To date, the majority of 5G FWA deployments have focused on the 3.5-3.8 GHz frequency bands. This is because these bands provide a fair coverage with what is cited as ‘good’ throughput rates (of course depending on MHz block size). However, organisations such as the GSMA argue that mmWave spectrum can provide a great bandwidth boost, similar to fibre optic, and thus, could be deployed on top of existing sites (serviced by sub 6 GHz) to fill any capacity gaps.
It is worth noting here that mmWave provides weak coverage propagation and it has been argued its range is more suited for densely populated areas such as cities or suburban locations that would benefit from its high throughput, though issues related to line of sight may need to be taken into account.
The dawn of 5G FWA has also introduced more spectral efficiency than previous LTE or proprietary technologies. Improvements in signalling and the CPE used for 5G FWA enable the use of massive MIMO (defined as: a wireless network that allows the transmitting and receiving of more than one data signal simultaneously over the same radio channel), beamforming techniques, and sound reference signal that allows the CPE to switch between beams to optimise its signal.
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