Where Will Your 5G Station Be Based?

Work on the next generation of mobile wireless technology is already underway. How will it be able to handle the exponentially greater amount of data we’re expecting people to use?

One scenario is that people have their own base stations in their cars or homes. Projections for increased mobile bandwidth use are based on smartphones becoming ubiquitous. More and more applications are being invented for mobile devices for both personal and business sectors. Looking long term, it’s beginning to look that a serious increase in traffic capacity is needed as soon as possible. Simply building larger base stations to handle the load isn’t really a viable option, however—the expense alone would drive up the cost of services beyond what customers would be able to afford.

The suggestion has been made that the solution to 5G problems is smaller stations, but a significantly increased number of them. Where will these stations end up? There are a number of options: One idea has been to simply have them hidden throughout towns at regular intervals, perhaps on streetlight posts. Another idea is to have homes or vehicles store the stations themselves.

This would also have an increased effect on data speed, since signals would not have to travel as far. These stations, if placed in vehicles, could also be modified to provide safety features by allowing vehicles to communicate and locate each other.

Connectivity is the future. In order for every living person to be connected to everyone else and to all of their devices at all times, it is necessary to create an infrastructure that can handle all of the data in a better format. Thus, developers of 5^th generation mobile networks will continue to look into options which greatly improve speed and connectivity.