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Ask HN: Is it just me or is 5G strictly worse than LTE?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or is 5G strictly worse than LTE?

#12

Post by dheera »

anderspitman wrote: post #3
novia wrote: post #2

Are you using T-mobile or another provider that uses them? My 5G connection is trash, but I just switched up Google Fi, which is using T-Mobile's network. Inside my apartment pictures on websites are loading like it's the early 2000's again. I'm in a major city, I thought that would help.

I'm on Visible, which is a Verizon MVNO.

I use both Visible and Fi (= T-mobile) on one phone, I wish there were a way to fuse the networks and switch packets with millisecond-level failovers so I don't have to keep swapping the active SIM.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or is 5G strictly worse than LTE?

#14

Post by xwolfi »

Depends where you are, for me in the center of Hong Kong, with a Huawei phone, it's a net improvement, it's way way faster. I even use it instead of wifi on my phone because my router slows down with distance while 5G stays fast in every room.

It consumes more battery so when I need to save I go back to 4G and I notice the slog.

Maybe your phone doesnt have a fast chip, your city isn't dense enough to have budget for antennas, or the providers doesnt want to give you 100Mbps... I was telling a friend recently how much of a miracle the internet speed on phones were these days, to tell you how 5G is positive here. It's not even that expensive.

In case it's relative and you expected much more, here is a speedtest from my phone, middle of Central HK, 40th floor inside my toilets, where I often browse HN from: https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/9021015738

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or is 5G strictly worse than LTE?

#16

Post by est »

LTE Advanced (LTE+) is the sweet spot, they have nearly all the bells and whistles of 5G like CA, MIMO, etc. 5G is over-engineered, it's more like LTE advanced with new frequency, beamforming and some new channel coding while consuming much, much more power both on your cell-phone and cell-towers. The speed and latency benifits are almost negligible because the metrics advertised by telecom industry are measured only between the SA 5G devices and 5G towers, in reality the latency and bandwidth are deciede by the hops all the way to the IDC (unless the so-called "edge-computing" is a thing yet they aren't), so the 5G promises may never happen.

This combined US/EU boyccott of questionable but cheap suppliers like Huawei makes the cost of 5G not worth it.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or is 5G strictly worse than LTE?

#19

Post by graderjs »

In my experience, there are areas where 5G coverage is much more spotty: the phone in one location has 5G and move it half a foot to the left or right and it’s got 3G. There are other areas where 5G is everywhere. 5Gs speed way faster than 4G in my experience. Although I think a lot of the speed you get is artificially imposed caps by the cell service providers.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or is 5G strictly worse than LTE?

#20

Post by atlgator »

dheera wrote: post #12
anderspitman wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on Visible, which is a Verizon MVNO.

I use both Visible and Fi (= T-mobile) on one phone, I wish there were a way to fuse the networks and switch packets with millisecond-level failovers so I don't have to keep swapping the active SIM.

There are services that offer bonding like speedify but I don't think iPhone is supported for bonding multiple cellular connections. Not sure if Android phones do. Maybe someone has experience with it?
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