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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?

#141

Post by dazc »

pony_sheared wrote: post #125
tremere wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I want to replace my home internet with something less secure, less reliable, lossier, and slower?

In London, in an apartment block, I tried BT broadband (60Mbps max), then Virgin cable (100Mbps for £55 / month, prices go up for more speed), then EE 4G (£30 / month for 200Mbps +/-50Mbps, unlimited d/l upload is also over 60Mbps, about 6x on Virgin). I don't game, so don't care about ping. So, where I am, using 4G for my home internet is faster and cheaper, and I can gift data to my phone. I have not had any issues…

In Southampton, there are lots of places around the city where 4G coverage is simply not reliable. Even with a strong signal you can get speeds that vary from literally nothing to 60MBPs. I once lived within half a mile of the centre and could never connect to anything between 5pm and 11pm which rendered the service entirely useless.

We've had 4G for ten years or more now, I'm not ready to put my faith in 5G and don't expect to be any time soon.

I almost signed up for a new office a mile from the centre where the best cable speed on offer was 20Mbps and the thought of relying upon mobile internet was enough to make me think twice.

I'm currently in semi-rural location, no mobile service at all indoors but, 200 metres from the fibre cable cabinet, enjoying cheap and reliable 60Mbps without a hitch.

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

#142

Post by dehrmann »

tremere wrote: post #102
spookthesunset wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “real” 5g isn’t for your phone, it is to replace your home internet. For that, you want fast and low latency and that means a dense amount of cell towers. The fact that “real 5g” has a shorter range is actually a positive. It means you can make your shit super dense.

Why would I want to replace my home internet with something less secure, less reliable, lossier, and slower?

> less secure

Not really. The link layer is encrypted, and you're almost certainly running SSL on top of it.

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

#143

Post by dehrmann »

spookthesunset wrote: post #96
kjellsbells wrote: post #45

Having the 5G logo on your phone doesnt necessarily mean your phone is speaking 5G. It's...complicated. - Most US operators do not have ubiquitous 5G radio coverage, so, they do what is called 5G NSA where your traffic ultimately ends up veing processed by the 4G core infrastructure that they have. Which is already overloaded and a bit creaky. - Some operators can do real 5G, "5G SA", where the whole flow end to end…

The “real” 5g isn’t for your phone, it is to replace your home internet. For that, you want fast and low latency and that means a dense amount of cell towers. The fact that “real 5g” has a shorter range is actually a positive. It means you can make your shit super dense.

Supposedly lots of India will never build out data networks that go to homes because it makes no sense when you have LTE and 5G.

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

#144

Post by simplotek »

efitz wrote: post #133
baxtr wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worked in Telco too. I always wondered if it wasn’t enough to have 1 infrastructure provider like with streets or anything else. Why build the infrastructure twice or three times?

We used to have that - Bell Telephone. It never improved; there was zero need to innovate. Consumers had to fight like hell for the right just to buy their own phones. Telephones were OWNED by Ma Bell and leased to consumers; their argument was “how can we guarantee stability of the network if anybody can connect anything they want to it?” [ed] Government broke them up in the early 80’s; overnight we saw innovation l…

> You do NOT want to return to that.

I'm not sure your assessment is reasonable. You're putting up a strawman by claiming that the only way to have shared infrastructure is to have an abusive monopoly that stifles innovation and screws consumers over. This is false. It's quite possible to have a single infrastructure provider that does it's job, such as a consortium of telcos shipping in to deploy and run shared infrastructure. There are plenty of examples of those types of initiatives in other areas, such as shared ATM networks, which provide a far better service than "everyone for themselves" deployments.

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

#145

Post by szundi »

Animats wrote: post #89
kjellsbells wrote: post #45

Having the 5G logo on your phone doesnt necessarily mean your phone is speaking 5G. It's...complicated. - Most US operators do not have ubiquitous 5G radio coverage, so, they do what is called 5G NSA where your traffic ultimately ends up veing processed by the 4G core infrastructure that they have. Which is already overloaded and a bit creaky. - Some operators can do real 5G, "5G SA", where the whole flow end to end…

> Telcos desperately need a killer app or use case that drives 5G adoption. They haven't got one. * Self driving cars? No. * Internet of Things? No. * Metaverse? No. * Remote surgical operations? You gotta be kidding. Everyone in a big stadium can watch the show on their phones, though. If someone was willing to pay for the hundreds of tiny cell sites required.

5G highspeed signals are so high frequency that they penetrate no kind of matter anymore. Good luck. Only usecase maybe the stadium with a central antenna.

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

#146

Post by violetthrift »

anderspitman wrote: post #118
kpozin wrote: post #44

I have a Pixel 6A on T-Mobile. I keep 5G turned off because it's usually slower and flakier than LTE, visibly chews through the battery (a percentage point every couple of minutes), and heats up the phone.

Anyone know if there's a way to disable 5G on a Pixel 7? Using Visible, a Verizon MVNO.

For me, I switched the preferred network type to LTE in Settings > Network & Internet > SIM > Preferred network type.

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

#147

Post by rocqua »

mackman wrote: post #132
Animats wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Telcos desperately need a killer app or use case that drives 5G adoption. They haven't got one. * Self driving cars? No. * Internet of Things? No. * Metaverse? No. * Remote surgical operations? You gotta be kidding. Everyone in a big stadium can watch the show on their phones, though. If someone was willing to pay for the hundreds of tiny cell sites required.

I worked on a team that prototyped the “watch the game on your phone at the game” using WiFi. Nobody used it. That isn’t going to be the killer app either.

I would expect that to work great for a F1 race.

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

#148

Post by rocqua »

dehrmann wrote: post #137
Animats wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Telcos desperately need a killer app or use case that drives 5G adoption. They haven't got one. * Self driving cars? No. * Internet of Things? No. * Metaverse? No. * Remote surgical operations? You gotta be kidding. Everyone in a big stadium can watch the show on their phones, though. If someone was willing to pay for the hundreds of tiny cell sites required.

IoT is extra funny because the devices are so low-bandwidth.

The point of 5g for iot is a special mode with very low battery usage, and a way to connect without needing a SIM card or something similar.

There's value there, but not for consumers. It's large land monitoring where this gets value. Essentially competing with LoRaWan by building out a ubiquitous radio network any sensor can easily connect to.

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

#149

Post by rocqua »

ilyt wrote: post #101
spookthesunset wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “real” 5g isn’t for your phone, it is to replace your home internet. For that, you want fast and low latency and that means a dense amount of cell towers. The fact that “real 5g” has a shorter range is actually a positive. It means you can make your shit super dense.

In dense permanent environments a bunch of cables will most likely be cheaper than having enough 5G cells to give everyone few hundred Mbits of transfer. In scattered environment the range is too short to excuse the cost of covering it with 5G There is no niche for it except for "my landlord didn't install proper internet so I use 5G" coz it happened to be alreadhy in range

I could imagine some place like new york, where everyone rents and you are dependent on landlords for your internet contract as well as your actual ethernet connection, 5g for home network could work.
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