Each mobile generation has brought with it an order of magnitude (10 times) increase in data bandwidth. And even if theoretical top speeds are not universally available, the point is that speeds now are fast enough to support nearly every consumer or business user conceivable app or use case.
As latency improves, there will be few, if any, enterprise apps that cannot be supported by 5G. Assuming mobile operators can get costs in line, the real possibility exists to displace a high amount of cabled network access using fixed or even mobile wireless.
It is hard to underestimate the changes in spectrum availability (data capacity) to be made available in the 5G era, including new millimeter wave spectrum (both licensed and unlicensed), spectrum sharing, use of small cells, new radios and modulation schemes. Consider that, in the U.S. market, mobile operators can use 716 MHz of spectrum, total.
But the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is working to release 11 GHz of millimeter wave spectrum, with the possibility of commercializing up to 13 GHz to 14 GHz worth of new additional millimeter wave capacity, for about 24 GHz of new physical capacity.
In other words, mobile capacity (spectrum) could increase as much as 30 times. Multiplying the use of that spectrum using small cells could mean actual capacity increases of perhaps two orders of magnitude (100 times).
The point is that, in the 5G era, mobile network cost per bit will approach fixed network cost per bit, opening the possibility of full mobile or wireless substitution for fixed internet access.
And that will make full mobile or wireless substitution for the cabled network feasible, at scale, for the the first time.
No comments:
Post a Comment