THE NEWEST CELL NETWORK IS HERE
The newest cell network is here, but you might not have noticed ... yet
For a wireless network that will be needed to enable the cities of the future, 5G has made a relatively quiet debut in Pittsburgh.
That’s probably because, for now, you won’t notice a difference until you drop about $1,300 on a 5Gcompatible phone.
AT&T rolled out its fifth-generation network in Pittsburgh in December, one of the first phases of a nationwide plan, but the benefits are only available to a small number of users who have also purchased a specific type of phone. For AT&T, that’s the Samsung Galaxy Note10+ 5G.
Those select users will experience faster speeds and lower latency, or lag time, making their phone better for things like gaming and streaming. One example: On a 5G network, you could download a movie in just a few seconds.
But that’s just the start. Cellphone carriers are gearing up to release more 5G-capable phones to make these types of benefits more accessible — and affordable — to more users. At the same time, they are quietly laying the groundwork to roll out an even more significant 5G network — the type that will enable self-driving cars to “talk” to one another and devices to show first responders a blueprint of a burning building in real time.
The debut of 5G has also led to some unusual concerns. Some worry the new networks could interfere with meteorologists’ forecasts or create an increase in harmful radiation and lead to new health risks. Another concern is that this will force consumers to buy new phones. For now, even if you can’t tap into the 5G network, your 3G or 4G device should work.
Despite the various questions, carriers are charging forward.
Bright ideas wanted
The second type of service — or 5G+ as AT&T likes to call it — isn’t ready yet, but it’s what the telecommunications and technology industries are most excited about.
“It’s difficult for me to give you 10 examples for how people will use [5G] because that idea is worth a billion dollars,” said Brian Kennedy, senior vice president for operations and government affairs for the Pittsburgh Technology Council, based on the North Side.
“The network is just the network. But what you do with the network is transformational for the future,” he said.
To get the thinking started, Mr. Kennedy said the tech council is planning a competition to see what ideas Pittsburgh tech companies have for using such a fast network.
Already, nationally, people are talking about how 5G will enable entrepreneurs to run an entire business from their phone, help improve telemedicine because there will be less lag time and help close the digital divide by providing more reliable broadband for students using just a mobile device.
“Once people can connect to 5G in one city, it’s just going to take off,” Mr. Kennedy said.
The major carriers are locked in a battle to be the first to deploy the service but eventually each carrier will offer its own nationwide network.
Mr. Kennedy said the tech council has been in talks with all the major carriers about coming to Pittsburgh and hopes to see them all deploy by the end of the year.
Building the towers
Before we can get there, those carriers have to start building.
The 5G network AT&T has rolled out uses existing infrastructure, like cell towers the company already has in place. The improved 5G+ will need new infrastructure — mainly a small, pizza box-sized device that sits on a streetlight or utility pole called a small cell.
The small cell will enable faster movement of data.
For example, a small cell that sits outside the City-County Building in Downtown makes it easier for people moving through the corridor to stream music with Spotify or avoid traffic backups with the Waze app.
Using a small cell to move data rather than a cell tower is like switching from using a garden hose to a fire hydrant, said Renee Fleener
Morales, public affairs manager for Crown Castle, a Houston telecommunications infrastructure company tasked with putting small cells in place.
Ms. Morales said it’s best to think of cell towers as providing a “web of coverage” and small cells as offering increased capacity for more data and devices.
Crown Castle has already put 40 small cell nodes around Pittsburgh. Chances are you haven’t spotted them. That’s by design.
The first choice is to build on an existing streetlight or utility pole. If that doesn’t work, Crown Castle will build to match the “aesthetic” of the community.
“We always say that we want to be hidden in plain sight,” Ms. Morales said. “We want to be woven into the fabric of the community.”
It takes Crown Castle 18 to 24 months to deploy a set of infrastructure, she said. But that set can range from three small cells to 20 depending on the contract.
Getting the pols involved
It’s hard to know how many small cells a city will need to totally deploy a 5G network because it depends on the carrier, the number of people using the network and what they are using it for.
To speed that process, legislation is moving through the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to standardize the process of building small cells.
“We need to have modern infrastructure that is going to keep pace with the technology that we all want to experience,” said Ashley Henry Shook, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Partnership for 5G, a group that is working to get that state legislation passed.
“More and more devices are coming online. It’s not just the mobile phone that all of us carry now, it’s the fact that we have a wearable of some sort, the fact that every family has multiple tablets now,” she said. “We are straining these networks to the point where we are jeopardizing their ability to function optimally.”
The cost for implementing these networks will be footed by the carriers.
AT&T invested $150 million in wireless and wireline network between 2016 and 2018, according to David Kerr, president of external affairs for AT&T, Pennsylvania. Mr. Kerr said the company did not break its spending down into how much went specifically toward 5G infrastructure.
Telecommunications companies are expected to invest $275 billion in infrastructure for 5G, based on a 2017 study from Accenture, a Dublin-based professional services company. The technology could create up to 3 million jobs and boost gross domestic product by $500 billion, the study predicted.
“It’s private investment but for public consumption ultimately,” Ms. Morales from Crown Castle said. “It’s a huge benefit for cities across the nation to be able to tout what they have, whether you’re trying to retain college graduates, whether you’re trying to get a new business to come into town.”
A long time coming
If it seems like you’ve been hearing about 5G for a while now, you would be right.
Martin Weiss, a professor in Pitt’s School of Computing and Information who has studied the telecommunications industry, said people started to talk about 5G right when LTE was “hitting stride” — somewhere around the late 2000s and early 2010s.
“The lead-up to the development of standards is really long,” Mr. Weiss said. “It takes years for these to come out and years before people can actually build these kinds of systems.”
So far the transition is following the same kind of patterns as when we moved from 2G to 3G, then 3G to 4G. The carriers try to match the market demand, Mr. Weiss said.
So, for example, as AT&T starts to roll out 5G networks, demand for faster speeds may go up, leading to more new devices and more infrastructure to enable even faster speeds.
Mr. Weiss is already starting to hear about 6G.