5G: The Greatest Show on Earth!

5G: The Greatest Show on Earth!

Vol 32: UP

05/11/2023 | 56 pages
Price: $1,295.00
Register for a free preview Purchase this Issue


SRG just completed its 32nd 5G benchmark study.  For this endeavor we collaborated with Accuver Americas and Spirent Communications to conduct an independent benchmark study of 5G mmWave 4 component carrier (4CC) uplink performance, using AT&T’s commercial network in Glendale, AZ.
Highlights of the Report include the following:
Our Thanks.  We did this study in collaboration with Accuver Americas (XCAL5/XCAL-Solo and XCAP) and Spirent Communications (Umetrix Data). SRG is responsible for the data collection and all analysis and commentary provided in this report.

Our Methodology.  We tested within State Farm stadium and around the Glendale Entertainment District. Nokia [and some Corning] is the infrastructure supplier in this market. We used four flagship Samsung smartphones, from the Galaxy S23 back to the Galaxy S20 Plus. We used Umetrix Data to generate the uplink/downlink data transfers and XCAL-Solo to log the chipset data. We also used various Android applications to measure and record the battery current drain.

Temperamental.  We can best describe the 4CC uplink performance as being temperamental. Although it was possible to obtain reasonably good performance when directly facing the serving cell, the uplink speeds were highly dependent on the phone’s orientation to the serving site and body blockage. The variability in the uplink [and downlink] speeds was directly related to the signal strength (RSRP).

Battery Temperature.  Despite our use of the ice cube bath, we found that high bandwidth downlink and uplink data transfers only had a modest impact on battery temperature. However, the glaring sun was a killer, meaning that a 5G smartphone could hit its thermal limit even before transferring a single byte of data over 5G. We quantify these comments.

Battery Current Drain.  Once again, the higher the throughput the higher the current efficiency or the achieved throughput for a given amount of current (Mbps/mA). While it is true higher data speeds increase the battery current drain, it is more than offset by the increase in data speeds. The Galaxy S23 meaningfully outperformed the S20 Ultra and other legacy phones in this category.

Around the Corner.  Future topics include Open RAN (multiple studies, including scheduler efficiency), uplink MU-MIMO, another downlink MU-MIMO, and uplink 5G carrier aggregation (FR1), in no particular order.