What is 5G? 什麼是5G？
Just five years after the first 4G smartphone hit the market, the wireless industry is already preparing for 5G.
在第一支智慧型手機推出後僅5年，無線通訊產業已經開始為5G做準備
Each of the four
nationwide cell phone carriers, as well as smartphone chipmakers and the major
network equipment companies are working on developing 5G network technology for
their customers.
四大國際手機電信商、智慧型手機晶片製造商和網路設備製造大廠都正致力於為他們的顧客發展5G網路科技。
There are many
significant hurdles that all the industry players have to clear before
you'll see a little 5G symbol next to the signal bars on your smartphone
screen. For example, it has yet to be determined what 5G even means, let alone
what it will look like and when it will get here.
在你從手機螢幕上收訊符號旁邊看到一個小小5G符號之前，有很多重大障礙是所有業界人士必須先克服的。舉例來說，就連5G代表什麼都還沒被定義，更不用說它長怎樣和什麼時候會有。
But as consumers
use up rapidly growing amounts of 4G bandwidth watching streaming videos on
their phones, 5G will soon become a necessity. As telecom engineers work
furiously to develop 5G technology, we're getting a clearer picture of the who,
what, where, when and why of 5G.
但隨著消費者用智慧型手機4G頻寬看串流影音使用量的快速成長，5G很快就會成為必須；隨著電信工程師瘋狂的研發5G技術，我們得到一個5G更清楚的輪廓，它是誰？它是什麼？它在哪？什麼時候？為什麼會有？
What is 5G?
The "G"
in 3G, 4G and 5G stands for "generation." So 5G will be the fifth
generation of wireless network technology.
3G、4G、5G的G代表「代」，所以5G將會是第五代的無線網路科技。
The standards for
5G have not yet been set. According to Bill Smith, president of AT&T's network operations,
5G will likely be defined in 2018, and the standards for 5G will codified
sometime in 2019 by the standards-setting International Telecommunication
Union, a branch of the United Nations. The standards will determine which
wireless technologies can be called "5G," as well as what its
characteristics must include, such as how fast it will be.
5G的標準還沒有被定義，根據AT&T公司網路營運總裁Bill Smith，5G會在2018年被定義，而在2019年國際電信聯盟(屬聯合國的分支)將會定義5G的標準。標準將會決定怎樣的無線科技技術可以被稱作5G，還必須包含它的特色，像是它會有多快。
Still, it's
possible to make a very educated guess about what 5G will look like based on
the emerging 5G technologies that the wireless industry is experimenting with.
不過，根據無線產業正在實驗的新興5G科技， 5G會像什麼可以做一個非常有根據的推測。
Here's the elevator
pitch: 5G will be faster, smarter and less power-hungry than 4G, enabling a
slew of new wireless gadgets. 5G will let us have faster smartphones, more
smart-home devices and longer-lasting wearable gizmos.
推測的摘要簡報如下：5G會比4G更快、更聰明且更省電，對很多新的無線設備都是，5G會讓我們有更快的智慧型手機、更聰明的智慧家電和更持久的穿戴配件。
How fast will 5G be? 5G會有多快？
5G has the
potential to offer speeds up to 40 times faster than 4G -- fast enough to
stream "8K" video in 3-D or download a 3-D movie in about 6 seconds
(on 4G, it would take 6 minutes).
5G很有可能最高提供比4G快40倍的速度，快到可以串流8K解析度的3D影片或是在6秒內下載一個3D電影(用4G需要花6分鐘)。
Unfortunately for
consumers, there's a difference between lab experiments and reality. Peak
speeds are fun to dream about, but in the real world, actual speeds are much
slower than promised.
很不幸地，對於消費者來說，在實驗室實驗和現實之間有很大的差異，幻想著最高速度很有趣，但在現實世界，實際上的速度比指望的速度還慢很多。
Nokia, one of the biggest
5G players, believes that its 5G technology will allow for real-world speeds of
about 100 Megabits per second when the network is most congested -- that's
about four times faster than 4G's top speed.
Nokia，5G最大的業者之一，相信5G科技會讓真實世界在網路最擁擠的時候，也有每秒100MB的傳輸速度，那大概是4G最快速度的4倍快。
Another
characteristic of 5G is that it will have ultra-low latency, meaning
that it could drastically reduce the amount of time it takes for the network to
respond to your commands. That could give the appearance of much faster loading
websites, apps, videos and messages.
另一個5G的特色是它會有極低的延遲，代表它可能會急劇減少網路回應你的指令的時間，那可以讓網路更快載入網頁、app、影音和訊息。
How will it work?
A lot of the wireless
companies' 5G experimentation is taking place in super-high frequencies -- as
high as 73,000 MHz. Today's cell phone networks broadcast signal in a range of
700 MHz to 3,500 MHz.
很多無線網路公司都在實驗高頻率的5G，頻率大概有73,000 MHz，今天的手機網路廣播訊號是在700到3500 MHz的範圍內。
The advantage of
high-frequency signals is that they're capable of providing significantly
faster data speeds. The disadvantage is that they travel much shorter distances
and they can't easily penetrate walls. That means thousands -- perhaps even millions
-- of mini cell towers, or "small cells" would
need to be placed on top of every lamp post, every building, inside
every home and potentially every room.
高頻訊號的好處是它們可以提供明顯更快的資料傳輸速度，缺點是它們只能在更短的距離，且他們不能輕易地穿過牆壁，這代表可能數千甚至數百萬的手機基地台或小電塔可能需要被設置在每棟建築甚至每家、每個房間的每個燈柱上。
That presents a
host of problems. How can cell phone companies possibly process all that data?
There are companies, such as Google's recently acquired Alpental, that are
working on those "backhaul" issues. But they're not so close to a
solution, according to Akshay Sharma, wireless infrastructure analyst at
Gartner.
這造成了很多問題，手機公司要怎麼傳送這些資料？有些公司像Googlem，最近併購了主要業務為網路回傳技術議題的Alpental公司，但根據Gartner的無線基礎建設分析師Akshay Sharma表示，Alpental公司還沒有明確的解決方案。
That's why 5G might
complement 4G, rather than outright replace it. In buildings and in crowded
areas, 5G might provide a speed boost. But when you're driving down the highway,
4G could be your only option -- at least for a while.
那就是為什麼5G比較有可能補足4G，而不是直接取代4G，在建築內或在人群聚集的區域，5G可能提供非常快的速度。但當你開下高速公路，4G會是你唯一的選擇，至少這情況維持一陣子。
When is 5G coming? 什麼時候會有5G?
None of these
questions are going to be answered any time soon. The industry's consensus is
that it will run 5G experiments in South Korea during the 2018 Winter Olympics,
with mass deployments beginning sometime in 2020.
這些問題沒有一個問題可以很快地被解答，產業的共識是會在2018年的南韓冬季奧運嘗試5G的實驗，有大量的部署之後，在2020年就會某些時候就會開始。
Yet Verizon has said that it is working on 5G technology with the aim of bringing it to market much sooner -- as early as
2017.
Yet Verizon說投入研究5G科技，目標是要快、在2017年帶給市場(5G服務)。
With all the
questions surrounding 5G and all the wrinkles that need to be ironed
out, it's exceedingly unlikely that anything Verizon does will be widely deployed.
For example, the smartphone makers will need to develop chips that are capable
of sending and receiving 5G signal without driving costs significantly higher.
所有圍繞著5G的問題和所有需要被解決的難題，都顯示Verizon所做的一切並不太可能會被廣泛應用，例如說，智慧型手機製造商會需要研發，可以收發5G訊號而不會讓成本大幅提高的晶片。
【單字】
翻譯參考網站：
【單字】
- carrier 電信商
- hurdles 障礙
- let alone 更不用說
- educated guess 有根據的推測，指以知識為依據的推測，因此很可能是正確的
- Elevator pitch 電梯簡報
- gizmos 小型電子、機械設備
- latency 網路的延遲
- lamp post燈柱
- a host of 很多
- iron out wrinkles 解決難題
翻譯參考網站：
http://www.inside.com.tw/2010/09/08/elevator-speech
http://www.digitimes.com.tw/tw/dt/n/shwnws.asp?id=0000280766_GDN874KR5299KA7VUX4UW
https://www.computerdiy.com.tw/youtube-x-8k/
https://www.computerdiy.com.tw/youtube-x-8k/
