  Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has received tremendous attention for
the design of radio access techniques for fifth generation (5G) wireless
networks and beyond. The basic concept behind NOMA is to serve more than one
user in the same resource block, e.g., a time slot, subcarrier, spreading code,
or space. With this, NOMA promotes massive connectivity, lowers latency,
improves user fairness and spectral efficiency, and increases reliability
compared to orthogonal multiple access (OMA) techniques. While NOMA has gained
significant attention from the communications community, it has also been
subject to several widespread misunderstandings, such as $``\textit{NOMA is
based on allocating higher power to users with worse channel conditions. As
such, cell-edge users receive more power in NOMA and due to this biased power
allocation toward cell-edge users inter-cell interference is more severe in
NOMA compared to OMA. NOMA also compromises security for spectral
efficiency.}''$ The above statements are actually false, and this paper aims at
identifying such common myths about NOMA and clarifying why they are not true.
We also pose critical questions that are important for the effective adoption
of NOMA in 5G and beyond and identify promising research directions for NOMA,
which will require intense investigation in the future.
