AWS Private 5G • Hacker News Board

Re: AWS Private 5G

#41

Post by DesiLurker » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

emteycz wrote: post #35

kumarski wrote: post #33

I wonder how many CISOs and CTOs trust Amazon. I'm not sufficiently technical on this front and so I'm probably being a little on the side of paranoia but I don't trust Amazon with my cellular infrastructure.

What makes you trust telcos more?

I'd guess mostly their (telcos) incompetence.

Re: AWS Private 5G

#42

Post by bklyn11201 » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

the_arun wrote: post #20

ethanpil wrote: post #18

I wonder if this is a product that was built on top of something they needed to use internally. Makes me wonder how Amazon is using this technology for themselves... Anyone care to speculate?

I see a potential use of it from IoT devices. An eg. a tractor wants to communicate with a central server for commands.

You describe a great use case for LoRaWAN:

  https://lora-alliance.org/about-lorawan/

Re: AWS Private 5G

#43

Post by XMPPwocky » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

ACAVJW4H wrote: post #17

Open Source software stack to run private LTE/5G with SDR https://github.com/srsran/srsRAN

For folks who have actually set up srsRAN for anything besides a trivial configuration w/ one eNB and manual management of most things (and even then), the value-add of having Amazon worry about most of that stuff is clear. It's, ah, ... complicated.

This is a bit like responding to, say, the original announcement of EC2 with a link to download a Linux distribution.

Re: AWS Private 5G

#44

Post by nicce » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

the_arun wrote: post #20

ethanpil wrote: post #18

I wonder if this is a product that was built on top of something they needed to use internally. Makes me wonder how Amazon is using this technology for themselves... Anyone care to speculate?

I see a potential use of it from IoT devices. An eg. a tractor wants to communicate with a central server for commands.

I fear what this means in larger scale. All Amazon manufactured physical IoT and hardware could have sidechannel in the future to escape network isolation. They already have this "feature" which expands your home network for neighbor Amazon devices if they need Internet access. And default setting is "ON", not off. How many consumer is aware of that?

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/b/?node=21328123011

Re: AWS Private 5G

#45

Post by bastardoperator » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

emteycz wrote: post #35

kumarski wrote: post #33

I wonder how many CISOs and CTOs trust Amazon. I'm not sufficiently technical on this front and so I'm probably being a little on the side of paranoia but I don't trust Amazon with my cellular infrastructure.

What makes you trust telcos more?

They tend to have a track record, where this is a new offering and anyone signing up is ultimately the guinea pig?

Re: AWS Private 5G

#46

Post by ahaseeb » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

turtlebits wrote: post #32

I wonder what the range is for their small cell towers. Would be interesting for off-grid/remote communities (pair with Starlink?). edit: Reading more, it might not be the right use case - doesn't sound like something you use for your phone.

It's usable for phone but the biggest use case is data - Do you have any communities in mind

Re: AWS Private 5G

#47

Post by technobabbler » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

verelo wrote: post #16

I'd love to set this up for my rural community. I've got a good connection but many people have no cell service, no dsl lines, no cable...literally nothing. Until something like starlink is ubiquitous i feel like this could go a long way to solving their problems.

I don't think this solves the last-mile problem. You still have to provide (get) internet connectivity; Amazon just relays that landline to 5G.

And in rural areas, 5G probably doesn't give you enough range anyhow. Have you considered mesh revenue-share networks like Althea (https://www.althea.net/)? There's a nonprofit one too operating in several cities, but I can't remember what it's called.

Re: AWS Private 5G

#48

Post by epa » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

How does this compare to Helium 5G? https://www.helium.com/5G

Re: AWS Private 5G

#49

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

anonymousDan wrote: post #9

Surely the problem is access to spectrum, or is the idea to rely on unused spectrum bands reserved for local experimental use?

[deleted]

Re: AWS Private 5G

#50

Post by remus » Tue, Nov 30, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

ethanpil wrote: post #18

I wonder if this is a product that was built on top of something they needed to use internally. Makes me wonder how Amazon is using this technology for themselves... Anyone care to speculate?

You could imagine them using it in their warehouses. I imagine getting good coverage with wifi in a huge warehouse could be pretty expensive, maybe 4G/5G works better?