WEBVTT - 5G Myths vs Reality 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:14.720 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.800 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:23.479 and a love all things tech. So in March I 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:28.680 published an episode titled what is five G? Meaning the 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:33.040 generation of wireless technologies that have a slow, arguably a 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:38.479 painstakingly slow rollout. But since then there's been a lot 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:42.120 of weird misinformation related to what five G is and 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:44.879 what it does and what it can do, and so 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:47.680 I figured it would be good to revisit the topic 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:51.400 and try to clear some stuff up. There are some 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:55.520 myths and misconceptions that we need to address, and some 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:59.520 of this is due to questionable marketing decisions from various companies. 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.880 Some of it has to do with magical thinking, and 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.720 some of it I can't explain from a psychological standpoint. 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.600 So let's begin with a rundown of what the G 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:14.280 means here. As I mentioned it, it means generation, as 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:18.880 in the fifth generation of mobile network technologies that allow 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:24.319 for the wireless transmission of information, including voice communications and 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:27.640 these days stuff like Internet surfing and all the data 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.200 you need for all those apps that are on your phone. 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:34.160 But it's good to remember that we're talking about families 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:40.679 of technologies. Five G isn't like a single unified technological implementation, 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:45.600 which kind of already makes it confusing. So the first 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:50.840 generation of mobile network technologies was analog, not digital, and 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:53.520 it allowed for voice calls, but you couldn't even send 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:57.280 text over this network. The technology also had some pretty 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:00.600 big limitations to it, including a lack of a liable 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:04.600 form of security, so it was possible to snoop on 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:07.000 calls if you knew what you were doing. There was 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:11.080 also a problem with stuff like interference from other radio signals, 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.680 which ties into another topic, that of setting aside certain 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:18.080 bands of radio frequencies for specific uses. Well, touch on 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.400 that again later. Uh, if you don't do that, if 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:25.760 you don't set aside specific bands for specific purposes, then 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:30.920 any company could make any device that transmits and receives 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:33.960 on any given radio frequency, and then you would quickly 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:37.400 enter into a situation where interference would be a big problem, 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:42.000 like if your emergency services radio signals are on the 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:46.680 same channel frequencies as television, that would be terrible. The 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:51.880 original cellular technologies were emerging in the late nineties seventies, 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:56.360 but they stuck around until the early nine nineties. Really 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:59.640 we wouldn't refer to them as one G technologies except 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:03.639 in reet respect. In around ninety one, we saw digital 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:07.200 technologies take over for analog and thus we saw the 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:13.080 introduction of two G mobile networks, which allowed for texting. Technically, 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:15.440 you could also do stuff like send pictures, you know, 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:20.520 multi media messaging, but it was a pretty low data throughput, 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:23.600 so doing that would take a while. It took a 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:28.799 while to upload and then download over these uh these specifications. 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:34.560 There were some incremental improvements of the underlying technologies in 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:39.920 the second generations. So sometimes you'll hear about specific implementations 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:43.000 being referred to as two point five G or two 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:47.160 point seven five G really meaning a more advanced version 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:52.080 of two G technology, but not transformational enough to necessitate 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:55.200 a brand new number. And we saw a couple of 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:59.200 different versions of two G and they were not compatible 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:01.080 with each other. There was more than a couple, but 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:05.360 two of them would end up really taking hold, and 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:07.920 those were G S M and C d M A. 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:11.040 So we kind of had a forking path of mobile 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:15.720 networking technologies for a while. Both implementations met the standards 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.280 for two G service. In other words, they both were 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:22.279 able to do what two G was specified as doing. 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:27.560 Most of the specifications were largely defined with data throughput 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:31.359 speeds and the supported services that the technology should be 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:35.720 able to handle. But it also illustrated that when we 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:39.840 talk in g S, we don't necessarily mean a unified, 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:43.200 you know, monolithic approach. If you had a C d 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:45.599 M A phone and you traveled to a place that 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:48.839 only had G S M service like a GSM network, 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:51.760 you would discover that your phone just didn't work on 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:53.920 those networks, and vice versa. If you had a G 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:56.159 S M phone and you went to a place that 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:59.000 only had C d M A service, you'd be out 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:01.640 of lock. Now you could find phones that had chips 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.480 in them, uh SIM chips that would make them compatible 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:07.240 with both, but they were the exception, not the rule, 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:10.680 and they tended to be very expensive. The subsequent generations 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:14.040 saw new transmission standards that would allow for larger data 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:17.400 transfers per unit of time. Now we typically refer to 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:21.360 that as speed, but the speed is kind of like 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.839 speed is tricky. You're really talking about the data moving 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:27.280 at the same speed as just that you could transport 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:31.239 larger chunks at a time. So instead of it thinking 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:33.960 of it as um faster, think of it as just 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:38.400 more more through put. Uh So we often refer to 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:40.720 it just as you know, each generation is faster than 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.400 previous generations. What we really mean is we don't have 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:47.080 to wait as long for stuff to happen, And in 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:50.000 four G we would see some additional services introduced on 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.080 top of the ones that were already supported by the 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:56.560 earlier generations. Also, the move to the LTE standard in 0:05:56.640 --> 0:06:00.480 four G brought those forking paths of d M A 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:02.880 and g s M kind of back together. It was 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:06.840 a globally agreed upon standard, although not everyone was using 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:11.159 the same radio frequency bands. So while technically the standard 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.800 would be the same from country to country, you could 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:16.279 still have a phone not work if you were to 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:19.240 travel to a different country just because if your phone 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:22.279 antenna did not support the radio frequencies that were being 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:26.560 used by the country's network, you still wouldn't have service. 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:31.280 For a while, phones were still you know, needing the 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.159 older C d M A and GSM networks for the 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:39.359 purposes of voice calls because originally four G mobile carriers 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:43.080 didn't have four J support voice over for G it's 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:46.640 kind of crazy, but it did come around, so that 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:51.720 would ultimately lead to the the potential to phase out 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.240 G S M and C D M A. And I 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.719 think there's a general tendency one that I I myself 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:01.080 had found myself falling into to go a spinal tap 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:03.480 on these kind of things. By that, I mean the 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:05.640 movie Spinal Tap. For those who don't know what I 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:10.000 mean by this, there's a scene in a mockumentary comedy 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:13.440 film called This Is Spinal Tap. It follows a fictional 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.240 heavy metal band, and in one iconic scene in particular, 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:21.320 there's a character named Nigel who is showing off his 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:26.520 beloved amplifier, which, as he points out, has dials that 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:30.640 go up to eleven rather than the standard ten. And 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:33.760 Nigel's point is that these go to eleven. It seems 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:37.040 to indicate that because the number on the dial is 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:41.800 larger than ten, it must therefore be louder than amplifiers 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:45.840 that go up to ten. But obviously you really can 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.200 just make ten louder. You can make a louder amplifier 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:51.680 and still have ten b the top number, and you 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:55.240 just change the scale because there's no meaningful advantage to 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.320 having an eleven on a dial because there's no universal 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:03.960 standard for what each increment of amplifier means. From a 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:07.440 louder perspective, there's no universal approach to this. You know, 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:10.000 you can just put a sticker on an amplifier and 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.280 change a dial that went from one to tend to 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:15.640 one to eleven. You've just changed the scale a little bit. Well, 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:18.800 with tech in general, we tend to have these expectations 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:23.520 that with each subsequent generation, with each number of a technology, 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:27.640 the most recent number will be more powerful than the 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:32.160 previous ones. And it's like engineers have taken the old 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:33.800 way of doing things and just made it, you know, 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:38.280 more better, or something like it's the same technology as before, 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.800 only now it can do what the old technology did, 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.719 but faster and with more power. But that is not 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:48.720 always the way things work, and particularly with wireless data transmissions, 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:52.560 it's not necessarily true. Complicating this is that there are 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:55.760 other factors that can affect your data throughput no matter 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.040 what g you happen to be using. Stuff like the 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:02.120 number of people who are using that particular network spot, 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:06.319 or how far away you are from the transmission antenna, 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:09.480 or what the signal to noise ratio is for that 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:11.960 particular network. You know, if there are a lot of 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:15.360 people watching I don't know, four K streams of the 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:18.640 Mandalorian on their phones, which would be weird because I mean, 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:21.360 who needs the four K resolution of that screen size? 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.800 But anyway, well, that much traffic is going to be 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:29.520 a factor. It's going to start overwhelming the network. Or 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:32.360 if you're at the very edge of a service area, 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:35.679 that could affect you too. And if both factors are 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:37.400 in play, you know you're at the very edge of 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:39.880 a service area and everybody else is watching the Mandalorian 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.559 in four K, you might feel like your technology is 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:44.920 actually taken a step backward. You might feel like, wow, 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:47.559 this is slower than my old phone. Now. Don't get 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.160 me wrong, the differences between one generation of wireless tech 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:54.400 and the next can be significant. They can involve new 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:58.360 ways to encode and transmit information, but sometimes that means that, 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:01.560 at least initially, you might not actually see an improvement 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:05.520 when it comes to data throughput. Further, depending on the standard, 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:07.839 the number of people on a network can really make 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:10.120 a big difference to the quality of service that each 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:13.520 person receives. And it also helps to remember that generations 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:17.760 are not bordered by hard and fast beginning and ending points. 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:21.160 They bleed into each other. Typically there's a lot of 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:24.920 overlap between one generation and the next. I mean major 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:28.240 operators in the United States kept that old two G 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:33.240 network active up until twenty so there can even be 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:36.199 overlap between a current generation and two or three generations 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.400 of technology that came earlier. And we can have situations 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:43.439 where say a three G transmission is you know, faster 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.920 and more reliable than a four G you know, or 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:50.680 an LTE transmission. And just as I mentioned before, a 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:53.760 network congestion can do that. Right as someone who used 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.719 to go to really big tech conferences, like when those 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:58.559 were still a thing, you know, like C E S, 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:01.360 I would off make it a habit to switch my 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:05.080 phone manually over to three G service because the four 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:09.080 G networks would just be overwhelmed by traffic. Implementations of 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:12.560 these technologies can improve over time. So if you have 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:17.200 a late generation three G system and hand set and 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:20.360 you were to compare that against an early generation four 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:24.040 G LTE system and phone, the three G setup might 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:27.360 actually have better performance than the LT version. So the 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:30.960 three G phone on the three G network might have 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:33.000 better performance than the four G phone on the four 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:36.480 G network, you know, only because the three G one 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:39.160 occurred late in the life cycle when a lot of 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.240 advances had been made, and the four G came early 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:47.480 in that generation cycle before those improvements were made, and 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:52.079 on the surface, again seem counterintuitive. Again, four is bigger 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:54.520 than three, so it should be faster, and ultimately it 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:57.720 got there, but doesn't mean that it's like that round 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:00.079 the gate. We're seeing some of that with five G 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:02.599 rollout as well, which I'm sure it comes as a 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:05.600 frustration for some customers, and it doesn't help that there's 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:09.640 been some confusion, some of it purposefully promoted about what 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:14.199 does and doesn't qualify as actual five G. The organization 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:18.640 that determines what is five G is the International Telecommunication 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:23.560 Union or i TU. In the i TU announced its 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:27.400 specs for the technical requirements for five G radio interfaces. 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:31.280 Those specifications were more focused on what the five G 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:35.600 should be able to do, which included stuff like the 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:39.240 five G cell itself that is the network connection point 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.680 for devices like a cell tower kind of thing, and 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:45.960 that these should have at least twenty gigabits per second 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:49.599 download capacity at minimum, so it should be able to 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:55.360 support twenty billion bits per second of downloading at minimum, 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:57.400 and it also should be able to support again at 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:01.160 minimum ten gigabits per second of upload speed to the 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:06.160 network at large from each five G connection tower. Now 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:10.000 that does not mean that if your cellular service provider 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:12.840 rolls out a robust five G network, you would be 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:15.760 able to pull down twenty gigabits per second and download 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:19.040 speed on your phone. If you could, that would be 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:24.240 I mean, that would be amazing. But no, this spec 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:28.200 calls for a user download speed of at least one 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:32.640 hundred megabits per second and an upload of fifty megabits 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:35.400 per second, which is pretty darn close to what you 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.880 can get with four G LTE on a good day. 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:41.559 And it's also good to remember that, depending on conditions, 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:45.320 you might not get peak speeds. In fact, it would 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:49.319 be pretty rare when you did get the peak performance 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:52.240 out of this technology. Anyone who has tested their home 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:55.640 internet connection is probably familiar with this, because speeds are 0:13:55.720 --> 0:14:00.520 usually below, and sometimes well below the advertised peak performance 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:04.520 that you'll see from providers. That's why those little asterisks 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:09.079 after a claim in an advertisement are so important. Now, 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:12.400 the one D megabits down and fifty megabits up is 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:16.160 supposed to be the minimum data throughput for users, so 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:20.520 it's not like that that's the peak of five G service. Either. 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:24.840 A good five G network and compatible devices could mean 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:30.000 faster filed downloads, lower latency, better streaming services, all due 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:33.920 to this increase throughput. But the five G technologies can 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:38.280 make use of different bands of wireless frequencies, and that's 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:40.960 also going to change things up and make stuff more complicated. 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.680 In other words, not all five G is equal. There's 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:48.280 five G and then there's five G if you get 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:50.920 what I mean, and I'll explain more in a minute. 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:54.280 The standard also called for the support of up to 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:59.240 one million connected devices per square kilometer of space, So 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:01.800 a big part that is due to the proliferation of 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:05.120 the Internet of things devices that are putting an increasing 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:09.080 strain on networks, and arguably that one million per square 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:12.440 kilometer is actually falling behind as far as the Internet 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.720 of things trend is going, but that's another topic. There 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.920 are a few other specifications for five G that are important. 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:22.560 One is that latency, that is the delay introduced when 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:28.040 transmitting and receiving data, should be at four milliseconds. Maximum 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:32.280 LT part of the four G family has a latency 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:36.600 of twenty milliseconds or so, and that's important because generally speaking, 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:40.720 humans aren't really able to detect a delay less than 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:43.720 twenty milliseconds. And you can see how this would be 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:48.640 important for certain applications like augmented reality, where you've got 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.480 some sort of display that might be mounted in a 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:54.640 headset or glasses, or might just be through your phone 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:59.200 or whatever, but you need to have digital information overlaying 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:02.480 a view of the physical world around you. For your 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.800 average application, a short delay might not be much of 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:08.920 a problem, but we're starting to see some pretty audacious 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:12.960 uses of a R including in amusement park attractions, so 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:16.400 reducing latency is an important part of providing a good 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:19.960 immersive experience. It doesn't do you any good on a ride, 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.840 for example, if the information you see in your in 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:27.880 your headset is relating back to something that you've already passed, right, 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:32.560 it's not relevant anymore. In addition, for ultra reliable low 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:36.360 latency communications otherwise known as you are l l C, 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:40.400 the latency should be just one millisecond, which is pretty 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:44.480 darn responsive. There are other components to the five G 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.960 specifications from I TU, but for most of us, they're 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:51.400 just the technical bits and bobs that makes our stuff go. 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:55.240 And I think the average consumer just wants that sweet 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:57.800 fast connection and they don't really care about things like 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:01.120 spectral efficiency, even though it's actually really important for how 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:03.920 data will travel on five G frequencies. And we will 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:07.200 come back to it, all right, So I mentioned frequency 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:10.000 bands earlier, but what does that mean. Well, we got 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.440 to do a quick rundown on radio waves, which we 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:24.040 will do right after this quick break. So we tend 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:28.680 to talk about radio waves in terms of frequency, which 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:32.320 is how many radio wave lengths will pass a given 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:35.679 point within a second. And this also links back to 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:40.080 the actual wave length of the radio wave. All radio 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:45.120 waves travel at the same speed. They are electromagnetic information 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:49.640 or electromagnetic signals, I should say, so in this case, 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:53.119 it's the length of the wave that determines how many 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:57.040 of that particular radio wave will pass a given point 0:17:57.040 --> 0:17:59.119 in the second. If they're all moving at the same speed, 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:02.760 the the length is the only real differentiator that tells 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:05.840 us this. So the radio spectrum is a really big one. 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:09.680 And as I mentioned earlier, countries set aside specific bands 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:14.560 for specific purposes. Generally speaking, the full radio spectrum that 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:18.360 we could use for wireless communication spans from three hurts 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:22.480 to three hundred giga hurts, and it hurts is one 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:26.560 cycle per second, like one vibration per second, but in 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:28.800 the case of radio waves, we think of it as 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:33.600 one wavelength per second. So you've got a physical spot 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:37.520 like a start line, and it takes one full second 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:41.680 for a single wavelength to pass that point. That would 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:45.960 be a one hurts radio wave would also be incredibly 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:49.520 long because these things are moving wicked fast. So on 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:52.639 the low end of the spectrum that we tend to 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:56.440 use for a communication, we have three to thirty hurts. 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.520 That means you would have three to thirty wavelengths of 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.199 a radio signal passing a given point in a second, 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.920 which at three hurts would mean that the wavelength would 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:10.639 be about one hundred thousand kilometers long. This is not 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:14.560 easy for us to generate because there's actually a relationship 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:19.040 between the length of our radio wave and the length 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:21.919 of an antenna that you need to generate it to 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:26.080 transmit that kind of wave. But these extremely low frequencies 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:29.720 have a benefit of being able to penetrate water so 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.280 it makes them useful for stuff like communicating with submarines 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:37.480 on the far end of the spectrum, on the opposite side, 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:42.000 we have three hundred giga hurts, meaning three hundred billion 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:45.399 wavelengths of a radio signal will pass a given point 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:50.520 in a second, which means each individual radio wave measures 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:54.240 one millimeter long. So what happens if you were to 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:57.120 keep going down the spectrum? What happens if you kept 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:02.080 on making the wavelengths shorter and making the frequencies higher, Well, 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:05.800 eventually you cross over into other types of electro magnetic energy, 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.320 including stuff like visible light. When you go far enough, 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:11.879 if you keep going, then you hit stuff like X 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:16.440 rays and gamma rays. Alright, so the five G wireless 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:19.440 frequencies fall into a couple of broad groups, and one 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:22.880 of those two we can even split into two subgroups. 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:25.560 So on the low end of the scale, which is 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:30.120 often called the sub six giga hurts, we've got the 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:32.560 low end at six hundred mega hurts. That means six 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:35.959 hundred million wavelengths would pass a given point per second, 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:39.199 and all the way up to six giga hurts or 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:42.920 six billion wavelengths past a point in a second. Now, 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:46.119 keep in mind that the whole range is not exclusive 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:49.960 to five G, just chunks of that range are in 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:52.879 five G. For example, there's actually a pretty big gap 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:56.280 between twenty six hundred mega hurts and thirty five hundred 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:00.480 mega hurts. These frequencies represent the low band and mid 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:04.280 band ranges of five G frequencies. Those would be those 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:07.600 two subgroups I mentioned earlier, low band being the lower 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.600 group of frequencies in that chunk, and mid band being 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:14.439 in the higher band of frequencies in that chunk. But 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:18.440 we've got a second chunk which consists of much higher frequencies, 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:21.280 starting at twenty six giga hurts and ending in the 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:24.280 fifty giga hurts range. And again five G does not 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:28.639 take up all the frequencies within this range, but chunks 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.159 of them or sub sections of them. And this is 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:34.240 the high band range of frequencies. So we've got the 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:37.879 low band, the mid band, and the high band range 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:41.560 of five G. Now it's that high band frequency range 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:46.680 that the marketing divisions of various carrier companies have really 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:50.960 focused on because it represents the biggest potential impact on consumers. 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:55.080 Assuming a robust rollout of five G infrastructure and some 0:21:55.280 --> 0:22:00.440 special situations. It's in that high band frequent sees where 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:04.879 we see incredible data throughput. One of a T and 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:08.720 T S tests of its five G high band technology 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:12.919 showed a bandwidth of one point two gigabits per second. 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:15.479 That's a similar speed to what you would find with 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:21.040 a fiber optic connection. So wicked fast data transfer speeds. 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:24.000 That's incredible, right. You would be able to download videos 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:26.200 to your phone in a blink of an eye. If 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:29.160 you had a five G antenna connected to your home router, 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:33.560 then you can use five G to be a substitute 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:37.159 for a fiber optic line direct to your home. You 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:40.280 could even download those massive PS five and Xbox Series 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:43.120 X games in just a minute or two. But at 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:45.960 the lower range of frequencies, you know, the stuff that's 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:48.679 in the low to mid band ranges of five G, 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:53.640 those are not as impressive when it comes to data throughput. 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:56.760 You wouldn't be able to hit that kind of bandwidth. 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:58.639 The speeds you would get at those ranges would be 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:01.680 closer to what you see with lt E a K 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:05.080 four G speeds. Uh, the low band would be a 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:08.520 little faster than four G. The mid band can be 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:12.640 significantly faster, just not nearly as fast as the high 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:16.119 band stuff. And let's think about how we use radio 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:18.600 waves to send information to kind of understand what's going 0:23:18.640 --> 0:23:22.359 on here. A radio wave on its own that is 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:27.040 a just a steady radio frequency, that's not terribly useful 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:31.640 if we want to convey any information, right, Like, imagine 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:34.120 you're seeing down to have a conversation with someone like me, 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:36.720 and let's just say that I just make a noise 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:44.920 like this. Uh, that's not really helpful, right, I mean, 0:23:44.960 --> 0:23:46.800 some of my critics would say they could barely tell 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:50.439 the difference between that and one of my episodes. Words 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:55.359 can hurt, But anyway, without me modulating that sound, without 0:23:55.440 --> 0:23:59.520 making the phonemes associated with the language, all I'm really 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:02.000 able to do with a simple tone like that is 0:24:02.040 --> 0:24:05.679 to indicate that you know, I'm here, I'm around. So 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:08.160 I'm able to make that tone, but that's really it. 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:12.800 So to communicate, I have to take that tone, that signal, 0:24:13.280 --> 0:24:16.199 and I need to alter it in some way. I 0:24:16.240 --> 0:24:20.840 could increase the pitch or the frequency. I might change 0:24:20.880 --> 0:24:24.199 the volume of it or the amplitude in order to 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:27.040 distress something. And I can chop up that sound in 0:24:27.119 --> 0:24:30.720 lots of ways encoding information that you decode. You hear 0:24:30.840 --> 0:24:34.680