This slideshow from American Tower provides a ton of data, and insights about
the cellular industry. It tracks the history of each standard and the
deployment stages.
In essence each new technology is deployed first to provide "coverage," then
later investment turns to capacity. There are some interesting slides about the
current trends in the industry involving spectrum sharing to improve capacity.
Beginning with slide 24 they get into the 5G story, with timelines on spectrum
availability, standardization, and availability of handsets and tower gear. One
interesting note is the effort required to start using MIMO with LTE, which
requires new antennas and cabling for each tower; this is a necessary precursor
to 5G deployment.
THen we get to several slides about 5G in the lower frequency bands, including
new deployments in the 600 MHz band. Turns out that to promote 5G coverage, the
lower frequencies are ideal - less data capacity, but much better coverage AND
the ability to penetrate buildings.
So there are really two 5G stories, one about distance/coverage, and the other
about micro deployments for capacity, INCLUDING fixed broadband.
ENJOY!
Regards
Craig
http://www.americantower.com/Assets/uploads/files/PDFs/investor-relations/2016/U.S.%20Technology%20Update%20and%205G%20Introduction.pdf
Attachment:
U.S. Technology Update and 5G Introduction.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document
