5G and mmWave
Millimeter wavelength offers the potential to deliver low latency high speed connectivity to devices. The use of mmWave is expanding both on the handset and on access points and routers for backhaul communication. While mmWave can provide a significant latency and bandwidth improvement over short distances versus LTE, the signal quality can also be impacted significantly by thick walls, brick, and even by environmental factors including humidity and rain. As an example, the density of air can alter wireless transmission performance.
Three Ways to Improve Performance:
1) multiple antennas
2) small cellular (e.g. "small cell") towers
3) Redundancy.
1) Mobile Devices & Phone Handsets - Multiple Antennas
On the handset side, multiple antennas can help provide coverage even when a user's hand blocks connectivity from one antenna. Most design specifications suggest at least 3 antennas for mobile devices.
2) Small Cells - Backhaul & Obviating Fiber to the Home
mmWave can prove to be an effective method of offloading wireless traffic from 4G cellular networks or WiFi networks to cellular towers. As an example, a Wi-Fi access point may be enabled to communicate with end point devices over Wi-Fi 6 and connect via mmWave to a proximate cellular tower that ultimately utilizes a wired connection to access Internet resources.
Micro-cellular towers may be embedded in streetlights, lamp posts, and other places to provide local connectivity without laying down expensive fiber to the home. Instead Fiber can be utilized to a select number of micro-cellular tower devices.
3) Redundancy
Sending the same transmission over multiple mediums can be an effective way to improve reliability. This can be of greater importance in situations such as self-driving vehicles, virtual reality, and augmented reality.
About: Accelerate Labs, founded in 2015, has been developing mmWave based industrial solutions that leverage 5G networks. For more information, email as at contact@acceleratelabs.com.