Public Safety Networks from LTE to 5G

10Fifth Generation (5G) Cellular Technology

10.1 Introduction

Cellular wireless communication is normally categorized in generations that are normally denoted by G. The generation refers to metamorphism in the primary nature of the services offered, frequency bands and the non‐backward compatibility of the individual transmission technology. Since the establishment of the first generation (1G), we can say that movement from one generation to another takes approximately 10 years. The first generation was unleashed in 1981, which lead to the provision of 1G and later 2G, which were analog networks. After that, the third generation (3G), which had support for multimedia and a spread spectrum, was unveiled. Drawbacks in the third generation led to the release of the fourth generation (4G), which was introduced in 2011 and supported all IP‐switched networks.

The world has witnessed growth in mobile technology thus requiring effective innovations in both information and communication technologies to manage the ever‐growing demand for wireless devices. The high demand for mobile data services through wireless internet and smart machines have exceeded the capability of the current 4G networks thus triggering research into the next generation of terrestrial mobile telecommunications known as 5G. The 5G network is to be an improvement on the current 4G, which is seen as a multitude of heterogeneous systems that are programmed to interact through a horizontal IP‐centric architecture. The ...