The Disappointment of 5G • Hacker News Board

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#101

Post by martinald » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:54 PM UTC

pokstad wrote: post #98

martinald wrote: post #9

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…

Don’t forget backhaul bandwidth. All of the 5G cell sites need their backhauls upgraded to realize that the spectrum can support.

In the UK at least, most backhaul is fibre, and probably 10gigE already given LTE can push way more than 1gig with multiple sectors. But yes, some more remote sites may need upgraded.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#102

Post by systemtest » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:54 PM UTC

I was on 3G until a couple of years ago, currently on 4G. Limited to 14 megabit per second (but no datacap). 3G to 4G was a big step. But I don't have a need for 5G. I guess more people are in that position.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#103

Post by formvoltron » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:55 PM UTC

for about 2 days I was using it in 5G, thinking... this is cool. Then my phone started to get very hot and shut itself down. Battery life became ridiculously bad. This was on a pixel 6a. back on 4g and not really noticing any difference.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#104

Post by lostmsu » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:58 PM UTC

Saris wrote: post #74

It's pretty funny how T-Mobile has rolled out 5G in my small town (with a single cell tower), but have not bothered to upgrade the connection to the tower so we still only get about 2mbps on a good day. Even better is the local ISP offers 10gbps fiber service and has lines directly next to the tower, but the cell tower doesn't use that, and instead has some long range microwave backhaul. I always wonder what the poin…

Which small town has 10G?

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#105

Post by mgrund » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

martinald wrote: post #9

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, assuming they are both not congested.

I think 5G latency requirements are currently very academically driven without much practical validation, see e.g. Tactile Internet.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#106

Post by miohtama » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 3:05 PM UTC

We can crank it up all the way 11G.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#107

Post by causi » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 3:07 PM UTC

The way 5G is implemented by carriers/devices is such garbage. Unless I disable 5G entirely, my phone will refuse to switch to 4G even when 5G is so weak my speed is under 2mbit and 4G is testing at 45+mbit. It even takes over a minute of no connection at all before it will connect to 4G.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#108

Post by robdar » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 3:11 PM UTC

As someone in Canada the only thing 5G lets me do is use up my incredibly expensive bandwidth limit in seconds instead of minutes.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#109

Post by RC_ITR » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 3:15 PM UTC

martinald wrote: post #9

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…

>5G NR (the access layer of 5G) isn't hugely more spectrum efficient than LTE on a bitz/hz basis, at least on a downstream basis where the most demand is (upstream is really important too though, especially for TCP, I'm not discounting that).

This was something anyone could see from a mile away. Generations 1-4 were about multi-plexing signals on the same spectrum (1 was frequency channels, 2 was time channels, 3 started to include multiple simultaneous access via clever math, and 4G used orthogonal frequencies to really amp up the simultaneous access).

Problem with 5G is that orthogonal frequencies are pretty much the best way we know how to multiplex, even over wires, so we had to look elsewhere for things like new frequency bands and multiple antennae, etc. These were never going to feel as impactful as the multiplexing changes did, but there was too much at stake for marketing departments, so they just plowed ahead with hype.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#110

Post by nologic01 » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 3:18 PM UTC

> The big winner from the marketing hype has been the handset manufacturers, which have convinced customers that they must have 5G phones - without really telling them why

Its is a fact that much of recent tech development has been skewed by the explosion of mobile. It also feels as if this era is finally saturating and that might not be a bad thing. Mobile computing is obviously an amazing new dimension but it is also intrinsically a dumbed-down version of what fixed lines and more serious hardware (desktops etc) can offer.

Visions of a what a good digital society looks like vary, but resilient, high capacity fiber networks combined with a shift to more client-heavy computing would my preference. Imagine upgrading homes to be real digital hubs (e.g. supporting self-hosted clouds) offering a stark alternative to the remote mega datacenter plus puny touch screens.