Global stocks sank Wednesday after US President Donald Trump said he was not satisfied with talks that are aimed at averting a trade war with China. Equities were also dented by poor eurozone economic data, and as Trump cast doubt on a planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “Trump (is) continuing to drive uncertainty over global trade,” said analyst Joshua Mahony at trading firm IG. “European markets are following their Asian counterparts lower, as a pessimistic tone from Trump is compounded by downbeat economic data,” he added. Markets had surged Monday after US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said they had agreed to pull back from imposing threatened tariffs on billions of dollars of goods, and continue talks on a variety of trade issues. However, Trump has declared that he was “not satisfied” with the status of the talks, fuelling worries that the world’s top two economies could still slug out an economically pain...
What is 5G?
While 5G isn't expected until 2020, an increasing number of companies are investing now to prepare for the new mobile wireless standard. We explore 5G, how it works and its impact on future wireless systems. (See also: A timeline of UK 5G development).
5G simply stands for fifth generation and refers to the next and newest mobile wireless standard based on the IEEE 802.11ac standard of broadband technology, although a formal standard for 5G is yet to be set.
According to the Next Generation Mobile Network's 5G white paper, 5G connections must be based on 'user experience, system performance, enhanced services, business models and management & operations'.
And according to the Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (GSMA) to qualify for a 5G a connection should meet most of these eight criteria:
- One to 10Gbps connections to end points in the field
- One millisecond end-to-end round trip delay
- 1000x bandwidth per unit area
- 10 to 100x number of connected devices
- (Perception of) 99.999 percent availability
- (Perception of) 100 percent coverage
- 90 percent reduction in network energy usage
- Up to ten-year battery life for low power, machine-type devices
Previous generations like 3G were a breakthrough in communications. 3G receives a signal from the nearest phone tower and is used for phone calls, messaging and data.
4G works the same as 3G but with a faster internet connection and a lower latency (the time between cause and effect).
4G claims to be around five times faster than existing 3G services and theoretically, it can provide download speeds of up to 100Mbps.
Hubert Da Costa, Vice President, EMEA at Cradlepoint said: "5G Wi-Fi connections are set to be about three times faster than 4G, starting with 450Mbps in single-stream, 900 Mbps (dual- stream) and 1.3G bps (three-stream). So, whilst we are already starting to see a huge growth in IoT and smart devices, 5G's speed and capacity will enable an even more rapid arrival of this connected future."
Advantages of 5G
Like all the previous generations, 5G will be significantly faster than its predecessor 4G.
This should allow for higher productivity across all capable devices with a theoretical download speed of 10,000 Mbps.
"Current 4G mobile standards have the potential to provide 100s of Mbps. 5G offers to take that into multi-gigabits per second, giving rise to the ‘Gigabit Smartphone’ and hopefully a slew of innovative services and applications that truly need the type of connectivity that only 5G can offer," says Paul Gainham, senior director, SP Marketing EMEA at Juniper Networks.
Plus, with greater bandwidth comes faster download speeds and the ability to run more complex mobile internet apps.
Disadvantages of 5G
However, 5G will cost more to implement and while the newest mobile phones will probably have it integrated, other handsets could be deemed out of date.
A reliable, wireless internet connection can depend on the number of devices connected to one channel. With the addition of 5G to the wireless spectrum, this could put us at risk of overcrowding the frequency range.
The problems with 4G and even 3G aren't exactly filling us with the hope of an immediate super fast connection.
For a long time (and still even now) certain handsets and areas of the UK don't support or can access 4G connections, so the rollout for 5G is likely to be very patchy.
The future of 5G
As 5G is still in development, it is not yet open for use by anyone. However, lots of companies have started creating 5G products and field testing them.
Notable advancements in 5G technologies have come from Nokia, Qualcomm, Samsung, Ericsson and BT, with growing numbers of companies forming 5G partnerships and pledging money to continue to research into 5G and its application.
Qualcomm and Samsung have focused their 5G efforts on hardware, with Qualcomm creating a 5G modem and Samsung producing a 5G enabled home router.
Both Nokia and Ericcson have created 5G platforms aimed at mobile carriers rather than consumers. Ericsson created the first 5G platform earlier this year that claims to provide the first 5G radio system. Ericsson began 5G testing in 2015.
Who is investing in 5G?
Both Nokia and Ericcson have created 5G platforms aimed at mobile carriers rather than consumers. Ericsson created the first 5G platform earlier last year that claims to provide the first 5G radio system, although it has begun 5G testing in 2015.
Similarly, in early 2017, Nokia launched "5G First", a platform aiming to provide end-to-end 5G support for mobile carriers.
Looking closer to home, the City of London turned on its district-wide public Wi-Fi network in October 2017, consisting of 400 small cell transmitters. The City plans to run 5G trials on it.
Chancellor Philip Hammond revealed in the Budget 2017 that the government will pledge £16 million to create a 5G hub. However, given the rollout of 4G, it's unknown what rate 5G will advance at.
Likewise, Newport in Wales is set to house a technology hub to support robotics, 5G and driverless cars. The hub was granted £38 million to make compound semiconductors which underpin this technology.
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