A reasonable way to describe where 5G will add functionality, compared to 4G, is use cases that require much less bandwidth, or much more. Many point to virutal reality and 4K TV as applications that might fit the “much more bandwidth” use case. That might not be especially true.
Though virtual reality devices are likely to create network load exceeding that of 4K entertainment video devices by about 2021, according to Juniper Research, the load is not really excessive for advanced 4G networks.
If one assumes 4K media streaming requires something on the order of 5 Mbps, while VR could range from 1.4 Mbps to more than 6 Mbps per stream, the network load is not overwhelming, for an LTE network with 20-MHz channels and the ability to bond a couple such channels.
Standards bodies talk about “enhanced mobile broadband” as one of three key categories of use cases for 5G. But it is not so clear that VR or augmented reality or even 4K are good examples of such use cases, as 4G should be able to handle them.
Many say enhanced mobile broadband is among the key 5G drivers because that is the way standards bodies such as the International Telecommunications Union describe the 5G use cases, which always cited include 1) enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), 2) ultra-reliable and low latency communications (uRLLC) for critical machine communications, and; 3) massive machine-to-machine (M2M) communications.
And though bandwidth is but one of the key 5G dimensions (latency is the other key enabler of new use cases), bandwidth advances will be significant. What is less clear at the moment is the demand for higher speeds, and whether any of those new use cases really require 5G.
Only one of the three major buckets of use cases ITU talks about are about “speed.” Perhaps the more-important use cases will come from M2M apps, which generally will require narrowband capabilities, or some low-latency apps where it is the latency, not bandwidth, that is key.
The point is that it is not yet clear what consumer apps will really drive 5G adoption by human users.
That is not to understate the advantage of speeds in the range of 600 Mbps up to 20 Gbps. But as Ericsson notes, relatively few sites will require bandwidth of 10 Gbps to 20 Gbps.
Ericsson estimates that 80 percent of sites will requires 300 Mbps by about 2021, and possibly 600 Mbps by about 2025. Perhaps 20 percent of sites will require a gigabit by about 2021 and perhaps 3 Gbps to 5 Gbps by 2025.
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