Despite some hand wringing over the “5G business case,” the payoff is about as prosaic as could possibly exist. Each mobile network generation relies on a fixed allocation of spectrum. Though smaller cells help with frequency reuse, which boosts total available capacity, there still are limits.
If mobile customer accounts increase every year, and the amount of data each customer consumes also increases every year, by as much as 40 percent per year, any platform will eventually run out of capacity.
Each successive mobile next-generation network is required, in large part, simply to accommodate the increased data demand, which in turn requires additional spectrum.
Reducing cell size helps. Better radios help. But, in the end, the only way to increase bandwidth enough to keep up with annual demand increases of 40 percent is to add more spectrum.
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