So Bert is all hung up about the so called 5G fixed wireless broadband that
AT&T and Verizon are testing. Never mind that the 5G cellular standards will
not be published for 2-3 years. To Bert, is is clear that this stuff is NOT
REALLY 5G.
He’s right!
These trials could easily be conducted using off the shelf directional antennas
and existing Wi-Fi routers, especially those that support the newest 802.11n
and 802.11ac standards that operate in the millimeter wave frequencies (2.4 and
5 GHz).
Here’s a company that offers such antennas and related gear. In some cases it
is possible to set up Wi-Fi links at distances of up to FIVE MILES.
https://www.radiolabs.com/products/wireless/directional-wireless-antenna.php
The Wi-FI standards do not currently support Gigabit speeds, topping out at
about 300 Mbps. But there are plenty of levers to adjust to achieve higher data
rates as we saw in the example of the Samsung trial. We can use slightly higher
power levels, higher frequency and/or wider bands, or multiple links to
increase the data rate.
This is not rocket science...or even military comms science. The massive
investments in wireless networking technologies over the past two decades have
provided the commercial building blocks needed to create optimized solutions
across a wide range of usage scenarios.
5G is just one class of such usage scenarios, which in reality are still in the
early phases of standardization. This does not prevent the telcos from
deploying “non-standard” technologies where the application does not require
such standards. Such is the case for fixed wireless, where it is relatively
easy to control the technology used at both ends of the data link.
Regards
Craig
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