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5G Just Got Weird

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Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#81

Post by AnssiH »

Nursie wrote: post #9
nfriedly wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What consumers see is much higher data rates for the same price, which doesn’t seem that important. I think this is in part due to data caps. Nobody takes advantage of the speed, because that could mean burning an entire month's worth of data in 10 minutes.

In circumstances where there is such a thing as a "month's worth of data". Which is still a lot of places, but you can get truly unlimited contracts in some places now, for reasonable amounts.

> you can get truly unlimited contracts in some places now

This makes it sound like this was not possible before. But e.g. my mobile provider Elisa never did have data caps in the first place, it's been unlimited since GPRS (and no weird tethering limits either).

Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#82

Post by maliker »

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…

There’s a huge push at the US federal level to get fiber to the home in rural areas. 10s of billions in funding.

A lot of times it’s run by the electric companies (coops). They already have the right of way, pole access, and customer relationships.

There are dozens of utilities pursuing this, haven’t heard of any working with 5g.

There was a recent executive order restricting foreign equipment on the grid, and I suspect that’s going to make things harder for 5g.

I’m not saying 5g can’t be used in rural applications, just that it looks like fiber has a big head start. Now that there’s also more LEO satellite internet companies coming in with decent latency and bandwidth, that’s going to be another competitor to 5g in rural areas.

Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#83

Post by dfox »

mhh__ wrote: post #39
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?

One thing the Test and Measurement industry is looking forward to, is being able to have extremely high bandwidth (wireless) connections between gear. The idea is that with 5G you can combine your function generate with your oscilloscope to form a basic network analyser with the data travelling wireless between themselves and your computer. The throughput is high enough, and there wouldn't be any wires.

Many manufacturer demos tend to be soma variant of that: ie. replacing LXI or some kind of RT-ish fieldbus with 5G. I somehow fail to see any point in making such things wireless.

Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#84

Post by TotempaaltJ »

cptskippy wrote: post #80
kungato wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you avoid bad actors in these scenarios? Sounds ripe for general havoc, targeting specific people etc

Yeah, I could see someone have button to transmit hard braking on demand for tailgaters.

Regulate security measures eg signed messaging where only manufacturers can get certificates? Maybe combine it with license plate so it's traceable to a person?

Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#85

Post by wmf »

mhh__ wrote: post #39
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?

One thing the Test and Measurement industry is looking forward to, is being able to have extremely high bandwidth (wireless) connections between gear. The idea is that with 5G you can combine your function generate with your oscilloscope to form a basic network analyser with the data travelling wireless between themselves and your computer. The throughput is high enough, and there wouldn't be any wires.

Why 5G instead of WiFi for that scenario?

Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#86

Post by FeepingCreature »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #66
woah wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Google says there's two million satellite internet users. At $50/mo, if SpaceX can grab all of them, which seems well possible, that's 1.2 billion income a year, even assuming that the improved service doesn't result in anybody else switching from bad rural internet to Starlink.

A fifth of the US population lives outside of big cities. That's not a big fraction, but it's a small fraction of a very big number. Being able to capture that market even for a decade would basically bankroll SpaceX's Mars goal by itself. And that's not even looking at other countries.

Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#87

Post by cpeterso »

kungato wrote: post #75
Havoc wrote: post #73

>5G for cars to communicate with each other That's pretty good news. Even a simple "sharp braking" type coms between cars has decent potential to save lives beyond what can be achieved with radar & the like.

How do you avoid bad actors in these scenarios? Sounds ripe for general havoc, targeting specific people etc

Seems like the only information you can trust from other cars is "someone broadcast something". You don't know if the message is accurate or even from a car.

Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#88

Post by oauea »

TotempaaltJ wrote: post #84
cptskippy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I could see someone have button to transmit hard braking on demand for tailgaters.

Regulate security measures eg signed messaging where only manufacturers can get certificates? Maybe combine it with license plate so it's traceable to a person?

There will be markets where you can simply buy someone else's certificate.

Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#89

Post by dboreham »

HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #77
aaomidi wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of rural areas have backbone just fine. It's the last mile that's the issue. You can find gigabit business internet basically anywhere.

Woah, that's an enormous sweeping generalization. I have a friend whose parents live in rural Kansas who to this day can't get more than dialup or satellite, even though they've called up every single semi-local ISP (way more than once) and said they'd be willing to pay for installation. At this point, they have more than $20K saved for the chance that some company says maybe . It's simply way more complicated than y…

No, parent cited _business_ Gigabit. You're talking about retail consumer connectivity. Totally different things. Based on my deep knowledge of connectivity options here in rural Montana parent is correct: there's lit fiber all over the place (certainly to all cell towers) and various telcos will trench up to 5km from any of those pops, for a price. So a business looking to acquire Gigabit connectivity can readily access it. Ask your parents to call the ILEC business sales guy and see what happens. They'll need $5k/mo budget for transit fees and be willing to sign a 3-5 year contract.

Re: 5G Just Got Weird

#90

Post by dragonwriter »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #86
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Google says there's two million satellite internet users. At $50/mo, if SpaceX can grab all of them, which seems well possible, that's 1.2 billion income a year, even assuming that the improved service doesn't result in anybody else switching from bad rural internet to Starlink. A fifth of the US population lives outside of big cities. That's not a big fraction, but it's a small fraction of a very big number. Being a…

> A fifth of the US population lives outside of big cities. That's not a big fraction, but it's a small fraction of a very big number. Being able to capture that market even for a decade would basically bankroll SpaceX's Mars goal by itself.

That's about 25 million households, or about $150 billion gross revenue (not profit) over a decade at the price assumptions you give.

If SpaceX’s public estimate of total Mars program cost of $10 billion was reasonable, that might plausibly fund the program. But it's highly dubious that that is even on the right order of magnitude.

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