The expansion of the 5G network is inevitable. Market research firm Allied Market Research estimates that 5G annual compound growth rate (CAGR) will be as much as 67% and totaling about 48 billion dollars by 2027. Much of that money will go into new cell sites. It is possible, and likely that as many as 100,000 mini sites or more will be erected to provide the promised coverage and benefits of 5G.

There Are Some Important 5G Problems and Limitations That Still Need to Be Resolved.

One of these is the very short range and lack of penetrating power of 5G in the millimeter-wave bands. Indoor coverage is poor or non-existent at these higher frequencies. More cell sites and improved higher-gain antennas are part of the solution.

This was expressed in a TLS article, last July with regards to a 5G tower placed in the midst of a number of residential communities, including Whispering Pines, the Villas, Whispering Woods, Brook Hill, Kew Gardens, Squankum Road communities, as well as several schools. At least 450 residential units are within the statutory radius of 1,500 feet from the tower. Numerous residents voiced their concerns that radiation from the cell phone tower could be damaging to their health, and have demanded that it be relocated to an area away from their homes.

The FCC Moves Forward with Its Plan for The Future

The stated goal of the FCC is to get Internet access to everyone, especially in rural areas like Lakewood and minority communities throughout the USA.

According to a recent market study by research/competitive-intelligence firm Fact.MR, nearly four in ten people globally do not have access to the internet. Large portions of the unconnected live in rural areas, where harsh geographic realities can make the establishment of broadband infrastructure very difficult and extremely costly.

Aircraft Critical Instrument Interference

Another problem is the recent complaint that new cell sites using the new C band (3.7 to 4.4 GHz) and are located near airports may cause interference to commercial aircraft altimeters. Wireless carriers agreed to delay the 5G rollout and carve out 5G exclusion zones around 50 major airports. Altimeters are extremely critical for takeoff and landing, particularly in bad weather conditions.

The FCC and FAA along with the cellular operators still do not have a solution to this major problem. The thinking is that using lower power, keeping the cell sites more than two miles from the runways, as well as a costly updates and replacement of radio altimeters, may be part of the solution, but it is not clear exactly what, if any, is the solution at this time.

Driver Assistance Systems

C-V2X 5G radios could find its way into some new vehicles by the end of 2022, but 2023 may be more realistic. Cellular V2X is likely to use 5G mobile cellular connectivity to send and receive signals from a vehicle to other vehicles, pedestrians or to fixed objects such as traffic lights in its surroundings.  Although vehicles are currently using readily available technologies like LTE (which is basically a connection to a cell providers phone network and current internet technology like 4G) it will take years before enough C-V2X-equipped vehicles are on the road to make it effective. The related Intelligent Transportation System infrastructure also will take time to install.

It is important to note that all communications systems based on wireless communication suffer from the drawbacks, inherent to wireless communication, which are the limited capacities in various areas:

• Limited channels: This limit will affect especially metropolitan areas. These limits are data propagation due to surroundings such as buildings, tunnels and also Doppler effects, (A common example of Doppler shift is the change of pitch (frequency) heard when a vehicle, such as a train, sounding a horn approaches and then recedes from an observer). Compared to the emitted frequency, the received frequency is higher during the approach, identical at the instant of passing by, and lower during the recession. causing propagation speed reduction by repetitive transmissions required.
• Limited data rates.
• Wireless communication is susceptible to external influences, which may be hijacked by hostile and malicious actors.
• The costs to provide a comprehensive appropriate network such as LTE or 5G are enormous.

Get Ready for 6G

In the meantime, 6G is under development. Not too many specifics are available, but it involves higher operating frequencies as well as artificial intelligence (AI). 6G uses frequencies in which allow for even faster data rates than 5G at near zero latency. However, indoor operation continues to be a challenge. Will that mean towers built even closer to residences and businesses than 5G or transceivers installed on the buildings themselves.

Satellite Communications

Satellite ground networks are still in the mode of “evolutionary change” in the realm of “The Digital Transformation.” This transformation is expected to enable the satellite communications network (SATCOM) to provide benefits in speed of innovation, scale, and cost. Perhaps, it will help fulfill the growing widely accepted demands which are the adopted goals in the larger telecommunications industry—digitization and virtualization. Digitization makes communications more modular which translates into a larger spectrum of devices. SATCOM modem architectures tis expected to use common hardware by introducing a new digital intermediate frequency (IF) interface. The move to common hardware through digitization is the same as cloud-based computing, where the “hardware” forms the basis for virtualization, which allows remote terminals for a variety of applications. Leveraging network function virtualization will inevitably support virtualized service chains and management of virtual network functions in the same way as virtualized computers and servers that can work seamlessly on a variety of platforms regardless of any on-premises devices. Like the current proliferation of SaaS (Software as a Service) utilizing such platforms as Microsoft Azure, IBM Blue and Amazon Web, SATCOM-as-a-Service networks can be easily managed and deployed with custom configurations.

This is where broadband satellite communications make a grand entrance on the world stage of wireless communications. Fact.MR’s study determined that the satellite internet market is expected to exceed $6 billion by 2031. With high-tech entrepreneurs becoming enmeshed in a privatized space race, these players will spearhead a drive to bring advanced and highly efficient satellite broadband to market. We see that with Elon Musk’s Starlink network, which is currently being rolled out in parts of Ukraine, particularly Odessa at the Odessa Humanitarian Center which received an antenna and other equipment can face competition from companies like Amazon, Telesat, and OneWeb could soon offer similar constellations in low-Earth orbits.

We have yet to see many more Zoning Board variances and public reaction, every step of the way, into the next decade and beyond.