5G high, medium and low frequency bands are indispensable

For the vast majority of users, almost all of them are using mid-frequency band 5G networks. However, 5G networks also need low-frequency bands and high-frequency bands to solve problems such as coverage, capacity, and speed. High, medium, and low-frequency bands are indispensable in 5G networks.

Helps quickly cover low frequency bands

The most notable example of low-frequency 5G networks is the 5G network construction started by the US operator T-Mobile based on 600MHz in 2018. It was commercially available in 2019 and achieved 5G network coverage of 200 million people in 5,000 towns across the United States. As of October 2020, T-Mobile's 5G low-frequency network has covered 7,500 towns and 260 million people. The operator has always used its wide coverage as a highlight in its publicity.

At the same time, T-Mobile's 600MHz 5G network achieves better network speeds than LTE while maintaining lower energy consumption comparable to LTE, and has new 5G network features such as low latency, massive connections, and network slicing.

Domestically, China Radio and Television has been continuously promoting the maturity of the 5G 700MHz equipment industry chain since it obtained the 700MHz frequency band. China Radio and Television has also formulated the world's first 5G low-frequency band large bandwidth international standard. In March 2020, through the efforts of radio and television and industry partners, 3GPP officially included the 700MHz large bandwidth in the R16 standard. At present, China Radio and Television is the world's only 5G network operator with more than 2*30MHz spectrum resources. It has accumulated a lot of experience in 700MHz standard project establishment, technical verification, product testing and innovative business, and is ready for the official large-scale commercial use of 5G by radio and television.

On January 26 this year, China Mobile and China Broadcasting Corporation signed a "5G Strategy" cooperation agreement and officially launched the joint construction and sharing of the 700MHz 5G network. The two parties will give full play to their respective advantages in 5G technology, frequency, content, etc., adhere to the sharing of 5G network resources, the joint construction of 700 MHz network, and the integration and co-creation of business ecology, and jointly create a "network + content" ecology, and accelerate the coverage of 5G networks in an efficient and intensive way. The two parties will gradually build the 5G network with the widest coverage, the best performance and the best experience across the country.

Mid-frequency leads the best experience at the moment

The mid-band is the frequency band that operators around the world generally prioritize for deployment. According to statistics from OMDIA, as of the fourth quarter of 2020, there were 132 frequency bands deployed with 5G networks in the world, of which 105 were deployed on the mid-band of 1GHz to 6GHz, with 3.5GHz being the most popular frequency band. There are 18 low-bands and 9 high-band millimeter waves.

Stuart Cooke, Chairman of GSA Spectrum, said that 5G networks in the 1GHz to 6GHz frequency band can achieve a good balance in terms of capacity and coverage, which is very important in urban deployment, such as the 3.5GHz that is currently deployed the most. Because users in cities require both coverage and speed, OMDIA also showed in its consumer awareness survey on 5G that consumers value 5G speed the most. Coincidentally, the most criticized issue for T-Mobile's 600MHz frequency band 5G network by users was the speed issue. Its actual speed was generally only 20% faster than the 4G network, which could not meet people's expectations for 5G.

The deployment of mid-band can achieve a balance between speed and coverage in the early stages of 5G deployment. The large-scale deployment of 5G networks in China and their stable performance in speed are a good proof of this. At present, the 5G network deployment of most operators is concentrated in the mid-band, such as China Mobile's 2.6GHz and 4.9GHz, and China Unicom and China Telecom's 3.5GHz.

Compared with the limited bandwidth of the low-frequency band, the mid-frequency band can have a bandwidth of 100MHz, which guarantees the speed performance. Xu Weizhong, chief strategy officer of Huawei's wireless network product line, frankly stated that 5G requires continuous large bandwidth, and the domestic spectrum allocation is very good, which is also a very good foundation for the rapid development of 5G networks in China.

In addition, with the joint construction and sharing of China Unicom and China Telecom in the 5G network, it can have a large bandwidth capability of 200MHz and a peak rate of 3.2Gbps.

High-frequency millimeter waves are about to become a hot topic

However, even if the bandwidth of the intermediate frequency can reach 200MHz, it is still far behind the millimeter wave band that can reach 1000MHz. With the release of the latest Snapdragon X65, the peak rate of the millimeter wave network will reach 10Gbps, which can truly achieve the rate initially claimed by the 5G network. As mentioned above, consumers' biggest expectation for 5G networks is the rate, and the higher the rate, the better.

Stuart Cooke believes that the millimeter wave frequency band will become a hot spot in the future. Factories, stadiums, entertainment venues, airports, and train stations all need to deploy high-frequency bands. On the one hand, it can solve the network capacity problem of people in high-density areas, and on the other hand, the high-speed and low-latency network also makes it possible for some smart manufacturing needs in factories.

According to Chang Jiang, CTO of Nokia Shanghai Bell, the company has previously completed 100% coverage of the millimeter wave network at the U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, North America, which can accommodate 67,000 spectators and has an average rate of 1Gbps. This also proves that millimeter waves are very helpful for the coverage of sports stadiums and the support of users' high throughput and large data volumes.

Millimeter waves will also play a vital role in the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics. Yu Hong, director of the technical department of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics Organizing Committee, also said that the use of 5G millimeter waves can realize functions such as event playback at any time, real-time immersive display, and precise positioning of athletes.

In fact, the millimeter wave frequency band has become or will soon become the focus of future deployment of global operators. The United States, Europe, Japan and Southeast Asia have already begun to deploy millimeter waves, and South Korea, Australia, Latin America and India will also begin to deploy millimeter waves in 2021. With the 2022 Winter Olympics approaching, China is also expected to usher in the official commercial use of millimeter wave networks in 2022.