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Real world 4G vs. 5G test shows 14x bandwidth increase

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Re: Real world 4G vs. 5G test shows 14x bandwidth increase

#71

Post by jfindley »

mdasen wrote: post #14

Without more details on the test setup, it's hard to evaluate it. 5G can be deployed with much more spectrum than 4G can be. Deployed with 60-80MHz of spectrum, US carriers have shown off LTE north of 700Mbps. The article said that they were using the 3.5GHz band, but they didn't say how much spectrum they were using which makes the comparison incredibly suspect. Do an image search for "T-Mobile gigabit" or "Sprint g…

I would really like details on latency. Bandwidth is all very well, but it's high latency that is so often the real limiting factor in browsing performance. I live in a rural area, and my wired connection is very slow (~ 12Mbps). 4G competes well for bandwidth, but the latency (and the fact that the latency is highly variable) makes 4G unsuitable for general purpose internet use.

If 5G could be made closer to WiFi for both mean latency and latency stability it would have a potentially huge impact on broadband access in remote regions (assuming it's easier to deploy 5G there than fiber - which I think is true for most regions).

Re: Real world 4G vs. 5G test shows 14x bandwidth increase

#72

Post by xexers »

nfriedly wrote: post #23

Faster speed is great, but what about bumping the data caps? I was able to hit ~70mb/s over 4G several years ago (in ideal conditions). That's enough to burn through most bandwidth caps in a couple of minutes! Even most "unlimited" plans still throttle you after some point.

It could be that many of these companies want to keep the caps low so that you need to purchase both home internet and mobile internet. If I had a 100gb cap, I'd ditch my home DSL and simply use my phone as a hotspot all the time.

Here in Canada, Bell & Rogers own both the cellular networks and the home internet networks. They are highly incented to sell you BOTH.

Re: Real world 4G vs. 5G test shows 14x bandwidth increase

#73

Post by callesgg »

Since 4G came out i have never had to think about the internet speed of my phone. Only when it has been connected to wifi abroad.

What we need is not speed or bandwidth, it is penetration and range.

*It is probably a regional thing i can image that 4G could be quite slow in the midst of Tokyo.

Re: Real world 4G vs. 5G test shows 14x bandwidth increase

#77

Post by iknowstuff »

jfindley wrote: post #71
mdasen wrote: post #14

Without more details on the test setup, it's hard to evaluate it. 5G can be deployed with much more spectrum than 4G can be. Deployed with 60-80MHz of spectrum, US carriers have shown off LTE north of 700Mbps. The article said that they were using the 3.5GHz band, but they didn't say how much spectrum they were using which makes the comparison incredibly suspect. Do an image search for "T-Mobile gigabit" or "Sprint g…

I would really like details on latency. Bandwidth is all very well, but it's high latency that is so often the real limiting factor in browsing performance. I live in a rural area, and my wired connection is very slow (~ 12Mbps). 4G competes well for bandwidth, but the latency (and the fact that the latency is highly variable) makes 4G unsuitable for general purpose internet use. If 5G could be made closer to WiFi fo…

In cities, I routinely get pings of about 40-50ms on LTE. I think it's well past the point of matching fixed broadband in that regard.

Re: Real world 4G vs. 5G test shows 14x bandwidth increase

#79

Post by jfindley »

iknowstuff wrote: post #77
jfindley wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would really like details on latency. Bandwidth is all very well, but it's high latency that is so often the real limiting factor in browsing performance. I live in a rural area, and my wired connection is very slow (~ 12Mbps). 4G competes well for bandwidth, but the latency (and the fact that the latency is highly variable) makes 4G unsuitable for general purpose internet use. If 5G could be made closer to WiFi fo…

In cities, I routinely get pings of about 40-50ms on LTE. I think it's well past the point of matching fixed broadband in that regard.

Interesting. Here (UK) fixed broadband is much better than that for latency. I ususually see 8-11ms on fixed broadband (DSL-based), yet my ping on 4G is generally more like 40-150ms, with lots of spikes.

Re: Real world 4G vs. 5G test shows 14x bandwidth increase

#80

Post by PeterisP »

jfindley wrote: post #71
mdasen wrote: post #14

Without more details on the test setup, it's hard to evaluate it. 5G can be deployed with much more spectrum than 4G can be. Deployed with 60-80MHz of spectrum, US carriers have shown off LTE north of 700Mbps. The article said that they were using the 3.5GHz band, but they didn't say how much spectrum they were using which makes the comparison incredibly suspect. Do an image search for "T-Mobile gigabit" or "Sprint g…

I would really like details on latency. Bandwidth is all very well, but it's high latency that is so often the real limiting factor in browsing performance. I live in a rural area, and my wired connection is very slow (~ 12Mbps). 4G competes well for bandwidth, but the latency (and the fact that the latency is highly variable) makes 4G unsuitable for general purpose internet use. If 5G could be made closer to WiFi fo…

Isn't the latency mainly determined by congestion / bandwidth saturation on either the radio network or operator's backbone?

IIRC the actual technological latency of a 4G link is just ~2 ms extra; the problem is that you have to share the link with many people, so if the network is overloaded you may get unstable latency. In this regard, anything that increases capacity would automatically help with latency as well.

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