NYU says that 5G could be here soon

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Category: Hi-Tech

Created on Friday, 27 July 2012 02:48

Written by OrlandoAdvocate

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A new scientific project headed by New York University has received $2 million in funding to perform research in the 80 GHz radio spectrum, in an effort to learn more about 5G technology and how it can be used in wireless communications.

Overall, about $800,000 is coming from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the rest from commercial companies and from New York State as represented by Empire State Development.

The funding will be spent trying to get 80 GHz signals working over useful ranges and around obstacles with the intent of making the spectrum usable for 5G wireless in the mobile segment.

Those frequencies are well above what one would normally consider valuable spectrum. The really good frequencies are below 1 GHz which is why they're all full of radio and TV transmissions.

Working further up the dial needs new skills, and new research, with very few people understanding just how signals propagate in the Extremely High Frequency bands.

Back when radio started, the first few frequencies used were around 2 MHz, so anything below 0.3MHz is known as Low Frequency, while anything above 3 MHz is called High Frequency. When FM radio came along it needed even more space, so it sits around 88 MHz in the Very High Frequency band which stretches to 300 MHz.

TV, a relatively-late arrival, got slotted in around 600 MHz in the Ultra High Frequency which runs up to 3 GHz and thus covers existing mobile phones and WiFi connections.

Above that, we have Super High Frequency, which runs up to 30 GHz to cover the second wi-fi band (802.11a, at 5 GHz) and more-esoteric LTE deployments, and finally we have Extremely High Frequency where Wi-Gig is already having a hard time getting itself deployed and where the new team thinks that 5G could accomodate.

Beyond EHF is Tremendously High Frequency. That runs all the way up to infrared light which has already demonstrated its networking utility.

However, WiGig is still having functional issues at 60 GHz, not least because of the lack of engineers with experimental experience. Some radar engineers do know the band, but not well and there aren't enough of them to go around.

Given the inability of EHF signals to penetrate walls or travel more than a few meters, you might imagine the applications would be limited, but walls can often be walked around by picking up reflected signals, and the range can be increased by clever encoding and better antennas, which are the areas that NYU will be focusing on.

Radio frequencies might be limited, but the technology still moves at an astounding speed. A modern wi-fi access point isn't just processing radio signals, it could well be tracking the distance and direction of every connected mobile device, creating narrow beams of radio directed at your pocket as you walk across the office.

The 2.4 GHz band was given away as it was considered worthless, only to become the most-heavily used wireless spectrum on the planet.

The far end of that is still very empty and it will be interesting to see what the New York researchers can fill it with.