Physics / mechanism
5G NR (New Radio) is the 3GPP-defined air interface replacing LTE, operating across FR1 (sub-6 GHz, up to 7.125 GHz) and FR2 (mmWave, 24–52 GHz). Core enablers: OFDM with flexible numerology (subcarrier spacing 15–240 kHz), massive MIMO (up to 64T64R), beamforming, and network slicing via service-based architecture. Peak spec: 20 Gbps DL, sub-1 ms latency. Real-world deployments land at 100–900 Mbps. 5G-Advanced (Rel-18/19, 2024–2026) adds AI-native air interface, RedCap for IoT cost reduction, sidelink evolution, and uplink enhancements targeting 50% capacity gain over baseline NR. Sub-THz bands (100–300 GHz) are in early standardisation for Rel-19+.
Competitive landscape
Wi-Fi 6E/7 competes directly in unlicensed spectrum for dense indoor deployments—higher peak throughput, zero spectrum cost, but no mobility or QoS guarantees. Private LTE (CBRS in US) sits below 5G NR in complexity and cost. Satellite NTN (Starlink, AST SpaceMobile) targets coverage, not capacity. The critical differentiator matrix:
Companies using
Connected ideas
Sources
Frontier (open questions)
- To be added.