The concept of 5G – fifth generation – is generally used to indicate new technologies and standards for mobile communication which are subsequent to the fourth generation (4G/IMT1 – Advanced). It is capable both to increase the performance of the services currently offered and to support new services such as the Internet of Things (IoT), the so called M2M (Machine to Machine) communications and transmission and communication services in emergency and public safety situations.
One of the main features of this technology is represented by a set of system characteristics, including a better quality of the service in terms of higher speed and lower data transmission latency, with the chance to get high transmission capacities and/or a very low delay rate in the numerous applications. Therefore, 5G will depict a framework which integrates the existing technologies and supports a heterogeneous environment of fixed and mobile networks, characterized by a multiplicity of radio interfaces and can allow the simultaneous connection of a major number of devices, a greater efficiency in the use of the radio spectrum (higher volume of data per unit of area), a lower battery waste and less probability of a service interruption.
The uphill battle towards the development and the standardization of 5G systems began in 2013, is still ongoing and is also carried on by the European Union thanks to its investments in various research projects. To start with, it is important to remind that the telephone networks are classified in terms of generations according to the diverse functionalities and the recent technological evolutions and can be so summarized:
• second generation (2G) networks, which were born in 1991, were different from the first generation ones for their digital nature and represented a set of standards that governed the mobile telephony, but neglected the data transmission;
• the third generation (3G), which was born in 2000 – but it arrived in Italy only in 2005 – and was focused on internet, video calls and mobile TV;
• the fourth generation of mobile technology (4G/LTE) networks, that was developed in 2011 to boost the Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony, cloud computing and video conferencing.
Source: https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2020/09/11/5g-as-a-boost-for-the-italian-development/
