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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?

#301

Post by xyst »

minton wrote: post #288
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…

I live in a rural area (not a single Starbucks in the county), and in 50% of the town, my phone has 5GUW coverage. I can download apps, playlists, and movies quickly. I recently downloaded UPBGE (430MB) on my iPhone in only a few minutes. This wasn’t possible on LTE and is worth the extra $10 for me.

I find your definition of a “rural area” hilarious.

The lack of a corporate coffee store does not necessarily mean it’s a rural area. Been to plenty of small population counties and there was at least one starcrack store in the area, including a McDiabetes, and other low cost crap.

Usually a rural area is defined upon the population size and density.

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

#302

Post by distances »

zinekeller wrote: post #261
distances wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Unlike in sane countries where the government has either an independent provider (like Australia's NBN) or mandates the previous monopoly to open up their lines to competition (like UK's BT's Openreach or Japan's NTT), there is no equivalent concept in the US. For calls, sure, there is a concept of an incumbent local exchange carrier, but there's no such thing as an ILEC for internet services.

So if you have a DSL connection, it's tied to a single provider that owns the cable? That would indeed make independent contract quite pointless as changing providers would mean adding new cables.

We have mandated infrastructure sharing both for fixed and wireless networks so the competition is pretty good with virtual operators almost always being cheaper than the brand name owning the infra.

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

#303

Post by pixl97 »

rocqua wrote: post #148
dehrmann wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think the average person just doesn't realize how much remote sensor equipment infrastructure is out there. Some number of years ago I went out with a friend that worked at natural gas well facilities. I'm pretty sure it was all over lower bandwidth radio networks at that time, but it still transferred all the important data they needed. Such as waste water tank levels, average gas flow, and if any emergency or alarm conditions were occurring. More monitoring and data was always wanted but you had to keep it within particular power and bandwidth limits at the time.

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

#304

Post by martinald »

51Cards wrote: post #270
martinald wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual real benefit of 5G for me is beating very congested LTE towers at peak times. There are a lot of spots where the 4G mast (especially on LTE800) is completely congested, but 5G is much* better, though definitely starting to see 5G congestion in places now.

In time as people upgrade their phones the balance should shift then, with the 4G spectrum becoming less congested. Personally I don't find the speed increase of 5G to be a need as I never found 4G to be slow. I'll be quite content to lock to the 4G bands if they open up more.

No, because 5G at the moment combines both 4G+5G carriers together. This also seems to reduce performance of 5G on heavily loaded 4G cells (probably ACK packets getting delayed if it goes via the 4G upstream is my guess, but not sure).

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

#305

Post by porkbeer »

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.

Outside cities, the network situation is pretty bad. I am in an affluent suburb and my only option is 4mb/200k. No that is not a typo. Broadband coverage is still pretty spotty in the usa.

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

#306

Post by xchip »

Paranoid mode on

If 5G was forced into us so badly, chances are that:

- 4G was bad for the health - 5G allow much finger user tracking capabilities

Other than that, the rest of use cases were BS, as we already know.

More over in my country the telecoms had capped the 4G speed to half its speed and nobody complained.

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

#307

Post by CWuestefeld »

rocqua wrote: post #147
mackman wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's been tried, and the results depend on your definition of "works great".

F1 used to have a deal with "Kangaroo TV" [1], where people at the race could rent a small portable TV. When I went to the Shanghai GP years back (it was the one where Hamilton beached his car coming into the pits), I rented one. With racetracks that are miles long so nobody can see all the action - and certainly not when sitting at Turn 1 in Shanghai - it's definitely a boon. I was able to see what was happening, even listen to the commentators. I was telling everybody around me what was really going on.

The thing is, it was fairly expensive. I don't remember the actual number, but something that you probably wouldn't just do on a whim.

And history tells us that it didn't work out. The "kangaroo.tv" domain name is apparently available for purchase now.

Too bad, because my experience is that, without this, going to an F1 race is inferior to watching on TV in most respects.

[1] https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/fom-joins-forces-with-kang...

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

#308

Post by garbagecoder »

ip26 wrote: post #266
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.

Trouble is, as far as I can tell, at 5G frequencies you need micro stations all over the place. If your suburban street has 10 houses and needs 5 stations (with fiber runs to each) to offer mmWave to everyone, it’s basically just the same thing as home broadband yet more expensive.

Nope. There was a company about 20 years ago called WinStar that tried this. The reason it’s not “basically the same” is called “the last mile” problem. It’s vastly cheaper to install things on every block even than to every house especially when the utility poles and right of ways are already there.

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

#309

Post by toyg »

martinald wrote: post #248
jon-wood wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Probably council rejecting new masts if it is like most places in the UK. 3UK have thousands (maybe 10k?) new masts in planning to really improve 5G coverage (and they have the spectrum to actually deliver 2gig/sec to phones in the real world). Annoyingly the (vast in many cases) majority will are being rejected on suprious grounds by the council.

The reality where I live (North of England) is the opposite: cash-strapped (and often greasy-palmed) councils will approve masts willy-nilly, to the annoyance of locals who find out only after they're erected. Very occasionally this generates any actual organised blowback.

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

#310

Post by kunagi7 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #259

Related to this, does 3G just not work anymore? I’m in Ontario, Canada and whenever my phone loses LTE and shows full bars 3G, the internet doesn’t work at all.

Different continent (Europe) but something similar happens with my provider (Orange).

3G works perfectly to make phone calls (since VoLTE is a bit of a disaster here, most phones don't work with it) but for data is pretty much hit or miss. Some antennas seem to provide Internet and in others even ping (to 8.8.8.8 or 4.2.2.2) doesn't work.

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