Joe Barrett
GSA Weekly Spectrum Group Blog.
To meet all foreseeable requirements of the new and advanced capabilities of enhanced mobile broadband system and internet of things (IoT), a number of technical requirements have to be addressed for; ultra-reliable services, resilience, very low latency, all while supporting ultra-high speed data communications. The 5G systems will take advantage from the integration of evolved LTE radio access technologies and the new radio (NR) air interface, creating a coherent end-to-end system able to address the above mentioned requirements.
These new wide-ranging technical requirements will have a significant impact on the need for future spectrum resources in order to provide sufficient bandwidth for the numerous use cases that are anticipated today, and future use cases that are as yet unknown. Possible new spectrum resources for 5G will have to be assessed within the frequency range from 450 MHz to 86 GHz. Frequencies bands above 86 GHz are foreseen in the future for radio based backhauling systems to support 5G access systems. Therefore, 5G systems will need to take advantage of the very different physical characteristics of the frequency bands in this wide range of spectrum in order to address the diverse requirements associated with the various services and applications; from the need for extended coverage for narrow bandwidth applications in the lower end of the spectrum range due to the good RF propagation aspects, to the extremely wide bandwidths potentially available at the higher end of the spectrum range for high delivering high capacity. The combination of these RF bands will assist in delivering the aformentioned 5G requirements.
For the pioneering work of seeking spectrum for 5G systems, it is generally believed that the RF channel bandwidths for enhanced mobile broadband systems in bands around 3 GHz should be of the order of hundred, or hundreds of megahertz. The need for bandwidths will progressively increase to about one gigahertz for carrier frequencies of up to about 43 GHz. The use of carrier frequencies above 43 GHz, are foreseen to cater for RF channel bandwidths of several gigahertz.
_______
The GSA Spectrum Group blog is updated 3 to 4 times per month so please check weekly for the latest update.