• A so-called “D10″ club of democratic partners, including G7 countries – UK, US, Italy, Germany, France, Japan and Canada – plus Australia, South Korea and India will aim to create alternative suppliers of 5G equipment and other technologies to avoid relying on China.
• Britain has labelled Huawei a “high-risk” vendor and therefore its involvement in the UK’s 5G upgrade comes with a 35% market cap, including a ban on its participation in the sensitive “core” of the network.
• The review into Huawei, launched last week by the UK”s National Cyber Security Centre, followed the announcement of US sanctions to block the sale of American chips to the company.
• UK security officials fear that the ban will prompt China to use cheaper, less secure technologies, instead of verified US versions.

What is 5G Network?

5G is the 5th generation of mobile networks, a significant evolution of todays 4G LTE networks.  5G has been designed to meet the very large growth in data and connectivity of today’s modern society, the internet of things with billions of connected devices, and tomorrow’s innovations. 5G will initially operate in conjunction with existing 4G networks before evolving to fully standalone networks in subsequent releases and coverage expansions

Facilities that might be seen with 5G technology includes far better levels of connectivity and coverage. The main focus of 5G will be on world-Wireless World Wide Web (WWWW). It is a complete wireless communication with no limitations. The main features of 5G are :

• It is highly supportable to WWWW (wireless World Wide Web) High speed, high capacity

5G will provide the speed, low latency and connectivity to enable a new generation of applications, services and business opportunities that have not been seen before.

 

What Is Millimeter Wave?

Millimeter waves, also known as extremely high frequency (EHF), is a band of radio frequencies that is well suited for 5G networks. Compared to the frequencies below 5 GHz previously used by mobile devices, millimeter wave technology allows transmission on frequencies between 30 GHz and 300 GHz. These frequencies are called millimeter waves because they have wavelengths between 1 mm and 10 mm, while the wavelengths of the radio waves currently used by smartphones are mostly several dozen centimeters.

So far, only radar systems and satellites use millimeter waves.

The use of millimeter waves has one major drawback. Millimeter waves are not capable of penetrating structures and other obstacles. Even leaves or rain can absorb these signals. This is also why 5G networks will have to adopt the small base station method to enhance traditional cell tower infrastructure.

Because millimeter waves have high frequencies and short wavelengths, the antennas used to receive them can be smaller, allowing for the construction of small base stations

Advantages of 5G:

There are three major categories of use case for 5G:

1. Massive machine to machine communications – also called the Internet of Things (IoT).This  involves connecting billions of devices without human intervention.   This has the potential to revolutionise modern industrial processes and applications including agriculture, manufacturing and business communications.
2. Ultra-reliable low latency communications –Ultra-low latency: “Latency” refers to the time it takes one device to send a packet of data to another device. In 4G, the latency rate is around 50 milliseconds, but 5G will reduce that to about one millisecond. This will be very much important for industrial applications and driverless cars.Latency is the feature of 5G that many believe will actually drive a lot of the innovation. Latency is the lag time that happens when you click on a link or fire a gun in a mobile game and the phone pings the network and receives a response:
3. Enhanced mobile broadband – providing significantly faster data speeds and greater capacity keeping the world connected.  New applications will include fixed wireless internet access for homes, outdoor broadcast applications without the need for broadcast vans, and greater connectivity for people on the move.

 

Drawbacks:Experts are of the opinion that 5G would cause a massive increase in Electromagnetic radiation as it is in the higher frequency bands as compared to networks used today(30GHz-300GHz) and should be thoroughly studied before put into practice.It also will require a lot more number of Antennas to be used and substantially increase exposure to RF-EMF(Radio Frequency Electromagnetic Fields).

Microwave and Millimeter wave radiation in environment will rise and cause collapse of insect populations, bees,butterflies,and other pollinators.Possible effects on Human health may include damage to the eyes includinding cataract,retinal damage,etc,Skin Damage, Immune system and metabolic disruptions, etc.

Wiretaps or worse-An untrusted vendor could skim data that travels over another country’s 5G network, either to degrade services dependent on the data or to access confidential information. Speaking about Chinese companies, Strayer said that they “could be ordered to undermine network security — to steal personal information or intellectual property, conduct espionage, disrupt critical services or conduct cyberattacks.”

The first generation (1G) mobile wireless communication network was analog used for voice calls only. The second generation (2G) is a digital technology and supports text messaging. The third generation (3G) mobile technology provided higher data transmission rate, increased capacity and provide multimedia support. The fourth generation (4G) integrates 3G with fixed internet to support wireless mobile internet, which is an evolution to mobile technology and it overcome the limitations of 3G. It also increases the bandwidth and reduces the cost of resources. . 5G stands for 5th Generation Mobile technology and is going to be a new revolution in mobile market which has changed the means to use cell phones within very high bandwidth.

Important Topics Prelims 2020