How many more generations of wireless communication can increase wave frequencies and data rates until it becomes physically meaningless?
One of the main marketing arguments of the 5G generation is that it is faster than any of the previous generations, and much more. In particular, this is facilitated by the use of millimeter waves. At the same time, the use of millimeter waves, that is, higher frequencies than those ever used in 2G, 3G or 4G, forced providers, in particular, AT&T and T-Mobile, to reconsider the deployment of 5G networks - after all, increasing the frequency requires placement closer together small cellular transmitters.
The idea of ββ6G, which is still very vaguely formed in the minds of researchers, can follow in the footsteps of 5G, using even higher frequencies and increasing the data transfer rate. Let's have some fun on this topic - let's assume that these same qualities remain important for future generations of wireless communication, and think about where this road will lead us? What will 8G look like? What about 10G? At what point will extrapolation to future generations of wireless technology no longer make physical sense?
Naturally, most of these fictional wireless generations are absurd. Future generations of wireless communication will certainly strive to increase speeds and data volumes, but researchers will develop and improve new technologies that will allow you to receive more from the same frequency bands. Technologies like MIMO are already giving us this capability in 5G networks. And in the future, who knows? Perhaps our spectrum will be controlled by AI, or some other ideas will appear.
6G
We already have some rough ideas about what the next generation of wireless will be like. These may be terahertz waves, with which researchers have already transmitted data over a distance of 20 meters. And suddenly, worrying about spacing 5G stations every 150 meters doesn't seem so crazy anymore (however, it's still a costly undertaking). If 6G continues to condense small transmitter installations, get ready to dodge cell towers every ten meters. But at least download speeds will be 1000 times faster.
6G will appear in 2028: 1 Tb / s, frequencies of 3 THz, 7.7 seconds to download the movie "Avengers: Endgame" in 4K resolution.
8G
Let's jump to the 8G standard - here we have already skipped the visible light range and use almost ultraviolet waves to transmit texts to each other. In the case of 8G, we already have to worry about ionizing radiation. There has long been concern that cell phones can cause cancer, but conventional cellular communications have little energy, so are not ionizing radiation. But with 8G, this assumption no longer works - ultraviolet radiation is quite ionizing, and if we spread it from every cell tower, then mobile communications will definitely cause cancer. Or maybe not - at such wavelengths, networks will be able to rely on focused beams instead of covering large areas. 8G could turn the city into a deadly yet accurate playing field for invisible laser tag, with base stations sending beams of data at our devices, narrowly missing us.
8G will appear in 2048: 17,2 Pb / s, frequencies of 3,65 MHz, 435 ms for downloading the movie "Avengers: Endgame" in 4K resolution.
10G
Tell me, is it unpleasant to break a bone, and trudge to the hospital to get an x-ray? But wait, 10G generation smartphones are coming soon (not to be confused with that already exist). 10G will use hard X-rays - such as those used in medicine and airports - to transmit data. I bet that at least one startup will advertise a mobile application for x-rays. This, of course, is a plus - and among the minuses will be cancer and skin burns, which will only worsen as the signal climbs higher and higher along the spectrum.
10G coming in 2068: 314 Eb/s, 4,44 MHz, 24,5 ns to download Avengers: Endgame in 4K resolution.
11G
We are now using gamma rays to download podcasts and stream videos. If you're wondering where else gamma rays are found, they have two main sources - cosmic radiation (particles traveling at almost the speed of light) colliding with molecules in the atmosphere, and nuclear fusion. So the downside is that calling a person would require bombarding both phones with the same radiation that comes from testing a hydrogen bomb. But the upside is that you can download all the data accumulated by human civilization in about 3 seconds - that is, at least this will happen before you die from radiation.
11G coming in 2078: 41,8 Zb/s, 155 Hz, 184 ps for a 4K download of Avengers: Endgame.
15G
15G is the finish line. If someone tries to sell you a 16G smartphone, ignore them - it's completely ridiculous. For 15G we use ultra-high energy gamma rays. Theoretically, there are shorter and higher energy wavelengths, but physicists have not yet observed them. And such energies are observed mainly only in extremely high-energy photons coming to us from deep space. Phone calls will be made using photons, the energy of each of which will be equal to the energy of the pellet that was fired from the air. New phones will have to be purchased frequently, as even very secure phones will be damaged after every download. Just like you, gamma rays have more than enough energy to break apart DNA molecules.
15G coming in 2118: 1,31 kvekkabps ( for the extension of the SI system, the prefix denoting 1030), a frequency of 230 Hz, 500 zs for downloading the movie "Avengers: Endgame" in 4K resolution (this, by the way, is only 290 times more than the "natural unit" of time, which is 1,3 Γ 10- 21c).
Source: habr.com