Your 5G Planning Starts Here
5G networks are part of a major digital transformation trend that is impacting consumer and commercial spaces. New devices and applications are emerging on the market that take advantage of the dramatically reduced latency and much higher throughput that 5G offers. It's an exciting time. Like with previous generations, consumers are leading the 5G adoption, followed by commercial, industrial, government and medical markets.
Partner with Digi to evaluate your needs and migration plans to make the best possible choice for your use case. At any time, if you have a critical decision to make to support your network device planning, IoT application development or long-term deployment plans, contact us. Our team of IoT and IT experts can help you find the right solution for your needs, to ensure your device deployment is perfectly suited for your application, supports an optimal return-on-investment, and has the extended life you expect of your deployment.
How Does 5G Deliver Higher Speed and Lower Latency?
5G is the fifth generation of cellular network technology, and is currently under deployment globally. It runs on radio frequencies ranging from below 1 GHz all the way up to very high frequencies, called “millimeter wave” (or mmWave). The combination of these frequencies provides nationwide coverage, massive capacity and multi-Gigabit peak rates, along with ultra-low latency. The lower the frequency, the farther the signal can travel. The higher the frequency, the more data it can carry. Here are the three frequency bands that are the foundation for 5G networks:
The 5G high-band, also called mmWave, describes the highest frequencies of 5G, ranging from 24 GHz up to 100 GHz. 5G mmWave coverage is limited, because these high frequencies cannot readily move through walls, windows, or foliage and therefore are short range in nature. They do require significantly more cellular infrastructure to provide coverage.
The 5G mid-band is new spectrum in the 2-6 GHz range that was more recently opened up for 5G communication. The mid-band provides a capacity layer for urban and suburban areas, with peak rates in the 100's of Mbps.
The 5G low-band is existing spectrum below 2 GHz that is used today for 4G LTE. It provides a nation-wide coverage layer, and multiple carriers have announced availability of low-band 5G networks. However, since the spectrum is used for 4G LTE today and the available spectrum is very limited, the performance will be similar to 4G LTE, and initially it may actually be lower. However, it offers an opportunity for eager adopters to try out 5G devices.
How Can Your Business Prepare for 5G?
Digi supports enterprises, municipalities and industrial outfits today with Gigiabit-Class LTE – the stepping stone to 5G that optimizes their investment today while helping them to prepare and seamlessly migrate to future technologies. Not only will LTE and 5G operate together on the same networks, but Digi solutions are designed with your upgrade path in mind, so you never have to fear that an investment today will be obsolete tomorrow.