Millimeter-wave communications for 5G: fundamentals: Part I [Guest Editorial]

The widespread availability and demand for multimedia capable devices and multimedia content have fueled the need for high-speed wireless connectivity beyond the capabilities of existing commercial standards. While fiber optic data transfer links can provide multigigabit- per-second data rates, cost and deployment are often prohibitive in many applications. Wireless links, on the contrary, can provide a cost-effective fiber alternative to interconnect the outlining areas beyond the reach of the fiber rollout. With this in mind, the ever increasing demand for multi-gigabit wireless applications, fiber segment replacement mobile backhauling and aggregation, and covering the last mile have posed enormous challenges for next generation wireless technologies. In particular, the unbalanced temporal and geographical variations of spectrum usage along with the rapid proliferation of bandwidth- hungry mobile applications, such as video streaming with high definition television (HDTV) and ultra-high definition video (UHDV), have inspired millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications as a promising technology to alleviate the pressure of scarce spectrum resources for fifth generation (5G) mobile broadband.