Live data from Hacker News

Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

techcrunch.com

41–50 of 108 posts

Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#41
post #36
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be great to see wireless providers becoming competitors to home ISPs. If some day wireless speeds become comparable, the problem of having only one home ISP would go away.

Couple things- the range of 5G is pretty limited. Getting a cell down the block from your house would seem to be nearly as hard as running a line to your door. Also, with wireless, never forget about bandwidth. Bandwidth is the reason living next to thirty other WiFi networks tanks your speeds (but not your cat5 speeds!)

that's incorrect. contention is the reason being next to all of those other wifi networks tanks your speed. Only 1 device can transmit on a given channel at a time. It's as if everyone is plugged into the same handful of ethernet cables.

Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#42

Great. Now I'll be able to use up my monthly data in 2 minutes instead of 10 minutes. Edit: I don't mean to poo-poo the advance of tech, but this really highlights the disconnect between what's possible and what consumers actually want/value.

T-Mobile still has an unlimited plan, right?

The one plan throttles video quality at the base unlimited, unless you were grandfathered into the simple choice

Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#43
post #39
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be great to see wireless providers becoming competitors to home ISPs. If some day wireless speeds become comparable, the problem of having only one home ISP would go away.

I get 50Mbps with 4G connection for 20euros per month. No data cap. Public ipv4 address. Router is 4 years old Huawei 4g router and I have installed outdoor antenna on the roof for stable connection. I have been with this setup at home for the last 4 years. I could propably get faster connection with new router but this is fine.

Which country ? Meanwhile in Germany i can get a 200Mbps (up to) 4G/LTE Connection with 50GB included for 35Eur/month. Just makes no sense...

Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#44
post #32

Great. Now I'll be able to use up my monthly data in 2 minutes instead of 10 minutes. Edit: I don't mean to poo-poo the advance of tech, but this really highlights the disconnect between what's possible and what consumers actually want/value.

It would be great to see wireless providers becoming competitors to home ISPs. If some day wireless speeds become comparable, the problem of having only one home ISP would go away.

Where are you from? Here in the EU every cellular provider offers home internet plans & LTE-routers and ISPs have LTE plans (mostly to "accelerate" otherwise slow rural ADSL lines)

Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#45

Great. Now I'll be able to use up my monthly data in 2 minutes instead of 10 minutes. Edit: I don't mean to poo-poo the advance of tech, but this really highlights the disconnect between what's possible and what consumers actually want/value.

Do ordinary consumers actually run into data caps routinely? When I was on T-Mobile, I used hotspot extensively and never paid attention to my data usage, but never hit the soft cap on their unlimited plan.

Also, data caps grew a lot in the 3G -> 4G transition, and will grow a lot in the 4G -> 5G transition: https://www.pcmag.com/news/357374/verizon-no-4g-level-data-c...

Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#46
The real kicker is the last line. T-mobile can software upgrade its LTE equipment to 5G:

> The partnership with Ericsson means that T-Mobile’s already installed base of Ericsson Radio System radios will be able to run 5G NR with a remote software installation.

Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#48
post #19

This is good news as it kept Ericsson on the battle field. Nokia is looking a lot worst though may be it will merge with Ericsson some day. In terms of telecom equipment industry Huawei is now bigger than Nokia and Ericsson combined. And may be I am the only one not entirely comfortable with that.

Why are you concerned about Huawei being bigger?

I suspect because it is a Chinese company and having key national infrastructure built by a Chinese company leaves some Americans nervous over national security fears.

This article goes into more detail https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/why-america-is-so-...

Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#49
post #36
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be great to see wireless providers becoming competitors to home ISPs. If some day wireless speeds become comparable, the problem of having only one home ISP would go away.

Couple things- the range of 5G is pretty limited. Getting a cell down the block from your house would seem to be nearly as hard as running a line to your door. Also, with wireless, never forget about bandwidth. Bandwidth is the reason living next to thirty other WiFi networks tanks your speeds (but not your cat5 speeds!)

> Getting a cell down the block from your house would seem to be nearly as hard as running a line to your door

A 5G cell will be 0.1-1.0 km in radius and cover dozens to hundreds of users. In a suburban area, that might be an entire large subdivision. The cost of getting fiber to the cell might be just as much as getting it to a fiber distribution hub in the subdivision, but with 5G once you do that you're done. With FTTH, you have to then run it to each house, which will take (in the aggregate) way longer than it took to run fiber to the subdivision. The branch factor kills you--yeah, it's just a couple of hundred feet to each house, but it's a very labor-intensive couple of hundred feet (under yards, into basements) that you have to do for each subscriber.

Also, all bandwidth is shared--it's just a question of where the sharing starts. GPON--what's typically used for FTTH--involves sharing 2.4 gigabit down/1.2 gigabit up between 16-32 users per PON. That comfortably supports gigabit service with reasonable oversubscription. A 5G small cell will have less bandwidth shared between more users, but will be in the same ballpark.

Re: Ericsson and T-Mobile ink $3.5B deal for 5G

#50

Great. Now I'll be able to use up my monthly data in 2 minutes instead of 10 minutes. Edit: I don't mean to poo-poo the advance of tech, but this really highlights the disconnect between what's possible and what consumers actually want/value.

I was under the impression that the real improvement in "5G" systems was in how many concurrent users they can handle, not the amount of bandwidth they can offer a single user.
Post reply on HN