  This paper presents a study of the candidate waveforms for 5G when they are
subject to timing and carrier frequency offset. These waveforms are: orthogonal
frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), generalized frequency division
multiplexing (GFDM), universal filtered multicarrier (UFMC), circular filter
bank multicarrier (C-FBMC), and linear filter bank multicarrier (FBMC). We are
particularly interested in multiple access interference (MAI) when a number of
users transmit their signals to a base station in an asynchronous or a
quasi-synchronous manner. We identify the source of MAI in these waveforms and
present some numerical analysis that confirm our findings. The goal of this
study is to answer the following question, "Which one of the 5G candidate
waveforms has more relaxed synchronization requirements?".
