Everything you need to know about 5G.

A: No one company or person owns 5G, but there are several companies within the mobile ecosystem that are contributing to bringing 5G to life. Qualcomm has played a major role in inventing the many foundational technologies that drive the industry forward and make up 5G, the next wireless standard.

We are at the heart of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the industry organization that defines the global specifications for 3G UMTS (including HSPA), 4G LTE, and 5G technologies.

3GPP is driving many essential inventions across all aspects of 5G design, from the air interface to the service layer. Other 3GPP 5G members range from infrastructure vendors and component/device manufacturers to mobile network operators and vertical service providers.

A: 5G is based on OFDM (Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing), a method of modulating a digital signal across several different channels to reduce interference. 5G uses 5G NR air interface alongside OFDM principles. 5G also uses wider bandwidth technologies such as sub-6 GHz and mmWave.

Like 4G LTE, 5G OFDM operates based on the same mobile networking principles. However, the new 5G NR air interface can further enhance OFDM to deliver a much higher degree of flexibility and scalability. This could provide more 5G access to more people and things for a variety of different use cases.

5G will bring wider bandwidths by expanding the usage of spectrum resources, from sub-3 GHz used in 4G to 100 GHz and beyond. 5G can operate in both lower bands (e.g., sub-6 GHz) as well as mmWave (e.g., 24 GHz and up), which will bring extreme capacity, multi-Gbps throughput, and low latency.

5G is designed to not only deliver faster, better mobile broadband services compared to 4G LTE, but can also expand into new service areas such as mission-critical communications and connecting the massive IoT. This is enabled by many new 5G NR air interface design techniques, such as a new self-contained TDD subframe design.

A: There are several reasons that 5G will be better than 4G:

• 5G is significantly faster than 4G
• 5G has more capacity than 4G
• 5G has significantly lower latency than 4G
• 5G is a unified platform that is more capable than 4G
• 5G uses spectrum better than 4G

5G is a unified platform that is more capable than 4G.
While 4G LTE focused on delivering much faster mobile broadband services than 3G, 5G is designed to be a unified, more capable platform that not only elevates mobile broadband experiences, but also supports new services such as mission-critical communications and the massive IoT. 5G can also natively support all spectrum types (licensed, shared, unlicensed) and bands (low, mid, high), a wide range of deployment models (from traditional macro-cells to hotspots), and new ways to interconnect (such as device-to-device and multi-hop mesh).

5G uses spectrum better than 4G.
5G is also designed to get the most out of every bit of spectrum across a wide array of available spectrum regulatory paradigms and bands—from low bands below 1 GHz, to mid bands from 1 GHz to 6 GHz, to high bands known as millimeter wave (mmWave).

5G is faster than 4G.
5G can be significantly faster than 4G, delivering up to 20 Gigabits-per-second (Gbps) peak data rates and 100+ Megabits-per-second (Mbps) average data rates.

5G has more capacity than 4G.
5G is designed to support a 100x increase in traffic capacity and network efficiency.¹

5G has lower latency than 4G.
5G has significantly lower latency to deliver more instantaneous, real-time access: a 10x decrease in end-to-end latency down to 1ms.¹

A: 5G is designed to do a variety of things that can transform our lives, including giving us faster download speeds, low latency, and more capacity and connectivity for billions of devices—especially in the areas of virtual reality (VR), the IoT, and artificial intelligence (AI).

For example, with 5G, you can access new and improved experiences including near-instant access to cloud services, multiplayer cloud gaming, shopping with augmented reality, and real-time video translation and collaboration, and more.

A: The average consumer is expected use close to 11 GB of data per month on their smartphone in 2022.² This is driven by explosive growth in video traffic as mobile is increasingly becoming the source of media and entertainment, as well as the massive growth in always-connected cloud computing and experiences.

4G completely changed how we consume information. In the past decade we have witnessed leaps and bounds in the mobile app industry around services such as video streaming, ride sharing, food delivery and more.

5G will expand the mobile ecosystem to new industries. This will contribute to cutting-edge user experiences such as boundless extreme reality (XR), seamless IoT capabilities, new enterprise applications, local interactive content and instant cloud access, to name a few.

A: With high data speeds and superior network reliability, 5G will have a tremendous impact on businesses. The benefits of 5G will enhance the efficiency of businesses while also giving users faster access to more information.

Depending on the industry, some businesses can make full use of 5G capabilities, especially those needing the high speed, low latency, and network capacity that 5G is designed to provide. For example, smart factories could use 5G to run industrial Ethernet to help them increase operational productivity and precision.

A: Smart cities could use 5G in a variety of ways to transform the lives of people living in them—primarily providing greater efficiencies like more connectivity between people and things, higher data speeds, and lower latency than ever before in areas like automotive safety, infrastructure, VR, and entertainment.

A: Like 4G LTE, 5G is also OFDM-based (Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing) and will operate based on the same mobile networking principles. However, the new 5G NR (New Radio) air interface will further enhance OFDM to deliver a much higher degree of flexibility and scalability.

5G will not only deliver faster, better mobile broadband services compared to 4G LTE, but it will also expand into new service areas, such as mission-critical communications and connecting the massive IoT. This is enabled by many new 5G NR air interface design techniques, such as a new self-contained TDD subframe design.

A: 5G can change home internet service by providing a wireless modem alternative to existing wires. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can now serve customers using 5G infrastructure – making the coverage, performance and deployment flexibility of 5G a compelling backhaul alternative to fiber, DSL or cabled solutions.

5G phones are already available at affordable prices. In fact, 5G is now offered across all tiers of the current portfolio of Qualcomm Snapdragon mobile platforms, from 8- to 4-series. This makes 5G accessible to more than 3.5 billion smartphone users globally.