4G? Pah! Boffins charge up the dial to 5G data EXTREME-band kit
The wide open bands where a man can breathe free
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A project headed by New York University has scored $2m to fund research into 80GHz radio, as a potential home for 5G in the spectrum land rush up the dial.
$800,000 is coming from the US National Science Foundation, the rest from commercial companies and from NY State as represented by Empire State Development. The money will be spent trying to get 80GHz signals working over useful ranges and around obstacles with the avowed intention of making the space usable for 5G telephony.
These bands is well above what one would normally consider valuable spectrum: the really good frequencies are below 1GHz which is why they're all full of radio and TV transmissions. Working further up the dial needs new skills, and new research, with very few people understanding just how signals propagate in the "Extremely High Frequency" bands.
Back when radio started the first frequencies used were around 2MHz, so anything below .3MHz is known as Low Frequency, while anything above 3MHz is "High Frequency". When FM radio came along it needed more space, so it sits around 88MHz in the "Very High Frequency" band which stretches to 300MHz. Television, a relatively-late arrival, got slotted in around 600MHz in the "Ultra High Frequency" which runs up to 3GHz and thus covers existing mobile phones and wi-fi connections.
Above that we have "Super High Frequency", which runs up to 30GHz to cover the second wi-fi band (802.11a, at 5GHz) and more-esoteric LTE deployments, and finally we have "Extremely High Frequency" where WiGig is already having a hard time getting itself deployed and where the new team reckons 5G could comfortably sit.
Beyond EHF is the charmingly-named-but-not-ITU-approved "Tremendously High Frequency". That runs all the way up to infrared light which has already demonstrated its networking utility.
WiGig is still having functional problems at 60GHz, not least because of the lack of engineers with experimental experience. Some radar engineers do know the band, but not well and there aren't enough of them to go around.
Given the inability of EHF signals to penetrate walls or travel more than a few meters one might imagine the applications would be limited, but walls can often be walked around by picking up reflected signals, and range increased by clever encoding and better antennas, which are the areas the New York team will be focusing on.
Radio frequencies might be limited, but the tech moves at an astounding rate. A modern wi-fi access point isn't just processing radio signals, it could well be tracking the distance and direction of every connected device, creating narrow beams of radio directed at your pocket as you walk across the office. The 2.4GHz band was given away as it was considered worthless, only to become the most-heavily used spectrum on the dial.
The far end of that dial is still very empty and it will be interesting to see what the NY researchers can fill it with. ®
COMMENTS
Forget electromagnetic hypersensitivity - what about outlawing those satanic railways? The Human body was not designed to travel at such speeds - some claim that your soul is literally ripped from your body when you do. Who knows how new faster trains will affect us!
Detecting SMS
"At a time I could tell you exactly when I was going to receive an SMS or a call, and that was 100% accurate with no false positives and more than 60% of the events detected."
So could I, because my (early generation) AMPS phone would emit a quiet but distinct click when handshaking with the base station.
In a later model phone, I could tell because the flashing led antenna my gf had popped onto it would light up.
That was apart from the usual crapola from unshielded phones/speakers near GSM phones.
None of the above needed supernatural powers - and the earpiece would get so hot on many early phones (especially Motorola TAC/Microtac/GSMTAC) that it'd give me a headache after a few minutes use (I used to regularly wonder if medical stats would see a spike in pinneal cancers 20 years on)
As RF engineers we'd regularly get people telling us that XYZ antenna we were erecting was messing with their brains - and that was despite 'em not being cabled up, let alone connected to an active transmitter. It's amazing what the power of suggestion can achieve (Would I point a spare dish at a mildly paranoid acquaintance's window, then point it out a week or so afterward and suggest the illuminati were beaming mind control rays in order to get him to assassinate the Pope? I'm shocked, nay gobsmacked at the accusation!)
In some cases, even the _thought_ of us putting up an antenna brought on a rash of rashes and headaches - well before any equipment arrived on site.
In another case, an old 2 metre dish sitting wonkily on a couple of pallets was "transmitting up to spy satellites" (according to the local papers)
WRT phones and nads: You have more to worry about due to case heat than any amount of legal RF emission - and the same goes for putting a notebook on your lap. They might be called laptops but it's a seriously bad idea to actually use them there for more than a few minutes at a time.
@Morg
If you can reliably detect the radiation from a mobile phone you will be famous.
Find an agent, find an independent lab to back your claims then become very rich and famous. Or are you just bullshitting?
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