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5G Just Got Weird

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Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#61

Post by mikepurvis »

rudolph9 wrote: post #44
bdamm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starlink is going to dominate this. Cellular can't economically scale out to meet the vast rural coverage. There are still plenty of towns that don't have basic coverage even now, and to think that suddenly they're going to get 5G equipment... seems unlikely. Meanwhile, the Starlink satellites are up and base stations are in testing. Once they approve and start building out their ground stations, it's SpaceX's busine…

It's worth explicitly noting that Starlink is applicable to rural areas. As OG noted 5G is applicable to both densely populated and rural areas. Further, it's theoretically possible to combine 5G and satellite internet where Starlink or similar serves as the connection to the internet backbone for a device broadcasting a 5G network. Connectivity isn't an all or nothing game and 5G is protocol that the SpaceX internet…

I feel like the viability of that depends a lot on the price point of the service and the user terminal. If it's cheap enough that everyone might as well just have their own then there's no point doing infrastructure for a terrestrial backhaul.

Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#62

Post by numpad0 »

rsynnott wrote: post #16
thinkingkong wrote: post #11

5G doesnt seem like its enabling anything fundamentally new. The talk of any ”killer app” based on having more throughput or on these optimizations always feels like demand generation and slightly inauthentic. Are there any technologies enabled by these techniques that are not possible today?

Last mile for fixed rural wireless broadband seems like the obvious one. Today, this is generally done with either LTE or various proprietary things (or if you’re particularly unlucky, satellite). 5G should allow for greater total bandwidth, reducing the impact of contention. And on the other side, it should be helpful for very dense urban usage. Try using LTE in a large city’s central train station at a busy time an…

> fixed rural wireless broadband

It’s well worth trying but WiMAX tried the same so not novel

> Try using LTE in a large city’s central train station at a busy time and see how you get on.

uh, um, I thought LTE is already at least okay as it is for Shinjuku morning/Comiket queue problem

Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#64

Post by ksec »

thinkingkong wrote: post #11

5G doesnt seem like its enabling anything fundamentally new. The talk of any ”killer app” based on having more throughput or on these optimizations always feels like demand generation and slightly inauthentic. Are there any technologies enabled by these techniques that are not possible today?

It enables much higher capacity. So theoretically it would work more like wired Internet where you are sold on Bandwidth and not on Data. ( Within Reasonable usage ) Many Countries in Europe are already doing it right now with 4G.

Technically it is more much interesting from a Carrier / Backend perspective. Where there are huge unit cost optimisation and ease of management. But for consumers it really is just a faster 4G.

Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#65

Post by carteloupe »

phkahler wrote: post #53
rsynnott wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last mile for fixed rural wireless broadband seems like the obvious one. Today, this is generally done with either LTE or various proprietary things (or if you’re particularly unlucky, satellite). 5G should allow for greater total bandwidth, reducing the impact of contention. And on the other side, it should be helpful for very dense urban usage. Try using LTE in a large city’s central train station at a busy time an…

>> Last mile for fixed rural wireless broadband seems like the obvious one. I was under the impression that 5G has shorter range and requires smaller cells. That's exactly the opposite of being better for rural areas.

5G is several things, availability of the new mmwave spectrum is just one of them

Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#66

Post by semi-extrinsic »

woah wrote: post #58
bdamm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starlink is going to dominate this. Cellular can't economically scale out to meet the vast rural coverage. There are still plenty of towns that don't have basic coverage even now, and to think that suddenly they're going to get 5G equipment... seems unlikely. Meanwhile, the Starlink satellites are up and base stations are in testing. Once they approve and start building out their ground stations, it's SpaceX's busine…

IIRC Starlink can handle about 2gbs per 50 sq miles due to frequency bandwidth limitations. That's a few hundred subscribers. It's not going to make an impact in any but the most rural areas.

Wow, that sounds like a huge limitation, no? The number of people living in places that sparsely populated must be very limited, how does it make economical sense to launch that huge number of satellites?

Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#67

Post by Shared404 »

swebs wrote: post #48
Latty wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scott Adams seems to be pretty divorced from reality, so I would take his ideas with a pinch of salt. (To clarify: He's also claimed that if Biden wins the election, Republicans will literally be hunted in the streets, and I think regardless of your political views that is pretty clearly not actually going to happen, so his ability to predict future events with any accuracy isn't something I'd trust. Source: https://…

Does every thread really have to turn into some us-vs-them USA election fight?

It'll be better post-November.

Edit: Not to say that it is good or appropriate now, but there is light at the end of the tunnel, at least for a couple years.

Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#68

Post by Latty »

swebs wrote: post #48
Latty wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scott Adams seems to be pretty divorced from reality, so I would take his ideas with a pinch of salt. (To clarify: He's also claimed that if Biden wins the election, Republicans will literally be hunted in the streets, and I think regardless of your political views that is pretty clearly not actually going to happen, so his ability to predict future events with any accuracy isn't something I'd trust. Source: https://…

Does every thread really have to turn into some us-vs-them USA election fight?

That was very much not my intent. I don't think my comment should be “us-vs-them” as I believe it holds regardless of your political position. The person I was responding to has claimed it was intended as an intentionality absurd “troll”, so it should surely be seen as absurd no matter where you stand.

Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#69

Post by regularfry »

thinkingkong wrote: post #11

5G doesnt seem like its enabling anything fundamentally new. The talk of any ”killer app” based on having more throughput or on these optimizations always feels like demand generation and slightly inauthentic. Are there any technologies enabled by these techniques that are not possible today?

This V2X thing looks like it's potentially a bit of a paradigm shift. With a mesh network layered over a set of V2X-connected devices, you could extend high-bandwidth (if not necessarily low-latency) internet connectivity to anywhere there are client devices, without needing base towers except at the edges.

In The Diamond Age, if I'm remembering it right, Neal Stephenson has a character describe how the in-world ubiquitous network works, and it's basically exactly that: high reliability through ubiquity of peers, any of which can relay your packets.

We've had mesh networks before, but they've always needed special hardware, distinct from "it's just a router".

Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#70

Post by nickysielicki »

bdamm wrote: post #27
rsynnott wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last mile for fixed rural wireless broadband seems like the obvious one. Today, this is generally done with either LTE or various proprietary things (or if you’re particularly unlucky, satellite). 5G should allow for greater total bandwidth, reducing the impact of contention. And on the other side, it should be helpful for very dense urban usage. Try using LTE in a large city’s central train station at a busy time an…

Starlink is going to dominate this. Cellular can't economically scale out to meet the vast rural coverage. There are still plenty of towns that don't have basic coverage even now, and to think that suddenly they're going to get 5G equipment... seems unlikely. Meanwhile, the Starlink satellites are up and base stations are in testing. Once they approve and start building out their ground stations, it's SpaceX's busine…

Starlink may very well fail entirely.
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