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The Disappointment of 5G

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21–30 of 175 posts

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#21
I’m in Sydney and the 5G is pretty good. Definitely better than or at least similar to the terrible internet options Verizon and other providers ever had back in the US (ignoring FIOS if you’re lucky enough to get it.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never, ever understood that argument; I simply can't imagine a hospital relying on a cellular network for such sensitive work. Maybe the argument was more for government officials, not for people like you.

What does this tell us about government officials?

That they deal exclusively in propaganda, with no regard to the real world.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#23
5G has been great for me (UK), although I am fortunate enough to be close to a mast.

- at the time I moved to it, it gave higher speeds than fibre

- I have a 30-day rolling contract instead of a year-long one

- It's cheaper than fibre

- No data limits

- I can take it with me if I move

The only thing it's not great for is gaming.

Also, the only home routers you easily get are Chinese. The Nokia LastMile seems to be invitation-only.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#24

It's a bit of a myth of the modern age that desire is unlimited. I think this is wrong. At some point our desire can be sated. Eg, I'm pretty sure Bill Gates or Elon Musk don't buy the newest, latest phone that comes out every single time. Because at some point you find something that works well enough, and just thinking of using something else involves effort. Even if V2 is theoretically faster or has more RAM, mayb…

Supporting the economic growth needs a country to produce and people to consume (= “buy new”, not “use existing”). When you’re stating you’ve got enough power and possibilities with the state of the art to be happy, you’re restraining your country GDP. Would you favor your own happiness instead of economic growth ? :)

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#25
post #19

It's curious how telcos' incessant blabbering about 5G ended up getting so deep into people's heads that they began thinking it was something that would make every interaction on their smartphones instantaneous. 5G was never about the individual user. It was always about the grid; the ability to provide expected bandwidth/connectivity to more users at the same time.

It reminds me of 3G - at least in the UK, the rollout/marketing of it seemed synonymous with video calling.

Same marketing style played out in Sweden. Endless advertisements showing manically laughing people overcome by joy from doing video calls on flip-phones without cameras.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#26

It's a bit of a myth of the modern age that desire is unlimited. I think this is wrong. At some point our desire can be sated. Eg, I'm pretty sure Bill Gates or Elon Musk don't buy the newest, latest phone that comes out every single time. Because at some point you find something that works well enough, and just thinking of using something else involves effort. Even if V2 is theoretically faster or has more RAM, mayb…

> Eg, I'm pretty sure Bill Gates or Elon Musk don't buy the newest, latest phone that comes out every single time. Because at some point you find something that works well enough, and just thinking of using something else involves effort. Even if V2 is theoretically faster or has more RAM, maybe you have no need for that yet.

I don't think you have to look to billionaires for that - surely for the majority of HN users what we spend and how often we spend it on a phone isn't limited by what we can afford?

I've been using the same ~£150 phone for I think 4-5 years - I could have afforded however many top-spec iPhones or Pixels or whatever came out in that time, but I don't play games on my phone or do anything intensive that requires it, I just need to be able to message people and browse the web basically.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#28

5G has been great for me (UK), although I am fortunate enough to be close to a mast. - at the time I moved to it, it gave higher speeds than fibre - I have a 30-day rolling contract instead of a year-long one - It's cheaper than fibre - No data limits - I can take it with me if I move The only thing it's not great for is gaming. Also, the only home routers you easily get are Chinese. The Nokia LastMile seems to be in…

I believed this would apply to me too but it ended up slower than 4g.

Modems also appear to range from £250-£900 on amazon.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#29

Ignoring all the hype and BS, all the cell infrastructure really comes down to a battle between user bandwidth needs and available spectrum (multiplied by spectral efficiency and density of towers). Get this wrong and customer service tanks as cell sites get congestied. There are virtually no new applications enabled IMO with 5G speeds vs LTE speeds/latency, assuming they are both not congested. 100mbit/sec LTE with…

I agree with that. 5G is overhyped, probably due to the fact that sales guys were seeing speeds up to XY GB/s, but forget to mention that it is working only on wideband (mmWave) part of 5G, which might come later, but maybe never at all.

So people either have "5G" which is just a marginally better LTE working on same frequencies as 3G used to or people have 5G mmWave, which works only when they are standing at one spot of a street and in a very specific body position. The moment when there is a wall, glass, tree or a even a mist, 5G mmWave does not work.

5G is disappointment, because it was senselessly overhyped yet its overall usability for end user is not much different from 4G.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#30

Ignoring all the hype and BS, all the cell infrastructure really comes down to a battle between user bandwidth needs and available spectrum (multiplied by spectral efficiency and density of towers). Get this wrong and customer service tanks as cell sites get congestied. There are virtually no new applications enabled IMO with 5G speeds vs LTE speeds/latency, assuming they are both not congested. 100mbit/sec LTE with…

> There are virtually no new applications enabled IMO with 5G speeds vs LTE speeds/latency

You can reasonably replace your home internet with 5G

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