3GPP Release 16 will add features to 5G such as vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications. Finalized in December 2019, Release 16 will take 5G to the next level upon release, which is expected in March 2020. To find out what’s coming, 5GTW spoke with James Kimery of National Instruments. NI and Kimery have been…
6G might be closer than we thought
5G took some fifteen years to develop, starting around 2004 at university research labs. When 3GPP Release 15, the first 5G new radio (5GNR) standard, was approved in late 2017, the race to deploy began. That includes mmWave Frequencies starting around 24 GHz. At roughly the same time, research labs began looking at frequencies above…
Massive MIMO performance testing: Emulate the channel
Today’s 5G system capacity requirements created the need for massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. Massive MIMO represents a major addition to 5G. Massive MIMO enables dynamic user-focused transmission and spatial multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO), an essential functionality for providing high data rates over large areas. Figure 1 shows how cellular applications have changed. Sub-6 GHz massive…
Oscilloscopes add jitter analysis
The bits that travel over wireless networks also travel over wired networks, ultimately over cables and PCB traces as serial data streams such as Ethernet, PCIe, and others. All serial data transmissions must contend with jitter, the difference in timing from the ideal. Rohde & Schwarz has added jitter analysis to its RTO (600 MHz…
5G health concerns and conspiracy theories
While the wireless carriers, equipment suppliers, and component suppliers have cranked up the 5G marketing hype, there is some resistance to deploying the technology because of health concerns. There is some credible evidence in the science regarding health effects resulting from exposure to RF energy. In 2019, Larry Desjardin looked at the science in a…
Signal Hound API adds Linux
With 5G ramping up and much of it operating below 6 GHz, engineers need to generate and analyze signals in the FR1 band. Signal Hound, a maker of PC-connected RF signal sources and spectrum analyzers, now offers Linux support for its software. You are now free to develop your own applications for the company’s…
Test 802.11ax signal quality for transmitters and receivers
Given the need for ever-increasing Wi-Fi data rates and number of connections, IEEE 802.11ax builds on 802.11ac at the physical layer by adding support for both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz as well as denser modulation. That is, 1024 QAM to increase data rates. The so-called “Wi-Fi 6,” IEEE 802.11ax also adds orthogonal frequency-division multiple…
Analyst: 5G is all about the traffic
If you’ve been following 5G technical developments for the last few years, you probably know that 5G encompasses more than just faster download speeds. You may have heard about low latency (1 msec or less) and the applications that makes possible. Now, 5G is in deployment and the hype far exceeds reality. The hype, of…
What every engineer should know about IEEE 802.3bt PoE
Power over Ethernet (PoE), a networking feature defined by the IEEE 802.3af and 802.3at standards, enables Ethernet cables to supply power and data simultaneously to network devices over an existing data connection. Approved on September 27, 2018 by the IEEE-SA Standards Board, the IEEE 802.3bt standard lets significantly more power to be passed over the…
5G’s current state: What you need to know
Ed. Note: All material in this article taken from the author’s report “5G: What Are the Real Status and Real Economics?” published by IGI Group. 5G Technology World interviewed Holliday in Analyst: 5G is all about the traffic, which will post on January 21, 2020. We read a great deal about 5G in the local…