You will have come across terms like low-band, mid-band, C-band, and millimeter wave or mmWave, 5G Evolution, Ultra-wide band, and the like. We explain them all in this article. In summary, lower frequency bands are more congested, cover much greater distances, but offer slower data speeds, while higher frequency bands cover much smaller areas but have more capacity and deliver much greater speeds. Low-band is the slowest, mid-band or C-band offers reasonable speeds, and millimeter wave (mmWave), which occupies the higher frequencies, delivers the fastest speeds. Millimeter wave (mmWave) is also the most susceptible to obstruction from physical objects, like walls, terrain, and the like. As such, rollout of 5G mmWave is more tasking, requiring a greater concentration of transmission equipment. That means, you need more equipment to cover a given area with mmWave than if you were deploying C-band or low-band.
Deployment
Naturally, low-band (sub-6GHz, NSA) technology was what the first 5G networks were deployed on, since they leveraged on existing 4G LTE infrastructure, and so were cheaper and faster to deploy. But the speed difference between sub-6GHz and LTE was not much. Carriers needed to deliver on the promise of greater speed and capacity. Some carriers and networks then began to deploy millimeter wave (mmWave) in limited scopes to fulfil that promise. Elsewhere around the world, governments freed up the C-band, which had previously been deployed for other uses, including satellite communications, and made it available for 5G deployment. Mid-band/C-band has characteristics that makes it the ideal, balanced, deployment. In the United States, it has been referred to as the saviour of 5G. Mid-band/C-band is now being used for 5G rollout in more and more countries around the world (including Nigeria), and is likely to become the most popular form.
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