5G will be fully rolled out in 2020. Are 5G network and 5G frequency band the same thing?

After the 5G trial commercialization in 2018 and the official release of the 5G operating license in 2019, 5G will be fully rolled out in 2020. 5G stands for the fifth generation of mobile communication technology, and 5G network and 5G frequency band are completely different things in the concept of 5G. It can be said that 5G frequency band is the basic resource of 5G communication, and 5G network is the application basis of 5G communication.

5G frequency band

5G is a wireless communication technology, and all wireless communication technologies are inseparable from electromagnetic waves, which involves the division of the electromagnetic wave spectrum range for various wireless communication applications. The 5G frequency band refers to the corresponding electromagnetic wave spectrum range. Without the frequency band, wireless communication is out of the question.

The following is the 5G frequency band division of my country's three major telecommunications companies:

• China Mobile: Obtained 5G trial frequency resources in the 2515MHz-2675MHz and 4800MHz-4900MHz bands, of which the 2515-2575MHz, 2635-2675MHz and 4800-4900MHz bands are newly added bands, and the 2575-2635MHz band is a re-cultivation of China Mobile's existing TD-LTE (4G) band.
• China Telecom: Obtained 5G experimental frequency resources with a total bandwidth of 100MHz from 3400MHz to 3500MHz.
• China Unicom: Obtained 5G trial frequency resources with a total bandwidth of 100MHz from 3500MHz to 3600MHz.

5G Network

5G network is also called 5G mobile network. Like the earlier 2G, 3G and 4G mobile networks, 5G network is also a digital cellular network. Only when communication base stations are used as base points to form a network, various mobile terminals, such as mobile phones, can receive radio signals in the 5G frequency band when moving in this network.

In this type of network, the service area covered by the provider is divided into many small geographical areas called cells. The analog signals representing sound and images are digitized in the mobile phone, converted by an analog-to-digital converter and transmitted as a bit stream.

All 5G wireless devices in a cell communicate via radio waves with local antenna arrays and low-power automated transceivers (transmitters and receivers) in the cell. The transceivers allocate channels from a common frequency pool, which are reused in geographically separated cells. The local antennas connect to the telephone network and the internet via high-bandwidth fiber or wireless backhaul connections. As with existing cell phones, when users traverse from one cell to another, their mobile devices will automatically "switch" to the antenna in the new cell.

5G network has the following characteristics:

• The peak rate needs to reach the Gbit/s standard to meet the transmission of large amounts of data such as high-definition video and virtual reality.
• The air interface latency level needs to be around 1ms to meet the needs of real-time applications such as autonomous driving and telemedicine.
• Ultra-large network capacity provides connection capabilities for hundreds of billions of devices and meets the communication needs of the Internet of Things.
• The spectrum efficiency is more than 10 times higher than that of LTE.
• With continuous wide-area coverage and high mobility, the user experience rate reaches 100Mbit/s.
• Traffic density and connection density have been greatly improved.
• The system's collaboration and intelligence levels have been improved, which is reflected in the collaborative networking of multiple users, multiple points, multiple antennas, and multiple sources, as well as flexible and automatic adjustments between networks.

The above characteristics of 5G networks are also the key that distinguishes 5G from previous generations of mobile communications, and are also the result of the gradual shift of mobile communications from technology-centered to user-centered.