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The Disappointment of 5G

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Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#61

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

The GP comment highlights 5G as a mitigation for spectrum congestion. Driving wireless home Internet adoption seems like it'd make that problem worse, not better, where wired alternatives exist.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#62
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could do that with LTE a decade ago. It is more than fast enough for 4K video streaming, and typical latencies are below 50 ms. Most users would not notice any difference between LTE and 5G.

It’s not about the speed, it’s about data limits. LTE had fairly restrictive data caps due to congestion constraints whereas more mature 5G deployment will allow for reasonable data caps and still acceptable service for enough people.

Nope. Less than $20/month gets me unlimited 80/30 4G/LTE using a single 15 MHz band. If I got a 5G/NR modem, I could get unlimited 200/30 for the same price.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#63
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for surgery per se (which is too high of a risk), but in my country people did manage to find a similar, reasonable use case. They equipped ambulances with high-res cameras and cellular network for senior medical technicians in hospitals to give advices to medical technicians on the ambulance in real-time, which seems like a nice addition.

4G can comfortably stream 1080p video with low latency. What does 5G being to this scenario?

Wider bands, lower latency, less congestion, the promise of switching off legacy in the future (with SA)

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#64

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

The problem is fluctuations of the load on the tower and random signal outages which can happen at any time. Also in my experience LTE links sometimes drops when working for long periods on it, meaning I need to reconnect VPN and do other annoying actions.

And that's not even starting on the problem of coverage. Especially in the apartment blocks with a lot of rebar in the walls. And 5G higher frequencies have even worse coverage that 4G. If I have a problem with Wifi inside my home I simply buy repeaters or wire a new AP with a cable. WIth cell network I can't do this.

We are a long way from using cell network as a primary one (if alternative is available of course).

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#65

In Germany you can pay 35€/mo for 5GB of data traffic (t-mobile) and then enjoy the bandwidth of 5G for a full 40 seconds. It's a total joke.

Why is Germany so expensive?

Not only expensive, the coverage is spotty too. Driving cross country, even along major highways often results in many dead spots.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This sounds a bit too absurd, do you have a link to an example video?

Rolling backwards slightly, here's a good one for "Internet on your phone" I remember from about the year 2000: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkvNW3do-9g

I did my dissertation project in WAP. This ad grossly oversold the concept of "Internet on your phone" (which properly kicked off in a way that the 'regular person' would embrace the UK around 2007, I think).

The 'future' is always mis-sold.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#67

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

No I can’t, it’s blocked by my walls. Even 4G drops down to about 10mbps inside with 150mbps outside.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This sounds a bit too absurd, do you have a link to an example video?

No, but you might find something on YouTube.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#69
post #55

It was the same with the initial rollout of 3G. There were all kind of crazy ideas for what this would enable, strange form factors of phones and so on. It usually takes a decade and turns out more boring, but in the end it _will be_ a better network. Nobody wants to go back to EDGE and many application now do rely on robust LTE.

Yeah, because it was before smartphones (phones having "normal" internet access, full featured browsers and all other things being done on top of that). A lot of effort was spent on things like Broadcast and Multicast Service (BCMCS), etc back then.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#70
5G is being rolled out little by little. If it's disappointing, its because it's not actually all delivered yet. It also has benefits that go beyond just Download speeds, like much better power efficiency.
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