Starting this Thursday (4th), São Paulo residents will have more 5G coverage than other capitals that already have the new telephony service.
According to preliminary data from Anatel (National Telecommunications Agency), the number of antennas registered to broadcast the 5G signal in São Paulo is already approaching 1,400, almost triple the minimum required.
According to the rules defined by the agency, telecoms are required to install at least 1 antenna for every 100,000 inhabitants at this stage of implementation of the new service.
By this metric, the minimum required in the capital of São Paulo would be 462 antennas erected by the three operators —Vivo, Claro and Tim.
In Brasília, where the service debuted in early July, there were 324 antennas to cover 80% of the Federal District’s area — practically the minimum required.
The concentration of antennas, according to Anatel, is higher in Plano Piloto and in the lakes region (south and north), noble areas of the federal capital.
In São Paulo, telephony operators held a task force last week to obtain approval from Anatel (Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações).
Until Friday (29), the Gaispi (Group for Monitoring the Implementation of Solutions for Interference Problems) kept the capital of São Paulo off the list of cities to have approval for 5G because half of the antennas erected had not yet installed filters. to avoid signal interference.
Last Saturday, the agency was called to carry out tests and, on Sunday, the counselor Moisés Moreira, who presides over Gaispi, checked the report from the technical area that recommended the release.
Moreira then called an extraordinary meeting for the release of 5G in São Paulo, which took place this Tuesday (2).
The telecoms paid fees related to licenses and service so that the connection starts being offered this Thursday.
“It is natural that the largest market has a greater degree of competition and a high volume of requests for licensing antennas”, said Marcos Ferrari, president of Conexis, an association that brings together companies in the sector. “This just demonstrates our appetite to turn on 5G in the country’s biggest capital.”
However, according to Ferrari, the approval of a new antenna law in São Paulo was essential for companies to build more towers.
“We are talking so that the operational procedures do not create obstacles to the expansion of connectivity in the city, especially in the most peripheral areas”, said Ferrari.
The construction of more antennas is essential so that the fifth generation telephony is provided with good quality. The technology allows mobile internet browsing speeds up to ten times faster than 4G and latency of less than a millisecond.
Latency is the time it takes for the cell phone to trigger an internet address, for example, and download it to the screen.
This range is critical for applications such as remote surgery or control of autonomous vehicles to become a reality.
For this, companies need to build, on average, ten times more antennas than the entire park already installed in the country.
This is because the frequency used for the emission of the 5G signal —3.5 GHz (Gigahertz) — has limited coverage, hence the need for more towers to spread the signal.
Frequency is an avenue in the air through which telecoms carry their signals. Outside of them, interference occurs.
5G works in the 3.5 GHz frequency band, which has been occupied by satellite companies.
With the vacancy of this band, the telcos have to install filters in the cellular antennas and in the satellite dishes, equipment that captures the signals emitted in that frequency and that, from now on, will work in another band. This process has been called “cleaning” by the agency’s technicians.
“They did a joint effort last week and, on Friday, they came to ask for the signal to be released”, said Moisés Moreira, from Anatel. “The agency’s technicians did tests on Saturday and confirmed the technical feasibility of releasing the signal.”
Initially, coverage in São Paulo will be concentrated in the area between the Tietê and Pinheiros marginals, the so-called expanded center. In the East and North zones and in the periphery of the South zone, the antennas are scattered.
In addition to coverage, São Paulo residents need to be aware of the devices. Not all cell phones are already able to work on the pure 5G network.
Anatel technicians consulted manufacturers of chips and fifth-generation devices to find out what is happening and found that few models work today with the technology called “standalone”, that of “pure 5G”.
On the standalone network, the response time for the cell phone to receive data is less than 1 millisecond — time known as latency. “Non-standalone” offers higher latency.
In addition to standalone and non-standalone networks, there are so-called DSS (Dynamic Spectrum Sharing) networks, which simulate the speed of 5G — but using 4G antennas. Latency is also higher than that of 5G.
Many devices need to have their chips changed to use pure 5G, like the iPhone. Apple has already warned Anatel that its devices need 5G chips to work in standalone.
However, there is a lack of fifth-generation chips on the market. Therefore, according to the manufacturers, the telecoms have not yet launched plans that actually operate with 5G — the only operator that separated the networks with their own plans for standalone 5G was TIM.
Devices today display the 5G signal on the screen, but for the most part they work on the DSS network — which simulates the speed of 5G — or on non-standalone 5G.
Communications Minister Fábio Faria said he is going to California, USA, to ask Apple to update its iPhones.
“Today, the iPhone is only able to have non-standalone 5G,” said Faria. “To have standalone that works [com] internet of things needs to download update [da Apple]. Operators are already talking [com a Apple].”
The minister said that the idea is to have these updates available from Apple and other manufacturers —Motorola and Samsung— by the end of September, the deadline for 5G antennas to be working in all capitals of the country.
In Apple’s case, only the iPhone 13 models (the most recent ones launched by the American company) will allow pure 5G. They must be approved in November. Even so, Apple will have to make specific software available. There is no set date for the release.
Samsung and Motorola models operate on standalone networks without the need to change chips. They are: S21, S21Plus, S21Ultra, A52s, S21FE, S22, S22PLus, S22Ultra, A535G, A335G, A735G, M535G – all from Samsung’s Galaxy series; Edge20, MotoG200, Edge300Pro, Edge30, Edge 30Pro, MotoG82, Moto G62, by Motorola.
The other models from Apple, Samsung and Motorola sold as 5G only work on non-standalone networks.
Until the update of the devices and the arrival of 5G chips, Anatel has no way of demanding compliance with the quality of service because, according to reports from the agency’s technicians, operators have not started selling exclusive 5G plans (with a new chip).
All of them advertise 5G packages, but they simply migrated customers from one service to another through the fourth generation networks, which simulate the speed of 5G, or the new, non-standalone networks.
Anatel’s Obligation Compliance Superintendence is already monitoring this situation and, as of September, when all capitals must have 5G networks installed, it will demand quality in the provision of the service.
According to the president of Gaispi (Group for Monitoring the Implementation of Solutions for Interference Problems), the counselor of Anatel Moisés Moreira, other capitals are advanced with the installation of the 5G network.
The next capitals to have the green light are Goiânia (GO), Salvador (BA), Curitiba (PR) and Rio de Janeiro (RJ) next week. Belo Horizonte (MG), Porto Alegre (RS) and João Pessoa (PB) already have the service since July 29th.
According to Anatel’s original plan, all 27 capitals should have the service in operation in July.
However, the schedule was postponed for two months due to the lack of equipment coming from China, which was forced to decree a lockdown with a new wave of the pandemic.
The equipment coming from China are filters that avoid interference. Therefore, the agency granted until the end of September for all capitals to have 5G antennas.
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