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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?

#221

Post by Symbiote »

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 Copenhagen I tried 500Mb/s cable for about £30 / month, and didn't need to go any further. They since upgraded it to 1000Mb/s.

Several other companies could provide similar speeds at similar (some lower) costs through a fibre connection, which was installed throughout the building.

5G home broadband seems like a fix for when the market for wired options is broken.

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

#222

Post by mnd999 »

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.

Livestream yourself watching the game / gig might be a thing though. I went to a Phoebe Bridgers gig in the summer and half the crowd seemed to be at it. Not very good for the atmosphere though.

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

#223

Post by lozf »

secondcoming wrote: post #195
dehrmann wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I assert that it is dawning on operators that consumers are not interested in paying $10 extra per month for 5G I agree with this. For the most part, LTE is enough for everything from casual web browsing to streaming video. There just isn't that much of an improvement jumping to 5G in the end-user experience. The is very different from the 3G to 4G jump. I still remember using an original 2G iPhone. Maps basically…

5G is great for those who want > 100MBs internet connections without having to be locking in to a multi-month contract with a fibre broadband provider. You can just buy a SIM card and you’re on.

If you live in the right place, that might be true.

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

#224

Post by jdofaz »

disordinary wrote: post #200
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…

You have to pay extra for 5g in the US?

Some do, but AFAIK T-Mobile doesn't

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

#225

Post by headsoup »

guhidalg wrote: post #99
headsoup wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost like we could just go back to cables and have a plenty good experience again...

But why? If you had the choice of EQUIVALENT (bandwidth, latency, jitter, reliability, etc…) network connectivity, why pick a wire over wireless?

Well I could make that assumption... and make the whole conversation pointless.

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

#226

Post by headsoup »

HPsquared wrote: post #184
rocqua wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wireless is inherently easier to accidentally get disrupted. When wired internet fails, it is rarely the wire. More importantly, if it is the wire that is easy to check and fix. With wireless internet, disruption can be caused by many things. That makes diagnosing a problem so much harder. Incidentally it also tends to be less reliable. Besides that, the massive complexity of the technology stack makes wireless harde…

Wireless does has an advantage in terms of redundancy. If the nearest tower fails, you can probably also use another one nearby. Not so with wired connections, where the whole signal chain needs to be intact. Even if the whole network fails, you can probably switch SIM and use a different network.

I suppose you don't live rurally...

But they both have trade-offs. Wireless allows many connections at once rather easily at the cost of interference and (potentially) speed and reliability, cable is more expensive up front if infrastructure isn't already there.

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

#227

Post by pooper »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #177
harpratap wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

The tech giants spy on us to sell advertising inside of their products. If Verizon starts listening into my calls to sell me products I would switch to any carrier who wasn’t doing that.

This sounds very familiar. I hope they get a hundred billion dollar fine and life in prison for the CEO and the board if they do this because they have already been fined before for this.

> Verizon is settling with the FCC over its use of an ad targeting technology known as a "supercookie," which tracks the websites visited by phones on its network. Supercookies allow websites to better target ads to visitors with Verizon cellphone service; but those visitors — for a period of time — weren't informed of the tracking or given the option to opt out. Because of that, Verizon will pay a fine of $1.35 million and will now have to receive customer permission before sharing tracking data with other companies or even within its organization, including with sites owned by AOL.

- The Verge

Underlying FTC press release

Full Title: FCC Settles Verizon "Supercookie" Probe, Requires Consumer Opt-In for Third Parties

https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-settles-verizon-supercookie...

> WASHINGTON, March 7, 2016 – The Federal Communications Commission today announced a settlement resolving an investigation into Verizon Wireless’s practice of inserting unique identifier headers or so-called “supercookies” into its customers’ mobile Internet traffic without their knowledge or consent. These unique, undeletable identifiers – referred to as UIDH – are inserted into web traffic and used to identify customers in order to deliver targeted ads from Verizon and other third parties. As a result of the investigation and settlement, Verizon Wireless is notifying consumers about its targeted advertising programs, will obtain customers’ opt-in consent before sharing UIDH with third parties, and will obtain customers’ opt-in or opt-out consent before sharing UIDH internally within the Verizon corporate family.

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

#228

Post by renonce »

HPsquared wrote: post #184
rocqua wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wireless is inherently easier to accidentally get disrupted. When wired internet fails, it is rarely the wire. More importantly, if it is the wire that is easy to check and fix. With wireless internet, disruption can be caused by many things. That makes diagnosing a problem so much harder. Incidentally it also tends to be less reliable. Besides that, the massive complexity of the technology stack makes wireless harde…

Wireless does has an advantage in terms of redundancy. If the nearest tower fails, you can probably also use another one nearby. Not so with wired connections, where the whole signal chain needs to be intact. Even if the whole network fails, you can probably switch SIM and use a different network.

You can have such redundancy for wire too. People simply figured out that it’s so reliable there is no need for extra redundancy.

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

#229

Post by namibj »

cycomanic wrote: post #85
optymizer wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked with telcos in multiple countries, I can assure you, we cannot have a lot of nice things because of them.

While I am not big on defending telcos, let's not forget that they are under enormous price pressure (for the fibre backbone essentially they need to double available throughput every 18 month or so without increasing cost) at the same time it's the software/service companies who really made enormous profits based on these developments, while data capacity is becoming more and more a commodity.

When they figure a way to bill users differently between "long-distance" and "local" packet transmissions, they can start to see applications/services put in effort to adapt.

Also, mechanisms like L4S for high-fidelity ECN feedback allow for higher link utilizations without end-to-end QoS impact.

IPv6 reducing routing table fragmentation should enable reasonable prefix based peering, along with billing senders according to the used peering. We don't need fast flat rates, we need cheap bulk traffic and flat rates for effectively-not-oversubscribed bandwidth. Maybe with a way to roll over unused priority bandwidth at some multiple into the next billing period to count against that period's bulk traffic usage.

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

#230

Post by harpratap »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #202
harpratap wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There's nothing within the 5G spec itself that commands that every single cell site needs to be a massive MIMO supporting 1000s of users at once. Making a micro cell supporting just a family home is enough, then something a bit higher for small businesses supporting 10-100 users, then the likes of Starbucks can deploy bigger ones and finally the Sports stadiums and Corporate offices gets the really high end stuff.

Companies like Rakuten have already shown it's cheap enough to distribute 4G femtocells for free [1] to your users while increasing your coverage

[1] - https://network.mobile.rakuten.co.jp/guide/rakuten-casa/conn...

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