This article is from netease Cloud community.


Author: Ren Changchang

What’s the difference between 5G and 4G?

In fact, 5G is just the evolution of 4G communication technology, which is based on the mathematical formula of light speed = wavelength * frequency. Why do you say so?

First everyone used WIFI, WIFI is depend on the spread of electromagnetic wave, electromagnetic wave and resources are limited, one of the most intuitive phenomenon is we use a router to distribute WIFI at home, but the farther across the worse signal, signal-to-noise ratio, the worse, more and more slow, followed by some company banned private WIFI hotspot, This is because the number of bandwidth channels for transmitting signals in different frequency bands is limited. Different WIFI hotspots occupy the same channel, which will cause network congestion and possibly cause the WIFI network breakdown of the whole company.

Let’s look at a picture.

The red part is the electromagnetic wave band commonly used by us. As we all know, 5G is faster than 4G, because 5G has a higher frequency band. Generally, the international test frequency band is 28GHz, and the higher the frequency band, the more available channels, and the faster the speed.

If so, why didn’t 5G come out earlier and wait until now, and why did it take such a long time to develop? This relates to the formula above, under the condition that the speed of light remains constant, the higher the frequency, the shorter the wavelength. So what does the size of this wavelength really matter to us?

You’ve all learned calculus and heard that a circle can be made up of countless straight lines, so the shorter the wavelength, the straight line. The biggest disadvantage of straight line propagation is that it is easy to be blocked. In the same case, a wall causes much more attenuation of 5G signal than 4G signal, so this is the biggest disadvantage.

In order to solve this problem, scientists have come up with a lot of practical solutions, such as the macro construction of base stations, antenna arrays, beam forming, etc., but also need the support of hardware and other equipment, so the research and development cost is high, which is why 5G is so slow to come out.

5G is really here

The coming of 5G is bound to bring convenience to our life, and all technologies that rely on the network are bound to be innovated again.

1. Mobile Web applications are often teased for their poor experience under the condition of poor Internet speed. It is worth discussing whether they will replace native applications if the network is no longer restricted in the future, but it is bound to be a trend, especially after Apple’s compatibility with Google’s PWA.

2. The high latency of the Internet of Things will be greatly reduced, and the Internet of Everything may also come earlier.

3. Massive data will inevitably rely on cloud services, which will be more directly reflected in our lives.

4. P2p networks will develop further, and it is possible to transfer data packets directly between mobile phones.


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