Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works, and I heart radio and I love
Speaker 1: of all things tech. And you've probably heard a little
Speaker 1: bit about five G technology as of late. Back in
Speaker 1: January two thousand nineteen, some of the buzz around five
Speaker 1: G was all about how computer manufacturers are starting to
Speaker 1: build in five G technology into the next generation of
Speaker 1: smartphones and laptops and other devices, and both A T
Speaker 1: and T and Verizon had marketing pushes already that mentioned
Speaker 1: five G in recent products and services, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that these technologies aren't actually fully five G. But we'll
Speaker 1: get to that. And then you had the President of
Speaker 1: the United States saying that the US companies should really
Speaker 1: be rolling out five G technology faster, and that we
Speaker 1: should already be looking into six G, which isn't even
Speaker 1: a thing. Heck, five G isn't really a thing yet,
Speaker 1: at least not practically. Wireless technology can be confusing on
Speaker 1: a good day, so I figured it's high time I
Speaker 1: tackled this subject. So, what the heck is five G
Speaker 1: and why does it matter. I'm going to try and
Speaker 1: cover a bit about how five G works as well,
Speaker 1: but it gets super complicated, so I'm gonna save that
Speaker 1: for the end, and I'm not going to get too
Speaker 1: technical because one it would require eight episodes, and two
Speaker 1: I don't fully understand all the ins and outs myself,
Speaker 1: so just being fully transparent there. Anyway, let's get the
Speaker 1: relatively easy part out of the way. First. Five G
Speaker 1: refers to the fifth generation of wireless standards. Now that
Speaker 1: by itself sounds pretty straightforward, but in reality, things get
Speaker 1: really messy when you start looking into details. While each
Speaker 1: G refers to a different generation, there were different standards
Speaker 1: within each generation, making it a bit more complicated, and
Speaker 1: generations would overlap one another. While we would be rolling
Speaker 1: out four G, you still had companies investing and improving
Speaker 1: three G. So this isn't very clear cut. It's not
Speaker 1: like you can just look at one span of years
Speaker 1: and say this represents two G and in the next
Speaker 1: band this represents three G. It's a little more wibbly
Speaker 1: wobbly timey whymy than that. But this is also easier
Speaker 1: to think about if I use an analogy, something that
Speaker 1: we're all familiar with. So I'm going to talk about computers.
Speaker 1: I'm going to arbitrarily divide up personal computers into different
Speaker 1: generations for the purposes of this example. But please keep
Speaker 1: in mind this is really just to illustrate a point,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to be skipping over a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: So I am going to say that in the first
Speaker 1: generation of mainstream personal computers, once you get out of
Speaker 1: the hobbyist level, we have the Apple two computers and
Speaker 1: the I b MPC computers. Now I'm ignoring all the
Speaker 1: other models out there, like the Common sixty four really
Speaker 1: in just to simplify things. So we're talking about Apple
Speaker 1: and IBM computers. So these two types of computers were
Speaker 1: in the first generation, but they each operated on their
Speaker 1: own chip sets and operating systems, so they were not
Speaker 1: compatible with each other. They're both first generation, but they're
Speaker 1: both proprietary in their own approach. In the second generation,
Speaker 1: we then have the Macintosh computer and the IBM Clone computers.
Speaker 1: Now these computers were more advanced than their predecessors, but
Speaker 1: still were incompatible with each other. Then in the third generation,
Speaker 1: you have Mac computers, so no longer just Macintosh. Now
Speaker 1: we call them Max and all the different Windows based machines,
Speaker 1: so each generation had more than one standard in it,
Speaker 1: and the same can be said for wireless technologies. I've
Speaker 1: covered the different generations of wireless tech and other episodes,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to give a cliffs notes version of
Speaker 1: what it was all about on this episode. So we
Speaker 1: could say that each generation is marked by two major features.
Speaker 1: First that each generation improved upon the data transfer rates
Speaker 1: of its preceding generation, and second that each generation changed
Speaker 1: the encoding methods for data, which not only enabled these
Speaker 1: improved data transfer rates, but also made each succeeding generation
Speaker 1: incompatible with the previous ones, meaning that if you had
Speaker 1: an old cellular phone or device with cellular wireless capabilities,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be able to take advantage of these newer
Speaker 1: wireless communications technologies. If you had a two G cell phone,
Speaker 1: you could not use the three G cell phone network. Typically,
Speaker 1: newer devices would have some compatibility with older standards, usually
Speaker 1: because it takes time to roll out these new systems,
Speaker 1: so you want to have built in backwards compatibility so
Speaker 1: that if you can't get access to the new network,
Speaker 1: you can at least still use the older network. This
Speaker 1: sometimes would even require the user to make the switch
Speaker 1: on uh the actual device they were using to go
Speaker 1: to an older wireless network. But even just saying that
Speaker 1: each generation is faster than the previous one isn't really accurate.
Speaker 1: I mentioned just a minute ago these generations can overlap.
Speaker 1: So when each generation first emerged out of the development
Speaker 1: phase into the deployment phase, so it's becoming a real
Speaker 1: world thing, it wasn't really capable of delivering its full
Speaker 1: potential right away. Nearly every generation saw improvements and data
Speaker 1: rates over time, and sometimes you're in a situation in
Speaker 1: which the network or your device can't manage the ideal
Speaker 1: transfer rates. So you've got a device that maybe runs
Speaker 1: on let's say the three G network, and you've got
Speaker 1: a three G network, but there could be other elements
Speaker 1: at play that mean you can't get the ideal speeds
Speaker 1: of the three G network even though you're using the
Speaker 1: proper technologies. I'll talk more about that in a second
Speaker 1: to actually we can cover it now. So I'm specifically
Speaker 1: thinking about situations like the one I would find myself
Speaker 1: in when I would attend c e S a few
Speaker 1: years ago, maybe a decade ago. So CEES the Consumer
Speaker 1: Electronics Show is heavily attended by people all using multiple
Speaker 1: devices that are tapping into the local mobile networks. So
Speaker 1: there are phones, their tablets, their computers. There's tons of interference.
Speaker 1: There's just there's a lot of trying to connect to
Speaker 1: the network at c E S And it doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter which carrier you have. The fact that there's so
Speaker 1: many people there and so many devices, all the carriers
Speaker 1: are hit with requests to tap into the networks at
Speaker 1: the same time, so it tends to over tax those networks.
Speaker 1: And even if your phone indicates that you have a
Speaker 1: strong signal, I can look at my phone it says, oh,
Speaker 1: I've got full bars of signal. I can easily connect
Speaker 1: to the network. You would end up with a terrible
Speaker 1: data transfer rate where you couldn't even send a text
Speaker 1: message out. There were times when I would switch my
Speaker 1: phone to an older wireless standard and pop onto a
Speaker 1: less congested network. Even though the top data transfer rate
Speaker 1: of the older generation was less impressive than the current generation,
Speaker 1: I would get better results due to the lack of traffic. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: this gets really messy. It's not so clear cut. Now,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the generations themselves and keep in mind
Speaker 1: Like I said, these generations had a lot of overlap.
Speaker 1: Some regions like Asia would roll out new generations faster
Speaker 1: than other parts of the world, like North America. So
Speaker 1: there's no hard and fast dates that we can use
Speaker 1: for this, because the deployment of each generation took a
Speaker 1: long time and didn't start everywhere all at the same time.
Speaker 1: Now you could argue that there is a U O
Speaker 1: G generation of wireless communications before we even get the
Speaker 1: one G. The zero G generation would include radio telephones.
Speaker 1: This is before there were cellular networks, before there were
Speaker 1: cell towers, so this is pure radio transmission. The following
Speaker 1: generations would move to cell tower technology and there would
Speaker 1: be this new technology that would allow a handoff or
Speaker 1: a handshake from one cell tower to another to allow
Speaker 1: a call to transfer from one tower to another tower
Speaker 1: without interrupting the actual call. The first generation of wireless
Speaker 1: communication standards only carried voice signals. There was no data
Speaker 1: beyond voice, and it included a lot of different standards
Speaker 1: like A MPs or AMPS in North America and in
Speaker 1: MT in Eastern Europe, or T A C S TAX
Speaker 1: in the UK, and several more UH and it was
Speaker 1: analog that was the analog generation of wireless community cation standards.
Speaker 1: The second generation, or two G, was able to carry
Speaker 1: not just voice, but data signals. This was the first
Speaker 1: digital way of carrying cell phone conversations. Also, this allowed
Speaker 1: for encryption. You could encrypt the signal. In the analog days,
Speaker 1: you could technically tap in and listen to people talking
Speaker 1: on wireless communications because it was unencrypted. That changed with
Speaker 1: two G. So this is our switch from analog to
Speaker 1: digital cellular phones, and it also introduced us to the
Speaker 1: era of text messaging that was suddenly possible with two G.
Speaker 1: And the standards in this generation included G S M C,
Speaker 1: d M A, and T d M A. Then, depending
Speaker 1: upon whom you ask, we get a bit of a cheat.
Speaker 1: This happens in between lots of the different generations. So
Speaker 1: there's some people who say there's a generation two point
Speaker 1: five G or enhanced two G. This was not a
Speaker 1: total departure from the two G standards and methods of operation,
Speaker 1: but it allowed for better data transfer rates. So G,
Speaker 1: p R S and EDGE would be considered two point
Speaker 1: five G technologies, at least by some people. Other people say, no,
Speaker 1: you don't split out two point five G. Those are
Speaker 1: all two G standards, so it should all belong in
Speaker 1: the same family, and because no one really agrees with this,
Speaker 1: it makes matters even more confusing than they already were.
Speaker 1: Then we get the three G that allowed enough data
Speaker 1: throughput for video signals to come through. I would argue
Speaker 1: the three G advances are what allowed truly useful applications
Speaker 1: of smartphone technology, although interestingly some companies like Apple took
Speaker 1: their time actually embracing three G. Standards included U T
Speaker 1: M S C D M A, two thousand H S
Speaker 1: P D A, and E V D O, and like
Speaker 1: two G, some people split that generation out to be
Speaker 1: three and three point five or even three three point
Speaker 1: five and three point seven five G. The real purpose
Speaker 1: of that, again is to single out advances that allowed
Speaker 1: for better data transfer rates. By the end of the
Speaker 1: three G development cycle, some standards could support data transfer
Speaker 1: rates of a few megabits per second, whereas the two
Speaker 1: G technologies maxed out at a couple of hundred kilobits
Speaker 1: per second. So I'll talk a little bit about what
Speaker 1: these data transfer rates mean in a second so that
Speaker 1: we get a better understanding of it. But essentially it
Speaker 1: meant that you could send more information in the same
Speaker 1: amount of time as older devices could do. Right now,
Speaker 1: the latest tech we can use belongs to four G,
Speaker 1: or you could argue four point five if you wanted to.
Speaker 1: This is the enhanced protocol. The standards would be Y
Speaker 1: MAX and Long Term Evolution or LTE. Now these days
Speaker 1: you'd be more likely to talk about LTE Advanced. To
Speaker 1: be a four G system, it first has to meet
Speaker 1: requirements that were established in the International Mobile Telecommunication Advanced
Speaker 1: Set of Standards. The International Telecommunication Union is a department
Speaker 1: in the United Nations and it's responsible for creating those standards.
Speaker 1: This technology is still scaling up today with data transfer
Speaker 1: rates and the hundreds of megabits per second in some
Speaker 1: of the implementations. Some of them are even hitting up
Speaker 1: to a gigabit per second at least in theory. Now, again,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean you're actually going to see data transfer
Speaker 1: rates at that level, even if you have a compatible
Speaker 1: device and service. But in general, if you do have
Speaker 1: those things, you'll be able to download or stream content
Speaker 1: more effectively than those of us who do not have
Speaker 1: access to those services and products. So what does this
Speaker 1: all mean for us? Well, it mostly boils down to
Speaker 1: two really big things per generation, where do our phones work?
Speaker 1: And how much data can we access per given unit
Speaker 1: of time. So back during the two G days, the
Speaker 1: United States was split between using the G s M standard,
Speaker 1: which was also used in Europe and Asia, or the
Speaker 1: c d M A standard, which was primarily just used
Speaker 1: in the United States. There were a couple of other
Speaker 1: places that also used it, but US was the primary
Speaker 1: uh place where you would find c d M A technology.
Speaker 1: So if you happen to have service with a T
Speaker 1: and T or T Mobile, you had a G s
Speaker 1: M phone which at least had the potential to work
Speaker 1: on European networks. That wasn't a guarantee, by the way.
Speaker 1: You actually had to have a special band of antenna
Speaker 1: and chip in your phone in order to be able
Speaker 1: to use European networks even if you had a G
Speaker 1: s M phone, but at least in theory it was
Speaker 1: compatible if you were on Verizon or Sprint in those days,
Speaker 1: and that meant you were using a c d M
Speaker 1: A phone, which was not compatible with Europe's systems at all.
Speaker 1: So you would have to get a different phone if
Speaker 1: you wanted to travel to Europe and and call somebody.
Speaker 1: Now that's just one example of one ACE where you
Speaker 1: had a standard that works in certain parts of the
Speaker 1: world and not in others. This is still true for
Speaker 1: a lot of different wireless communications technologies. All right, we've
Speaker 1: set the ground. We're gonna go into a little more
Speaker 1: detail about data transfer rates and talk about five G
Speaker 1: in just a moment. But first let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: More recent generations of wireless communications technologies generally provide better
Speaker 1: data transfer speeds, and we often refer to them as
Speaker 1: being faster, that the four G network is faster than
Speaker 1: the three G network, But really what we mean is
Speaker 1: that the more recent generations have a higher capacity to
Speaker 1: deliver information on our devices, because ultimately, all this information
Speaker 1: is traveling at the speed of light more or less,
Speaker 1: well less, you can't go more, so no transmission is
Speaker 1: really faster than any other. It's not like the signals
Speaker 1: of two G traveled more slowly than the signals of
Speaker 1: three G. They all travel at the same speed. It's
Speaker 1: just that the later generations were able to carry more
Speaker 1: data in that same amount of speed. So let's go
Speaker 1: with another analogy. I love using analogies to explain this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, and we're going to talk about cars.
Speaker 1: I think that makes it fairly clear. So in this analogy,
Speaker 1: let's say you've got a smart car and you've got
Speaker 1: a semitruck, and they're both on the same stretch of road,
Speaker 1: and the road's speed limit is thirty miles per hour.
Speaker 1: And for the sake of this example, we're going to
Speaker 1: assume both drivers are following that speed limit, which I
Speaker 1: admit is pretty low, but they're both following it. So
Speaker 1: in the world telecommunications, we don't have any choice but
Speaker 1: to follow the universal speed limit. You cannot go faster
Speaker 1: than light. But here we're just saying that the drivers
Speaker 1: will not go above the speed limits. So the smart
Speaker 1: car in the semi truck are moving at the same speed. However,
Speaker 1: you can fit a whole lot more stuff inside that
Speaker 1: semi truck than you could in the little smart car,
Speaker 1: So you can deliver a huge amount of material in
Speaker 1: one trip in the semi truck, and the smart car
Speaker 1: would have to take lots of trips to deliver the
Speaker 1: same amount of stuff. So, while both vehicles or protocols
Speaker 1: are going at the same speed, one can finish a
Speaker 1: given job faster than the other one because it can
Speaker 1: carry more. So in my description of c E S earlier,
Speaker 1: we could say that I actually jumped into a smart
Speaker 1: car because it could take advantage of a special smart
Speaker 1: car lane on the road and travel at the full
Speaker 1: blistering speed of thirty miles per hour. Meanwhile, the semi
Speaker 1: truck was stuck in the normal traffic lane, and that
Speaker 1: one was getting backed up because there were just too
Speaker 1: many people trying to get on that same road and
Speaker 1: it was making traffic slow down. But because I was
Speaker 1: in the less used older lane, I had switched from
Speaker 1: three G t two G. Let's say I could go
Speaker 1: pretty fast because there wasn't anyone in my way. That's
Speaker 1: one of the things that we talked about when we're
Speaker 1: looking at relying upon earlier generations of wireless communications technologies.
Speaker 1: The official name for the five G radio system is
Speaker 1: five G in R And as you may have guessed
Speaker 1: in our stands for new radio and this new radio
Speaker 1: standard will be incompatible with older standards. So if you
Speaker 1: had a pure five G device, one that was only
Speaker 1: connected to five G networks, the chip set, the antenna,
Speaker 1: all of it is just tuned to five G, you
Speaker 1: would probably have a pretty lousy experience. Initially because carriers
Speaker 1: would still be building out their networks. You would have
Speaker 1: very spotty coverage. In fact, you might even live someplace
Speaker 1: where you'd have no coverage whatsoever because don't live within
Speaker 1: range of a five G tower. You'd find that your
Speaker 1: device only works in a few locations with service, and
Speaker 1: for that reason, manufacturers are more likely to roll out
Speaker 1: five G phones, laptops, and other devices that also contain
Speaker 1: four G technology in them to avoid that problem, so
Speaker 1: that your device will rely on four G networks unless
Speaker 1: a five G network is available, in which case it
Speaker 1: will ramp up, it'll switch on over to five G,
Speaker 1: and otherwise they'll they'll lean very heavily on four G
Speaker 1: in places where five G is of limited availability or reliability.
Speaker 1: These types of networks, which continues to support these older
Speaker 1: standards while rolling out new ones, have a name. They're
Speaker 1: called n s A networks. Now in this case, the
Speaker 1: n essay does not refer to the spy agency in
Speaker 1: the United States that's looking at all electronic communications. Instead,
Speaker 1: it means non stand alone, meaning the network must pair
Speaker 1: one wireless technology with at least one other wireless technology. Eventually,
Speaker 1: as these networks become more robust, they can sunset the
Speaker 1: older wireless communications standards and become standalone or s A networks.
Speaker 1: We're starting to see this happen right now. In fact,
Speaker 1: some companies have already shut down their two G networks
Speaker 1: and sunset them. Those are no longer supported. Others are
Speaker 1: still supporting the two G networks but planned to shut
Speaker 1: them down in the near future. I believe T Mobile
Speaker 1: has extended operations until twenty twenty, but then is going
Speaker 1: to shut down it's two G network. For example, there
Speaker 1: are three main goals for five G technology. One is
Speaker 1: to have even greater data transfer rates, and like previous generations,
Speaker 1: will likely see a range of data transfer rates rollout
Speaker 1: in various networks. The actual experience will depend upon lots
Speaker 1: of different factors, such as the design of the network,
Speaker 1: the actual device or using the number of other devices
Speaker 1: that are on that network, the communications frequency that the
Speaker 1: network is relying upon and your device is relying upon,
Speaker 1: and so on. So it's really hard to give a
Speaker 1: solid number to what five G speeds will mean. That
Speaker 1: being said, let's at least get some ballpark figures in
Speaker 1: here or else it's no use whatsoever. In February two eighteen,
Speaker 1: at the Mobile World Congress, Qualcom released the results of
Speaker 1: some five G simulation tests it had conducted in an
Speaker 1: effort to see what we might expect from five G
Speaker 1: in the early early days in areas like Frankfurt or
Speaker 1: in San Francisco, California. The simulation took into account cell
Speaker 1: tower locations that are already in those cities and the
Speaker 1: frequency allocations that would be allowed in those cities. In
Speaker 1: other words, what parts of the radio spectrum would carriers
Speaker 1: be allowed to use. Because five G technology doesn't work
Speaker 1: across the entire radio spectrum. They're specific bands frequency bands
Speaker 1: that five G is focused on. And it also accounted
Speaker 1: for differences in connectivity strength and geography. So the simulation
Speaker 1: focused on what Qualcom considered to be a reasonable expectation
Speaker 1: of a five gene network rollout in the short term.
Speaker 1: So we're talking like they're saying, well, a year from now,
Speaker 1: assuming we roll these these uh systems out, here's what
Speaker 1: we could expect at the end of that year. So
Speaker 1: with all of that said, Qualcom found that the Frankfurt
Speaker 1: simulation saw an increase from fifty six megabits per second
Speaker 1: on a four G network to four hundred ninety megabits
Speaker 1: per second for five G, which is a big jump,
Speaker 1: but it's lagging behind some of the more advanced LTE
Speaker 1: four G systems that are deploying today in other parts
Speaker 1: of the world. So, in other words, we already have
Speaker 1: four G systems that deliver data at that rate or
Speaker 1: even higher. So you say, you could say, yes, the
Speaker 1: five G and Frankfort would be an improvement, but it's
Speaker 1: still lagging behind other four G tech. The San Francisco
Speaker 1: simulation saw browsing speed go from seventy one megabits per
Speaker 1: second on four G to one point four gigabits per
Speaker 1: second for five G, so it's on even greater increase
Speaker 1: on data transfer rates. In the simulation, median five G
Speaker 1: users could watch streaming video at eight K resolution running
Speaker 1: at one hundred twenty frames per second, which is pretty
Speaker 1: darn impressive. But just to get a bigger picture of everything.
Speaker 1: While all this is going on, while we're seeing this
Speaker 1: five G rollout happening, we're also seeing the four G
Speaker 1: networks continue to get enhancements. Qual Calm is rolling out
Speaker 1: the X twenty four modem, which is going to be
Speaker 1: in several smartphones in twenty nineteen. That is a four
Speaker 1: G technology, but it has the ability to support data
Speaker 1: transfer rates of up to two gigabits per second. Keep
Speaker 1: in mind, the simulation for five G maxed out at
Speaker 1: one point four gigabits per second, so this older four
Speaker 1: G technology would have an even better data transfer rate,
Speaker 1: at least in an ideal implementation. Now, in the real world,
Speaker 1: we're probably not going to see anyone actually experienced that
Speaker 1: kind of speed, but at least in theory, the devices
Speaker 1: could support them. This is another example of how the
Speaker 1: late phase for one generation of wireless communication can sometimes
Speaker 1: outperform the early phase of the succeeding generation. Now, over time,
Speaker 1: the five G system will leave four G in the dust.
Speaker 1: It's not uncommon to see predictions of data transfer rates
Speaker 1: hitting ten gigabits per second or faster, which is hard
Speaker 1: for me to imagine, but that's always the case early on,
Speaker 1: before these technologies become part of our daily lives. And besides,
Speaker 1: we might never actually see our own experience match that
Speaker 1: predicted result. But if we do, what would that mean. Well,
Speaker 1: at ten gigabits per second, you can download a full
Speaker 1: four K definition feature length film in about twenty five seconds.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about streaming. I'm talking about downloading Yawza.
Speaker 1: The second big feature of five G is a reduction
Speaker 1: in response time or reduction in latency. Latency refers to
Speaker 1: the lag you experience between when you activate something and
Speaker 1: when that's something actually happens. In video games, we would
Speaker 1: say something like the lag between pushing a jump button
Speaker 1: and having Mario actually jump is latency. In the equal
Speaker 1: Calm San Francisco simulation I mentioned earlier, the company observed
Speaker 1: a response time that was twenty three times faster than
Speaker 1: the median four G experience, which means latency would be
Speaker 1: reduced dramatically. That means five G could become the technology
Speaker 1: we rely upon for time critical applications. So, for example,
Speaker 1: autonomous cars that might rely at least in part on
Speaker 1: a networked system could run on five G. When the
Speaker 1: information you're requesting is needed to operate a vehicle that's
Speaker 1: driving at driving speed in traffic, latency is something you
Speaker 1: really have to eliminate as quickly as you possibly can. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't expect we're going to see driverless cars switch
Speaker 1: entirely to some sort of cloud based operating system where
Speaker 1: you have a centralized data center that's making all the
Speaker 1: decisions for all the cars that are on the road.
Speaker 1: But I do imagine the driverless cars of the future
Speaker 1: will balance on board systems that process information right there
Speaker 1: inside the car itself with support systems that live in
Speaker 1: the cloud. So we've got better data transfer rates and
Speaker 1: we've got faster response times. As the first two big
Speaker 1: features of five G. The third one is that the
Speaker 1: five G systems will be able to handle many more
Speaker 1: devices connected to an individual system at the same time,
Speaker 1: and this is absolutely necessary as the Internet of things
Speaker 1: trends shows no sign of slowing down. I'll explain more
Speaker 1: in just a second, but first let's take another quick break.
Speaker 1: It's pretty hard to get a reckoning on the number
Speaker 1: of devices that are connected to the Internet, but it's
Speaker 1: a lot. According to Statista, by the end of two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen, there were twenty three point fourteen billion Internet
Speaker 1: of Things devices connected to the network of networks in
Speaker 1: some fashion. That same site estimates that by five there
Speaker 1: will be more than seventy five billion IoT gadgets connected
Speaker 1: to the Internet. But that's just one estimation and other
Speaker 1: sources have different numbers. There is something that's in common
Speaker 1: with all those different numbers, they're all real, real big,
Speaker 1: So they may not all specifically agree on how many
Speaker 1: billion devices are connected to the Internet, but they all
Speaker 1: agree that it is many billion, and it's just gonna
Speaker 1: get bigger. To support all those devices, providers have to
Speaker 1: build out network capacity. Otherwise you would find it impossible
Speaker 1: to use your phone because is there too many doorbells, cameras, thermostats,
Speaker 1: and refrigerators connected to the networks. Actually, to be fair,
Speaker 1: that's a bit of an oversimplification because the way we
Speaker 1: tend to connect devices to the Internet through stuff like
Speaker 1: local area networks and routers, and it ignores stuff like
Speaker 1: the specific frequency bands that the devices and systems are using.
Speaker 1: But the point is pretty valid. You get to a
Speaker 1: point where networks, whether they are local or wide area,
Speaker 1: or the Internet itself, end up getting congested. Now you've
Speaker 1: likely heard about Verizon or A T and T talking
Speaker 1: up some of their technologies as five G, but five
Speaker 1: G as a fully mature technology has not really rolled
Speaker 1: out yet as I'm recording this podcast in February two, nineteen,
Speaker 1: and we're probably not going to see any real serious,
Speaker 1: widespread deployment until twenty twenty. There'll be some in twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen some pilot programs, but as far as national coverage,
Speaker 1: we may be looking at twenty maybe twin twenty one.
Speaker 1: Even then, it's going to be a gradual rollout, and
Speaker 1: it's going to take time to reach a lot of
Speaker 1: different service areas. Dense urban environments will get it first
Speaker 1: most likely, but the further out you are from one
Speaker 1: of those, the longer it may take before you get
Speaker 1: this coverage. So it's going to be a few years
Speaker 1: before most of us can regularly take advantage of five G.
Speaker 1: And on top of that, it's going to take another
Speaker 1: few years for developers to create the apps and services
Speaker 1: that will give value to the five G technology. I
Speaker 1: say this pretty confidently because that's how it's unrolled in
Speaker 1: previous generations. When four G came out in it took
Speaker 1: about three years for services like video calls to really
Speaker 1: mature and take advantage of four G technology, which makes sense,
Speaker 1: you know, it takes a few years for developers to
Speaker 1: figure out how they can best leverage the platform. So
Speaker 1: what is going on with these five G claims from
Speaker 1: A T and T and Verizon, Well, it's largely marketing speak,
Speaker 1: specifically more so with A T and T than Verizon.
Speaker 1: But I'll explain. I think, as this episode is making clear,
Speaker 1: the whole wireless generation thing is super confusing to the
Speaker 1: average person. On the one hand, these companies are offering
Speaker 1: up technologies and services that push beyond the median experience
Speaker 1: of four G on their networks. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: they're doing so with technologies that are not completely five G.
Speaker 1: So you can think of it as saying that the
Speaker 1: tech gives users access to five G speeds but isn't
Speaker 1: actually fully five G itself. So let's start with a
Speaker 1: T and T. The company is marketing some of its
Speaker 1: advanced four G phones as five G E, and the
Speaker 1: E stands for evolution. But these five G E phones
Speaker 1: won't actually support five G wireless communication, and that's what
Speaker 1: has some folks upset. The implication is that these phones
Speaker 1: will run on frequencies and networks that enable really strong
Speaker 1: data transfer rates, but that's not the same thing as
Speaker 1: running on actual five G technology. Instead, five G E
Speaker 1: is really LTE advanced. It is capable of supporting data
Speaker 1: transfer speeds of around forty megabits per second. To be
Speaker 1: fair to a T and T, this isn't an unprecedented
Speaker 1: marketing move. T Mobile did the same thing when it
Speaker 1: rolled out an h s P A plus technology. This
Speaker 1: was a three G technology that it rolled out, but
Speaker 1: it was much faster than the older three G technology
Speaker 1: T Mobile had previously deployed, so the company decided to
Speaker 1: market it as four G, even though the technical specification
Speaker 1: meant it was still three G. A T and T,
Speaker 1: by the way, back in those days criticized T Mobile
Speaker 1: for doing this and saying that they made things less
Speaker 1: transparent and less understandable to customers. But then A T
Speaker 1: and T did the same thing with its own hsp
Speaker 1: A plus network and said that that was also four G.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and people wonder why these topics are so
Speaker 1: difficult to explain. Even without this marketing misinformation, it's hard
Speaker 1: to talk about this stuff. Verizon, by the way, their
Speaker 1: five G offering isn't for phones. It's instead for home networks,
Speaker 1: So this is a home network solution instead of getting
Speaker 1: say fiber to your house or copper. In many cases,
Speaker 1: I'm still running on copper. I don't have fiber optics
Speaker 1: at my house yet. Verizon's five G offering is also
Speaker 1: not true five G, but it's a lot closer to
Speaker 1: it than a T and T is it's using some
Speaker 1: of the technologies that are part of the five G approach,
Speaker 1: so it has lower latency, it has pretty good data
Speaker 1: transfer rates, but it does not use the five G
Speaker 1: in OUR communications standard. Instead, it relies upon a communication
Speaker 1: standard that Verizon itself made called five G t F. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Verizon plans to switch over to the industry agreed upon
Speaker 1: upon standard of in OUR. That's going to require a
Speaker 1: Verizon to actually switch out physical equipment at different stations
Speaker 1: around its service area. So it's going to be a
Speaker 1: big investment on the part of the company. So I
Speaker 1: guess Verizon was weighing decisions. Does it go forward rolling
Speaker 1: out this sort of temporary patch knowing that it's going
Speaker 1: to have to undo that work in the future to
Speaker 1: upgrade to in OUR standards, or does it wait and
Speaker 1: try to just move with the industry to adopt in our.
Speaker 1: The benefit of going forward is that you get an
Speaker 1: early hit at those consumers who want to have those
Speaker 1: five G features as soon as they possibly can. But
Speaker 1: the danger is you're going to have to spend a
Speaker 1: lot of money to change out all that equipment. Verizon,
Speaker 1: for its part, is said they're not going to pass
Speaker 1: those costs down to customers. They're gonna see a big
Speaker 1: bump in their subscription uh fees in order for Verizon
Speaker 1: to go in and change out all this equipment once
Speaker 1: it's once the company has decided that the in our
Speaker 1: standard is established enough for them to make this change.
Speaker 1: There's also no guarantee of when that will happen, so
Speaker 1: a lot of unanswered questions still. Alright, well, I put
Speaker 1: it off as long as I possibly could, but it
Speaker 1: is time to talk about what actually will make five
Speaker 1: G work. I'm going to do this from a very
Speaker 1: very high level bird's eye view is probably too low
Speaker 1: of an altitude, let's say a satellite view of the technology. So,
Speaker 1: like earlier generations of cellular technology, five GEN networks have
Speaker 1: cell sites that cover a territory. The territory is divided
Speaker 1: up into sectors. Moving through sectors needs to be seamless
Speaker 1: for the end user. So for me and you, whenever
Speaker 1: we're moving around, we want to make sure that we
Speaker 1: don't notice when we pass them one sector to the next.
Speaker 1: If I'm on a phone call with you and I
Speaker 1: happen to be riding in the back of a car
Speaker 1: and I'm not really concerned with how irritating it might
Speaker 1: be for me to be on a phone conversation while
Speaker 1: someone else is driving. I'm chatting with you. I don't
Speaker 1: want there to be any interruption in our phone call
Speaker 1: as the car travels from one side of a city
Speaker 1: to the other, and while it's doing that, it's going
Speaker 1: to be passing through these sectors. This was sort of
Speaker 1: the basis of the cellular technology approach, this idea that
Speaker 1: there needs to be this this handshake in between cell
Speaker 1: towers that allows the seamless transition of a call from
Speaker 1: one tower to the next. And it's a pretty complicated
Speaker 1: technology I've talked about in previous episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: so we're not gonna go into more detail, but just
Speaker 1: to say that five G is built on that same
Speaker 1: sort of foundation, this idea of cells that represent a
Speaker 1: certain area of service and that those cells can hand
Speaker 1: off service to neighboring cells as a person is moving
Speaker 1: through the different set There's so an important part of
Speaker 1: the technology. The cells sites have to connect to a
Speaker 1: network backbone. They themselves aren't just magical conversation, you know,
Speaker 1: telecommunications points. They have to connect to a a larger
Speaker 1: communications network. That connection can be wired, or it can
Speaker 1: be wireless. Five G will use wider bandwidths of frequencies
Speaker 1: than four G did, but the encoding for data across
Speaker 1: the five G networks is similar to that of four G.
Speaker 1: It's called O F d M. But there's really no
Speaker 1: need for us to get into that too deeply. It
Speaker 1: gets way too technical and it becomes nearly impossible to
Speaker 1: talk about without visual aids. It's just important to remember
Speaker 1: this is the methodology by which five G will convert
Speaker 1: data into signals and then from signals back into data.
Speaker 1: I know that signals are kind of a kind of data,
Speaker 1: but you don't understand what I mean. It's for the
Speaker 1: trend mission of that data. Five G is going to
Speaker 1: run on two bands of frequencies that are on either
Speaker 1: side of six giga hurts um, but by other either side,
Speaker 1: I mean significantly on either side of six gig hurts.
Speaker 1: Six gig hurts is kind of the dividing line between them.
Speaker 1: So it hurts is one wave cycle per second, So
Speaker 1: if you have a wave that's going at one hurts,
Speaker 1: it means it takes a full second for one wave
Speaker 1: length to pass through a given point. You've identified a
Speaker 1: point you're measuring how many radio waves passed that point
Speaker 1: in one second. You count one, that's one hurts. Six
Speaker 1: giga hurts would be a frequency in which six billion
Speaker 1: wave cycles pass a given point every second. The low
Speaker 1: frequency networks will operate within existing WiFi and cellular bands,
Speaker 1: so at that wavelength, signals can travel the same distance
Speaker 1: as what we use today. The nice thing about that
Speaker 1: means you don't have to build out a ton of
Speaker 1: new cells to get the same coverage. You could actually
Speaker 1: add equipment to existing cell towers to support five G
Speaker 1: because you can transmit just as far as you could
Speaker 1: with the four G methodology. However, those frequencies aren't able
Speaker 1: to carry quite as much data on them as the
Speaker 1: high frequencies ones can, so you won't get crazy fast
Speaker 1: or a crazy huge data transfer rates. They would still
Speaker 1: probably be better than four G, but not the enormous,
Speaker 1: incredible potential ones we've heard about, but we would still
Speaker 1: probably see data transfer rates that are better than LTE. However,
Speaker 1: the high frequency five G tech is a different story.
Speaker 1: It will rely on millimeter wave frequencies around the twenty
Speaker 1: eight and thirty nine giga hurts bands because that's where
Speaker 1: there's a whole lot of space for big communications channels
Speaker 1: that can carry huge amounts of data very quickly. These
Speaker 1: radio waves can't travel as far with enough power to
Speaker 1: be as reliable as the lower frequency variant can, so
Speaker 1: in other words, they don't have as great a range
Speaker 1: of transmission, which means companies wouldn't have to probably build
Speaker 1: out a lot more five G cells to make their
Speaker 1: network have enough coverage. On the flip side, these cells
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to be nearly as powerful as the cell
Speaker 1: towers we rely upon today. They could actually require much
Speaker 1: less power to operate, so instead of using a few
Speaker 1: high powered cellular antenna towers to cover a given region,
Speaker 1: you would have a whole bunch of low power, high
Speaker 1: frequency transmitters. For some regions, like densely populated urban areas,
Speaker 1: many of the carriers out there have already built out
Speaker 1: the infrastructure that could support this type of five G.
Speaker 1: They're already these additional cell towers that could just have
Speaker 1: five G tacked onto them and the infrastructure is good
Speaker 1: to go. However, in other areas, like in suburbs, once
Speaker 1: you move out of these densely populated areas, it can
Speaker 1: get harder to get the permission necessary to build out
Speaker 1: the infrastructure. There are a lot of communities that don't
Speaker 1: want to have these these transmission towers erected in their community.
Speaker 1: It's sort of that not in my backyard, the Nimbigi principle.
Speaker 1: I don't want that to be on the top of
Speaker 1: this building. It's too close to my house. That kind
Speaker 1: of thing. So this isn't a technical challenge. This is
Speaker 1: a social or political challenge that companies are going to
Speaker 1: have to overcome to have a good five G deployment
Speaker 1: if they want to use these high frequencies. Now, as
Speaker 1: I record this, a T and T is pre prepping.
Speaker 1: It's a true five G rollout in a few select cities,
Speaker 1: and it will be of modest size and will likely
Speaker 1: only see a few phones in two thousand nineteen that
Speaker 1: actually support five G technology. But at least we could
Speaker 1: say those phones and services will be true five G
Speaker 1: rather than four G that happens to be marketed as
Speaker 1: if it were five G, and five G could really
Speaker 1: transform how we get internet at home. If carriers can
Speaker 1: get permission to build out those five G networks and
Speaker 1: provide coverage, they can run fiber to specific cell sites
Speaker 1: to those cell towers, they could connect those by fiber
Speaker 1: to the network backbone, and then they can use wireless
Speaker 1: transmissions to deliver internet service to customer homes, so there's
Speaker 1: no need to run fiber out to the actual customer homes.
Speaker 1: This cuts way down on cost. Uh. It also speeds
Speaker 1: things up significantly. You don't have to dig up the
Speaker 1: ground and bury cables and all that kind of stuff
Speaker 1: and disrupt traffic. It could be a much faster deployment.
Speaker 1: Assuming that the carriers get that permission to erect the
Speaker 1: the cell towers or to add the technology to existing
Speaker 1: cell towers, so you can get true broadband speed delivered
Speaker 1: wirelessly to your home. You wouldn't have to have some
Speaker 1: technician come out and hook up cable. You would just
Speaker 1: get a wireless modem from your carrier. The other nice
Speaker 1: thing about this is that if it does in fact happen,
Speaker 1: it should mean that more people in the United States
Speaker 1: in particular, will get more choices for their broadband provider.
Speaker 1: Right now, a lot of people, myself included, if you
Speaker 1: want true broadband speeds, if you want the faster speeds
Speaker 1: in your area, you're limited to one provider. There's not
Speaker 1: really a choice there so at my house, there's one
Speaker 1: provider that can deliver the speeds I want to my house.
Speaker 1: The next closest one is slower than the one I have,
Speaker 1: so that's not really acceptable to me. And there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of incentive for the other carriers to spend
Speaker 1: the huge amount of money you would take to roll
Speaker 1: fiber out to my house and compete with the one
Speaker 1: provider or that is delivering that kind of service. By
Speaker 1: going the wireless route, you've reduced the cost of deployment significantly,
Speaker 1: and in theory, you could have a lot more competition
Speaker 1: in those same areas, and competition is fantastic. We want
Speaker 1: competition because when there's competition, the consumer benefits. Companies will
Speaker 1: try to be competitive and pricing and features, and you
Speaker 1: can pick whichever package best suits your needs instead of
Speaker 1: just being stuck with whatever happens to be available in
Speaker 1: your area. This is my dream that we get to
Speaker 1: that that future. I'm hoping that that actually happens. Now.
Speaker 1: I would advise folks to hold off on jumping onto
Speaker 1: the five G bandwagon for a little bit. The deployment
Speaker 1: is going to take some time and initial results might
Speaker 1: be a little disappointing. At first, I suspect it's going
Speaker 1: to be twenty or maybe even before we start seeing
Speaker 1: any really impelling implementations of five G. Now I say that,
Speaker 1: but I also imagine I'll probably ignore my own advice
Speaker 1: and jump into the five G world earlier rather than later.
Speaker 1: So what the heck do I know? But I know
Speaker 1: that at least for the first year, I'll likely be
Speaker 1: somewhat disappointed, which is crazy because I already know this
Speaker 1: going into it. Why would I be disappointed if I
Speaker 1: know it's already gonna happen, because I'm in a rational
Speaker 1: human being. I think that's a good time to wrap up.
Speaker 1: If you guys have any suggestions for future episodes of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, why don't you send me a message. The
Speaker 1: email addresses tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or hop on over to our website that's tech Stuff
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. You'll find an archive of all of
Speaker 1: our episodes there. You also find links to find us
Speaker 1: on social media like Twitter and Facebook, and you'll find
Speaker 1: a link to our store. And so we're at t
Speaker 1: public dot com slash tech stuff, where every purchase you
Speaker 1: make in our store goes to help with the show,
Speaker 1: and we greatly appreciate it, and I will talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, because it how stuff works. Dot com