Samsung Testing 5G Phones With 1gbps Download Speed

Gumbercules!! writes "While many smartphone users are still on 3G and are waiting for 4G to be available, Samsung is now testing 5G networks, capable of getting speeds up to 1gbps. Obviously, we're years away from seeing these in the wild (the company is shooting for 2020) but it's still an amazing improvement over what many people are experiencing now."

Comments

Re:Spectrum?

[rossdee]

"I do not know what is the limit of the "wireless spectrum" if there is any"

There is legal limits (controlled by the FCC)

There is technology limits

The atmospere absorbs some frequencies

There are practical limits - sure you can theoretically get lots of bandwidth in the X-Ray and gamma ray end of the spectrum, but do you really want one of those next to your ear?

Re:What is this 5G thing?

[tlambert]

The Samsung testing was in the LMDS frequency band, which the FCC has auctioned off already in the US to cable providers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Multipoint_Distribution_Service

The FCC has already licensed this band for satellite downlink:

http://spectrumwiki.com/wiki/display.aspx?From=disp&f=28499999999

Which means it can't be used for 5G in the US like they are doing with NTT DoCoMo in the Samsung experiments.

Re:Spectrum?

[WhiteDragon]

I do not know what is the limit of the "wireless spectrum" if there is any. Before this limit is reached, I guess just updating all hardware gears that transmit/route more efficiently is all that is needed.

The limit is given precisely by Shannon's Law, which gives a mathematical limit on the amount of data that can be sent over a given amount of bandwidth. Spectral Efficiency is the amount of bandwidth available in a given wireless spectrum.