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Bell Labs Researcher Discusses the Realities of 5G

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Re: Bell Labs Researcher Discusses the Realities of 5G

#3
post #2

4G->5G is the equivalent to upgrading from gigabit to 10 gigabit ethernet yet everyone is treating it like some kind of insane technology. I have yet to see what exactly the hype is about.

I mostly agree but I want to nitpick.

One of the areas I've heard should be improving with 5G is latency. On 4G we're talking O(10ms)? which on 5G, so says the marketing, should be O(1ms). If this is true, it will make a noticeable impact on the responsiveness of web driven apps (aka almost all apps) as well as video/audio chat liveness. Was this oversold to me (highly probable)?

Re: Bell Labs Researcher Discusses the Realities of 5G

#4
post #2

4G->5G is the equivalent to upgrading from gigabit to 10 gigabit ethernet yet everyone is treating it like some kind of insane technology. I have yet to see what exactly the hype is about.

Just that: faster speeds, except it'll be far spottier than a 1Gib -> 10Gib ethernet upgrade due to a collection of issues that will make it hard to get full 5G speeds on a regular basis.

I'd take 4G LTE as implemented in much of urban Japan over hypothetical 5G any day. I witnessed nigh-instant web page load times with my phone reporting zero bars in the Tokyo subway once. Over a period of weeks, I can't recall having anything less than a "pretty darn good" level of service, no matter what the signal was reported as. In the US, I find that two bars is slow and sketchy, while one bar (still @ 4G LTE reported service!) is often a "forget about it" level of service. I.e. I'd take service consistency over theoretical-max-speed any time.

On that basis, I suspect the signal consistency challenges 5G faces will make it a very frustrating service for many real-world users.

Re: Bell Labs Researcher Discusses the Realities of 5G

#5
post #2

4G->5G is the equivalent to upgrading from gigabit to 10 gigabit ethernet yet everyone is treating it like some kind of insane technology. I have yet to see what exactly the hype is about.

I mostly agree but I want to nitpick. One of the areas I've heard should be improving with 5G is latency. On 4G we're talking O(10ms)? which on 5G, so says the marketing, should be O(1ms). If this is true, it will make a noticeable impact on the responsiveness of web driven apps (aka almost all apps) as well as video/audio chat liveness. Was this oversold to me (highly probable)?

Latency is the sum of its parts. It doesn't matter if the latency from the cell tower to your phone is 1ms or 10ms if the rest of the trip takes 100ms. It's nice to keep some of the latency down, but it's not going to magically enable 1ms transatlantic communication.

Re: Bell Labs Researcher Discusses the Realities of 5G

#6
post #2

4G->5G is the equivalent to upgrading from gigabit to 10 gigabit ethernet yet everyone is treating it like some kind of insane technology. I have yet to see what exactly the hype is about.

If you just mean that major Telecom companies are hyping this in their advertisements, well duh. But for technical folks, I've only heard them raving about the techniques being used being insane, and they indeed seem pretty fantastic to me. That this is only (!) increasing bandwidth and lowering latency by an order of magnitude is true, but less important.

Similar things can be said about the insane techniques that have been used to increase processor power each order of magnitude.

Re: Bell Labs Researcher Discusses the Realities of 5G

#7
post #2

4G->5G is the equivalent to upgrading from gigabit to 10 gigabit ethernet yet everyone is treating it like some kind of insane technology. I have yet to see what exactly the hype is about.

I mostly agree but I want to nitpick. One of the areas I've heard should be improving with 5G is latency. On 4G we're talking O(10ms)? which on 5G, so says the marketing, should be O(1ms). If this is true, it will make a noticeable impact on the responsiveness of web driven apps (aka almost all apps) as well as video/audio chat liveness. Was this oversold to me (highly probable)?

100ms is generally referred to as instantaneous in regards to user experience.

For example: A 10ms video refresh rate would be 100fps.. the average movie is 24fps.

Re: Bell Labs Researcher Discusses the Realities of 5G

#8
post #2

4G->5G is the equivalent to upgrading from gigabit to 10 gigabit ethernet yet everyone is treating it like some kind of insane technology. I have yet to see what exactly the hype is about.

Just that: faster speeds, except it'll be far spottier than a 1Gib -> 10Gib ethernet upgrade due to a collection of issues that will make it hard to get full 5G speeds on a regular basis. I'd take 4G LTE as implemented in much of urban Japan over hypothetical 5G any day. I witnessed nigh-instant web page load times with my phone reporting zero bars in the Tokyo subway once. Over a period of weeks, I can't recall havi…

It sounds like you're mostly frustrated with the fact that the bars on your phone are lying to you, which is true but sorta separate.

Re: Bell Labs Researcher Discusses the Realities of 5G

#9
This is a great interview! I have to say, learning about the requirement for multiple antenna modules in a smartphone, each with impressive phased arrays, the massive investment that's going to be required in microcells, and the myriad of other engineering issues to be overcome, properly put in context how ludicrous AT&T's badging of 4G technologies as 5Ge is.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/01/att-d...

Re: Bell Labs Researcher Discusses the Realities of 5G

#10
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly agree but I want to nitpick. One of the areas I've heard should be improving with 5G is latency. On 4G we're talking O(10ms)? which on 5G, so says the marketing, should be O(1ms). If this is true, it will make a noticeable impact on the responsiveness of web driven apps (aka almost all apps) as well as video/audio chat liveness. Was this oversold to me (highly probable)?

100ms is generally referred to as instantaneous in regards to user experience. For example: A 10ms video refresh rate would be 100fps.. the average movie is 24fps.

That depends on what the user did, in video games a 100ms delay would be terrible, however in that situation the user is inputing highly timed inputs and is focused on the output.

But in general for web browsing, 100ms would be unnoticeable yeah.

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