Millimeter Wave Characteristics Match Human Behavior

Though the unique value proposition of a mobile network is “communications anywhere,” as much as 80 percent of present mobile traffic (roughly corresponding to time of interaction or amount of usage) originates from an indoor location (home, office, other venue) rather than while “in transit” or “outdoors.” 

That is not too surprising, given the amount of time people spend indoors rather than in transit or outdoors, each day. Very little time--almost too little to measure--in a worker’s or student’s day is spent “in transit,” while some travel modes allow little active smartphone use. 

source: Statista

So most of any day actually is spent indoors. Given propagation characteristics of 5G spectrum resources, there is a match with human behavior. Most of the bandwidth demand and data consumption--especially entertainment video, multiplayer gaming, 3D, augmented reality or virtual reality--takes place indoors, when users are stationary, not mobile. 

That is well suited to millimeter wave spectrum that provides most of the touted 5G performance gains. Millimeter works “best” in densely-populated outdoor areas or indoors where most data consumption occurs. 

For coverage--when people are out and about--less-capacious mid-band or low-band spectrum should suffice, at least for the time being. Millimeter wave spectrum also matches potential new use cases. 

source: Qualcomm 

Many now believe enterprise use cases--especially those supporting the internet of things--will drive much of the incremental 5G revenue gains (for either service or infrastructure providers). 

source: Qualcomm 

At least in part, that expectation exists because most consumer 5G accounts will simply be substituted for an existing 4G account. While some incremental revenue upside is conceivable, the general pattern for consumer internet access is relatively stable revenue over time, with vastly-greater consumption allowances and speed for roughly the same price. 

It is in the internet of things and related areas that 5G could produce new use cases beyond the present revenue structure. In fact, millimeter wave propagation, which is thought to be a “bug,” actually becomes something of a “feature” in indoors settings, as signal propagation can mostly be confined within walls and partitions. That has benefits for security and design of networks for minimum signal interference (and hence higher useful bandwidth).