Soon, the days when 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) speeds are considered the fastest wireless mobile connections will be history. 5G is the future, and several service providers and electronics companies are already conducting tests using this new connection protocol. One of them is Qualcomm, the leading manufacturer of mobile phone processors.
While most tests and calculations regarding 5G are theoretical in nature, Qualcomm managed to simulate 5G connection in "real-world" circumstances. Most theoretical tests offer ideal conditions, but the company's simulations hope to reveal how 5G actually performs in less-than-ideal conditions, as is found in real life situations.
Qualcomm's tests were conducted in two locations: Frankfurt and San Francisco. Both revealed very impressive speeds that may well render 4G LTE obsolete.
Simulations in Frankfurt were called the "basic" network, as it uses 100 megahertz (MHz) of 3.5 gigahertz (GHz) spectrum with an LTE network on 5 spectrum bands. 4G LTE speeds were first measured at 56 megabits per second (Mbps) and with the jump to 5G, the speed went up to 490 Mbps. This is more or less a 900 percent increase, which makes 5G a technology to really look forward to.
The San Francisco simulation proved that 5G can even break the 1,000 Mbps mark. Granted, the San Francisco setup is more sophisticated, but the speed improvements were impressive nonetheless. This network is modeled with 800 MHz of 28 GHz mmWave spectrum, on top of a network of four licensed LTE bands. It also has License Assisted Access (LAA) bands.
Using this protocol, the 4G connection was measured at 71 Mbps. It jumped to 1.4 gigabits per second (Gbps) when shifted to 5G.
While 5G seems to be the inevitable direction mobile connection is going, it does not mean that 4G is going away immediately. It has been reported that 5G will be built on top of existing 4G networks first. Only later will standalone 5G networks be feasible, when the technology advancement is more sufficient and the economic implications more practical.
