Why do we use RF to Microwave Frequencies (100 MHz to 6 GHz) for Wireless Communications?
The basic information which we are transmitting, being voice, video or data has a bandwidth of 4-20 kHz
(voice) and 0.1-2 MHz (video and data). Sometimes the bandwidth is given in bits-per-second (Kilo or
Mega-bits per second) since the information is basically in digital bits. In general, it is possible to put 2
bit per hertz of bandwidth (in modern systems only), so a 1 Mbps video data will take around 500 kHz of
frequency bandwidth. However, these low frequencies cannot be transmitted wirelessly since antennas
operate efficiently when their dimensions are a fraction of a wavelength (typically 0.25-0.5λ). Therefore,
an efficient 1 MHz antenna will be 75-150 meter in length! There is another reason why we do not
transmit low frequencies: A 2 Mbps signal contains all frequencies from nearly DC to 1 MHz, and this is
virtually a 200:1 bandwidth (5 KHz to 1 MHz), and it is very hard, if not impossible, to make an antenna
at any frequency with such a wide bandwidth.