5G without the hype

[Tweed]

https://commsbrief.com/5g-new-radio-what-is-5g-nr-technology-and-how-does-it-work/

I’ve just found this website. Useful if you want a rundown on what 5G is
without pollution from marketing speak. Lots of links to other interesting
bits of mobile technology.

[Clive Page]

Well thanks, but firstly it's two and a half years old now, and secondly just a bit acronym-heavy. For example this sentence is near the start:

"5G stands for the fifth generation of mobile networks and is enabled by the OFDMA-based New Radio (NR) technology."

with no explanation of OFDMA or of New Radio (NR) technology come to that.

I'm of the generation which thought that New Radio was when the galena crystal was replaced by a semiconductor diode. I think the Wikipedia 5g article is a bit easier to understand, all in all, but YMMV.

--
Clive Page

[Tweed]

Type OFDMA into the search box on that web page and it will bring up a
suitable article.

[Martin Brown]

He does have a valid point. Any article purporting to explain a new
technology should damn well define its acronyms *BEFORE* using them.

Otherwise it is about as much use as acronym soup word salad.
TLA's, ETLA's and SETLA's writ large.

(it is left as an exercise for the reader to discern the above)


--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[notya...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, 24 December 2022 at 17:01:05 UTC, Tweed wrote:
> Clive Page <use...@page2.eu> wrote:
> > On 24/12/2022 15:42, Tweed wrote:
> >> https://commsbrief.com/5g-new-radio-what-is-5g-nr-technology-and-how-does-it-work/
> >>
> >> I’ve just found this website. Useful if you want a rundown on what 5G is
> >> without pollution from marketing speak. Lots of links to other interesting
> >> bits of mobile technology.
> >
> > Well thanks, but firstly it's two and a half years old now, and secondly
> > just a bit acronym-heavy. For example this sentence is near the start:
> >
> > "5G stands for the fifth generation of mobile networks and is enabled by
> > the OFDMA-based New Radio (NR) technology."
> >
> > with no explanation of OFDMA or of New Radio (NR) technology come to that.

The main advantage of 5G is greater spectral efficiency - about twice as much aggregate data / number of simultaneous calls as 4G. The result is less congestion in busy areas - transport interchanges, sports / entertainment venues.

Promised was mmWave, which runs at much higher frequencies (up to ~30GHz), but whilst there is some implementation in the USA, no phones sold in the UK [yet] support it, although it is rumoured the Samsung Galaxy S23 may support it.

> >
> > I'm of the generation which thought that New Radio was when the galena
> > crystal was replaced by a semiconductor diode.

When I was eleven, I made a crystal set using a small germanium diode. It worked fine, and could get Radio Luxembourg in Scotland at night. Soon after I found a small galena crystal whilst walking in the Ochil Hills and replaced the diode with the crystal. Depending on where you poked wires into it one could get up to half the sensitivity of using a commercial diode, but did show that you probably could make a radio pretty much from scratch with household materials.

> > I think the Wikipedia 5g
> > article is a bit easier to understand, all in all, but YMMV.
> >
> Type OFDMA into the search box on that web page and it will bring up a
> suitable article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequency-division_multiple_access

[Davey]

That is similar to a recent Red Button /Technology item that said it
would explain the terminology of bitcoin, blockchain, and other words
in the same idiom. Only it stopped there instead of explaining
anything. When I complained to the BBC, they replied that occasionally
items slipped in that were intended for a different platform. Oops.
--
Davey.