Are 5G towers like 4G or different?

One of the goals of 5G is to have low range but dense networks. Meaning each cell site will serve a small area but there will be a lot of cell sites. These sites are called small cells

(Although small cells are not exclusive to 5G,they have have been proposed numerous times across cellular generations,but experts say that 5G with its mmwave will be best suited for small cell adoption)

In this architecture traditional towers will be expensive and may even prove to be a hindrance in realizing the goal of small cells.

(Incidentally facebook with its terragraph is looking to do something similar https://terragraph.com/)

5G operators want to turn anything into a cell site. Lighting poles, utility poles, advertisement panels, rooftops, subways, malls, stadiums. Basically they want a cell site anywhere they can hang their radio equipment.

If you look at traditional towers today you'll find them dotted with antennas of various shapes and sizes. Most of these antennas aim to create what are known as sectors. However network operators have to rent tower space from third parties further adding to the cost of operation.

Until recently this was necessary. However in the last few years fiber connectivity (esp in India) has grown tremendously. Now when fiber is everywhere why limit your radios to a fixed location on the tower?

In small cells antennas and radio units are integrated so that they can be placed right where the demand is. Plus it would make each operator more independant and avoid conflicts

https://m.economictimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/truce-in-sight-trai-summons-airtel-vodafone-and-idea-to-settle-fight-with-reliance-jio/articleshow/54170767.cms

So in an ideal case 5G deployment will use less traditional towers and will instead look to reuse existing infrastructure of the city to spread out its networks.

However that does not mean that towers will be redundant. After all they provide height which can be used to enable high speed line of sight microwave backhaul links.

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