In Australia cost of 4G has been the limiting factor, not speed. But now we can get 200gb per month for $40 [0] which makes me wonder weather the NBN was worth it.
[0] https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2019/06/mobile-broadband-vs-ho...
Australia’s 4G network is faster than 5G: study
151–158 of 158 posts
Re: Australia’s 4G network is faster than 5G: study
#152In Australia cost of 4G has been the limiting factor, not speed. But now we can get 200gb per month for $40 [0] which makes me wonder weather the NBN was worth it. [0] https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2019/06/mobile-broadband-vs-ho...
>which makes me wonder weather the NBN was worth it.
Yes, the original NBN plan was definitely worth it. Even the current NBN plan is still in many cases going to be better.
The reason is "faster" than is because there's a lower density of people using it for higher bandwidth applications.
Do you remember the 3G networks in Australia before the iPhone 3G launch? It was fantastic and fast, and there were some unlimited plans but few phones that could make use of it. Then the iPhone comes along, everyone suddenly every mobile network grinds to a halt as they don't have a high enough tower density and/or not enough tower backhaul.
It took Vodafone and Optus a long long time to fully recover from that.
If carriers don't carefully manage demand, they're going to run into major congestion issues - their networks just can't handle a significant shift of data from wired to wireless.
Re: Australia’s 4G network is faster than 5G: study
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the part that is questionable: > our far-right government, which loathes and fears any technology more recent than coal & witch burning.
If you live in Australia you would probably agree that thats not far from the truth either.
I live in Australia and most people I know would disagree with that statement. Depends on your social circles.
Re: Australia’s 4G network is faster than 5G: study
#154Well I don't know about faster than 5G, but for my rural location it's a lifesaver. I get a steady 60Mbps down, 12-15 up, which is just a tad better than my previous 0.3Mbps ADSL. It's kind of amazing and is literally what enables me to live where I do (ie. for remote work). 4g here is also far better than the shithouse fake NBN foisted on us by our far-right government, which loathes and fears any technology more re…
I grew up rural. First internet connection I used at home was a 14.4k connection through my dad's Startac. I used to have to put a rubber band on the connector to keep it properly plugged into the phone for data. Eventually we got a 1Mpbs microwave connection from a local WISP. It was a huge improvement in a lot of ways but the latency was terrible and very jittery.
Now when I go back to my parent's house I get 10+ Mbps 4G on Verizon and Tmobile. It's awesome.
Re: Australia’s 4G network is faster than 5G: study
#155I wish they wouldn't just use '4G' and '5G' as if they were one concrete thing. List the actual individual protocols. Sprint use to offer 4G in the United States that was Wi-Max based, but now almost all 4G is LTE. In Australia there was a Wi-Max provider (Vivi Wireless) but on a different frequency than the US and only via hot-spots (no phone support, that I know of). Is 4G for all these reports LTE? What exactly is…
In the US at least almost all 4G is LTE. Sometimes I'll see mine drop to HSPA, but rarely.
Re: Australia’s 4G network is faster than 5G: study
#156This is where marketing and confusion can come in. There is what the technology is capable of and then the network backing it. For example, where I live I get a fraction of what 4G can provide. The reason is the cell phone providers network. I could get far faster speeds out of 4G if the providers provided it. 5G has some positives and negatives over 4G. For example, 5G frequencies interfere with the detection of wat…
Introducing some gaussian noise might actually improve the accuracy of weather predictions.
Re: Australia’s 4G network is faster than 5G: study
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you live in Australia you would probably agree that thats not far from the truth either.
I live in Australia and most people I know would disagree with that statement. Depends on your social circles.
As an outsider I don't have much insight to Australian politics, but all I've read about recently is their stance on fossil fuels and encryption. Based on that, from an outside perspective, I'd be very inclined to agree with that statement. Out of curiosity, in what ways is it untrue?
Re: Australia’s 4G network is faster than 5G: study
#1584G is plenty fast enough. The next tangible leap has got to be unlimited data. Is that something 5G might help with? Recently moving back to Australia after a year living in Finland, I really miss unlimited 300Mbit/sec 4G for 25€/month (~$40 AUD). It's well and good that our mobile networks are as good as the Finns (anecdotally), speed and reliability wise (whoops, as long as you dodge Telstra outages). Sure there ar…
> 4G is plenty fast enough.
It's fast, but it's not cheap compared to landline. Unless you use a absurdly high frequency that probably won't work in most of Australia, 5G won't be much faster for the individual user. However MIMO does up the cell capacity, so it will probably be cheaper. That's not a small thing.