{"id":7066298,"date":"2026-09-25T04:40:03","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T04:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/5g-technology\/mmwave-isnt-dead-its-just-hiding\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T04:40:03","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T04:40:03","slug":"mmwave-isnt-dead-its-just-hiding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7066298","title":{"rendered":"mmWave isn\u2019t dead; it\u2019s just hiding"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Considered too expensive to deploy at scale in mobile networks, mmWave technologies are appearing in other use cases.<\/em><\/p>\n

When 3GPP added mmWave to cellular standards starting with Release 15<\/a>, the first for 5G, the telecom industry hyped mmWave (24 GHz, 28 GHz, 39 GHz, and 52 GHz) as the future of mobile wireless. Wireless operators began advertising blazingly fast downloads, expecting consumers to pay for it. Something, however, went wrong.<\/p>\n

While mmWave channel bandwidths can reach 1 GHz, a vast improvement over LTE and even 5G sub-6 GHz, physics and deployment costs intruded. The short distances, say 100 m, and signal attenuation from trees, buildings, glass, and so on required carriers to install huge quantities of small cells. While several companies jumped into mmWave by offering various kinds of repeaters, ultimately the carriers couldn\u2019t justify the massive cost. Some deployment did occur, mostly in cities with a high density of users. The telecom pundits declared mmWave dead.<\/p>\n

If your only perspective comes from mobile handsets, then I agree that mmWave is dead. Indeed, I\u2019ve heard no talk of mmWave in the 6G conversations other than perhaps for Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC). That said, mmWave lives in commercial applications, and not just in radar and satellites.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one mobile application where mmWave has taken hold in the mobile business, it\u2019s at stadiums and arenas where thousands of users want to connect all at once, though they are not very mobile. Figure 1<\/strong> demonstrates how multiple mmWave beams connect users in a hockey arena. That\u2019s where mmWave signals make sense for mobile use. Not only can 5G mmWave connect thousands of users, but it delivers those connections with lower latency than is possible with lower-frequency 5G signals.<\/p>\n

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