It is a truism in the connectivity business that no single network or medium is “best” for every application. Inevitably, that applies to 5G as well. Not all important use cases require the ultra-low latency performance or ultra-high bandwidth performance 5G supports.
So, perhaps also inevitably, the 5G standard is being developed to specifically support devices and use cases that can operate quite well in a latency relaxed and bandwidth limited way. The new specs also allow creation of lower-cost, lower energy consumption and more-compact devices. Internet of things sensors, wearables and video surveillance devices are cases in point.
Though the 5G standard allows latency in the radio link in low single digit milliseconds, industrial wireless sensors often can work quite well with end-to-end latency up to 100 milliseconds. Such sensors also require bit rates less than 2 Mbps and are stationary. Battery life is important, however, so device battery life should last at least few years.
Useful video surveillance device bit rates be 2 Mbps to 4 Mbps, with latency of up to 500 ms. High-end video cameras used in some use cases such as farming require 7.5 Mbps to 25 Mbps.
Wearable bit rates can range from 5 Mbps to 50 Mbps downstream and and 2 Mbps to 5Mbps in the upstream, though peak bit rates could range up to 150 Mbps for the downlink and up to 50 Mbps for the uplink. Battery performance can range from days to a week or two weeks.
So a reduced capacity mode is being developed for 5G devices. For those of you who have followed the development of bandwidth performance, it might be mildly amusing to see 150 Mbps described as “reduced capacity.” Of course, that is in relation to the permissible bandwidth of a 5G network using mid-band or millimeter wave spectrum.
No comments:
Post a Comment