular technology R&D and standardization.
Nokia said it recorded speeds four times above the market’s current standard of 400 Gbit/s over fiber, transmitting at 1.52 Terabits per second (Tbit/s) over 80 km of standard single mode fiber — the equivalent of simultaneously streaming 1.5 million YouTube videos – which is four times the market’s current state-of-the-art of approximately 400 Gigabits per second.
Wi-Fi 6 is the next-generation wireless standard. It’s faster than previous versions but more than just speed, it provides better performance in high-traffic areas, such as schools, large offices, factories, shopping malls, airports, and stadiums. The technology allows more Wi-Fi devices on a single network, where access points can communicate with more devices at once. Access points can send data to multiple devices in the same broadcast, and Wi-Fi devices can schedule check-ins with the access point. Together with 5G, Wi-Fi 6 helps build a more connected, intelligent network with uninterrupted connectivity.
5G networks bring many new technologies and challenges to wired and wireless networks. Now multiple standards organizations require 5G mobile networks to deliver traffic-based Quality of Service (QoS), which is key to operators recovering the large costs of 5G upgrades, because data traffic is the most profitable part of their business.
To help network operators stay ahead of bandwidth needs driven by 5G, AI and hyperscale data centers, Corning has announced a series of smaller, denser additions to its portfolio of long-haul fiber and cable innovations, including the world’s first smaller-form-factor submarine and terrestrial long-haul fibers in a 200-micron diameter.
As data center engineers and ICT professionals brace for the demands of new technologies such as 5G, edge computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and the continuing growth of software-defined networking (SDN) across the enterprise landscape, they need to prepare data center infrastructure and cabling to support these initiatives while ensuring scalability and flexibility.
Because of all the new requirements (e.g,. low latency, more bandwidth), new technologies (e.g. eCPRI) and new line rates (i.e. 10G, 25G) that 5G is imposing on the network, new testing practices must follow suit. Where bad splices or bad connections occurred in the past, 4G networks were quick to forgive, but 5G networks definitely won’t. So, unless thorough 5G testing practices are strictly followed, failure rates on new 5G deployments will increase.
5G has arrived – but 4G is still king: 4G was the world’s dominant mobile technology last year, supporting more than half (52 per cent) of global connections. Despite the emergence of 5G, 4G will continue to grow over the coming years, increasing to account for 56 per cent of connections by 2025.
