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Understanding operational 5G: a first measurement study

blog.acolyer.org

31–35 of 35 posts

Re: Understanding operational 5G: a first measurement study

#31

I hail from Kerala, India. I read the first section and stopped. There is no new feature here. 5G boasts to bring better bandwidth. But is that really useful? Perhaps you can stream, movies and web meetings, faster. We can do this today, albeit a little slow. The problem I face today, at present, is a fluctuating carrier signal. I get mostly 1-2 signal bars. The data signal changes from H to H+. (Since I have set it…

5G might make your situation worse.

My understanding being that for 5G to work well it needs more but smaller cells deployed around cities. I don't think 5G's strength is signal distance. Just given its higher frequency therefore it might make your situation worse.

Re: Understanding operational 5G: a first measurement study

#33

I hail from Kerala, India. I read the first section and stopped. There is no new feature here. 5G boasts to bring better bandwidth. But is that really useful? Perhaps you can stream, movies and web meetings, faster. We can do this today, albeit a little slow. The problem I face today, at present, is a fluctuating carrier signal. I get mostly 1-2 signal bars. The data signal changes from H to H+. (Since I have set it…

5G might make your situation worse. My understanding being that for 5G to work well it needs more but smaller cells deployed around cities. I don't think 5G's strength is signal distance. Just given its higher frequency therefore it might make your situation worse.

It depends on the frequency, not (mainly) the protocol used.

If you deploy 5G on the 2G or 3G bands, you get roughly the same coverage. The 5G speeds in these bands are limited, because the bands are limited.

Re: Understanding operational 5G: a first measurement study

#34
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For wired internet, I suspect that a lot of people are paying for much faster connections than they actually need. As you note, e-mail, streaming video, playing online games, and browsing generally don't need a lot of speed. Latency and packet loss are far more important. 25 Mbit/s is fine for streaming one 4K UHD video with surround sound. It is mainly just large downloads where speed matters. Downloading a new game…

Do you live with a family? I have seen complaints about WFH situations with children attending remote classes at the same time.

A connection of a "measly" 25-30 mbit/s down- and upstream suffices for many simultaneous standard quality video streams. However, there's nothing individual Internet users can do about their ISP overselling its internal bandwidth and capacity.

Re: Understanding operational 5G: a first measurement study

#35
post #11

Awesome. I'm sure there are many applications that will benefit. And yet as a consumer / Joe Public I already get that from WiFi. When I'm not connected to WiFi (which is not often), 4G is more than adequate. The only thing I see 5G doing is increasing the tracking resolution for my whereabouts. Nobody ever tells me what my Telco is doing with THAT that data.

5G is not being pushed for benefit of consumers. It's meant for IoT devices (toys, appliances, bikes, cars, toothbrushes, ...) What average joe will see from 5G are cheaper devices and more targeted advertising.

If 5g isn't meant for the benefit of consumers I wonder why it's being pushed at consumers so hard.
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