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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?

#201

Post by jon-wood »

dazc wrote: post #141
pony_sheared wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

Mobile signal remains spotty in Southampton, I’m unable to use 5G at home because I’m in the dead zone between the coverage of three masts. That’s less of an issue in recent years though because the terribly named “toob” have rolled out fibre across most of the city, and will sell me a line doing a gigabit up and down for £25 a month, which is less than I was previously paying for DSL over a bit of wet string.

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

#202

Post by mytailorisrich »

harpratap wrote: post #112
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.

> If someone was willing to pay for the hundreds of tiny cell sites required. We are already doing that, it's called WiFi. 5G SA is nothing but a souped up WiFi signal, and it should be treated as such and not how we have been treating 4G up until this point. Telcos need to change their business model otherwise the tech giants might end up eating their lunch

WiFi is a 'simple' system designed for a few, static devices.

Cellular systems are designed for many more devices and, crucially, full mobility. These are orders of magnitude more complex than WiFi.

Then, specifically 5G is about increasing capacity (number of devices), reducing delays, and stringent reliability.

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

#203

Post by disordinary »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #198
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 thought the killer app would be to replace at home wired broadband with 5G wireless. I still think it looks compelling.

Maybe in the developing world but I'd imagine most of the developed world got rid of wired internet and replaced it with fibre years ago.

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

#204

Post by indy »

mlindner wrote: post #166
indy wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be worse for the end user but it's great for corporations. Samsung could sell you a smart TV with built-in 5G so that it can always serve you ads even if you never connect it to your wi-fi.

Or better yet, serve you ads when you're not using the TV where it randomly comes on from time to time and displays an image ad and then turns off again.

Yes, and not just TVs but any piece of electronic equipment with 5G built-in will be capable of serving ads and sending usage information back without needing access to the user's WiFi or router

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

#205

Post by distances »

kenhwang wrote: post #193
distances wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a renter be dependent on the landlord for Internet? I rent (non-US) and have my own Internet, electricity, and gas contracts.

The utilities need owner approval to initially run the lines into the building and into every unit. You're welcome to get your own contract, but if they don't have permission by the owner to dig into the ground and drill into walls to run the lines to you and a place to put meters and equipment, you're not getting the internet/gas.

Sure, but the gp clearly didn't mean that as they specifically mentioned the contract and the connection separately:

> everyone rents and you are dependent on landlords for your internet contract as well as your actual ethernet connection

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

#206

Post by Ekaros »

chrisbolt wrote: post #130
13of40 wrote: post #38

In my experience "bars" of 5G don't have much correlation with actual (tethered) megabits. In some places it's like broadband speeds, and in some places I've had to explicitly switch back to LTE to get a decent connection even though my phone claimed it had a perfect 5G connection.

In my experience this applies to "bars" of all Gs, I've been in many places with full bars and unable to load anything. Seems that bars don't indicate backhaul bandwidth or congestion.

Haven't they always been signal strength? Which is only an issue when it is really low.

And with 5G we are dealing with so many frequency bands, users and so on that the strength of signal really tells little.

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

#207

Post by corbulo »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #182
ksec wrote: post #36

OK, I will bite. Comparing 5G vs 4G as Technology is completely different to 5G vs 4G in real world implementation. That is a bit like asking if Core i9 is faster than Core i7 without knowing the clock speed, core count, cache and power budget. Or for Software developers comparing Python vs Ruby without knowing the code and VM, JIT or not Most 5G network around the world are deployed in higher frequency spectrum. Hen…

Yeah, customer does not care where is a problem. Customer sees 5G on his phone, customer can feel that it is not faster than 4G (because it is that 5G on Sub 6GHz), customer has negative feelings about 5G because he does not understand why he should be paying more for same speed.

I'm not sure there's anything wrong with that. Technology has always been only as good as its implementation.

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

#208

Post by Nux »

> the higher frequencies used for 5G don't go as far or penetrate as effectively.

Not true. 3G & 4G bands are being refarmed to 5G, I am seeing freqs as low as 700 mhz being used around here, so they'll penetrate far and wide.

That said, the presence of a 5G icon on your phone doesn't mean you're actually using 5G, that's very cheeky from operators.

The really meaty 5G band here in UK is N78, 3500mhz, some operators got big chunks of those, for example Three UK has 100mhz of that, contiguous, and people often see 1Gbps+ downloads. I found this frequency does a reasonable job and inrural areas, with high gain antennas, you can still receive it miles away.

mmWave bands - not currently in use in Europe, will indeed be only useful in small (and crowded) places like stadiums, shopping centers, etc. Of course, they could install them on top of many street lights or telegraf poles, then they will become much more useful, in reach of most of us - basically very high speed, low latency "broadband", wireless.

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

#209

Post by LeonM »

disordinary wrote: post #203
throwaway2037 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the killer app would be to replace at home wired broadband with 5G wireless. I still think it looks compelling.

Maybe in the developing world but I'd imagine most of the developed world got rid of wired internet and replaced it with fibre years ago.

Where I live we have decent fiber penetration. In my appartment I can have a 1Gb/1Gb internet connection no problem.

However, I pay about 25 eur for my 5G telco (unlimited data), and 35 eur for my fiber connection (100mbit/100mbit). My telco allows dual SIM usage, so I am thinking about just cancelling my fiber connection and installing a 5G modem. The thing that is holding me back is that a good 5G modem is somewhere between 500 and 4000 eur, so it is quite an expensive experiment to do.

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