How does a 5G base station work?

5G base stations operate by using multiple input and multiple output (MIMO) antennas to send and receive more data simultaneously compared to previous generations of mobile networks. They are designed to handle the increased data traffic and provide higher speeds by operating in higher frequency bands, such as the millimeter-wave spectrum.

How do engineers design 5G base stations?

Engineers designing 5G base stations must contend with energy use, weight, size, and heat, which impact design decisions. 5G New Radio (NR) uses Multi-User massive-MIMO (MU-MIMO), Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB), and beamforming with millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum up to 71 GHz.

What are the different types of 5G base stations?

From the perspective of equipment architecture, 5G base stations can be divided into different architectures such as BBU-AAU, CU-DU-AAU, BBU-RRU-Antenna, CU-DU-RRU-Antenna, and integrated gNB.

Does 5G increase power consumption compared to 4G?

Compared with 4G networks, 5G not only increases power consumption by more than three times, but also doubles the demand for 5G base stations due to the attenuation of coverage. Therefore, for operators, 5G base stations The high power consumption has even become the primary reason for restricting 5G network construction.

What is a 5G baseband unit?

The 5G baseband unit is responsible for NR baseband protocol processing, including the entire user plane (UP) and control plane (CP) protocol processing functions, and provides the backhaul interface (NG interface) with the core network and the interconnection interface between base stations (Xn interface ).

What are base stations in 4G LTE networks called?

The base stations in 4G LTE networks are called either evolved Node B or eNodeB. You’ll find that eNodeB is usually abbreviated as eNB in 5G network architecture diagrams, and gNodeB as gNB. It helps to keep mind that a base station called eNB is for 4G, and gNB is for 5G.