Counter point: 5G has been the most important technological innovation for my family in a decade. We live in the US but our home had no unmetered broadband access prior to 5G rollout. (No DSL (for BS "technical line reasons) and no StarLink or cable video)
The Disappointment of 5G
121–130 of 175 posts
Re: The Disappointment of 5G
#122Ignoring 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
[dead]
Re: The Disappointment of 5G
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 w…
> We are a long way from using cell network as a primary one
I tend to agree from a technical pov.
Otoh i know a lot of ppl who do just that and don’t even bother with landline/wifi. Connecting a gaming console via wifi to the phone with „unlimited data“ and downloading 100gb+ games is surprisingly common.
Re: The Disappointment of 5G
#124Earlier 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.
Part of the parents point is that is isn’t true in general. The overall efficiency isn’t much better , so service level basically comes down to how you chop up available bandwidth.
So if you happen to live somewhere with oversubscribed LTE and get in on a new 5G - it’s seems great. But a) it’s very locatiin dependeny and b) it probably won’t last
Re: The Disappointment of 5G
#125Ignoring 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
T-Mobile keeps sending me texts trying to get me to sign up for their 5G home internet. They're offering 50 Mbps down for $60/month. Xfinity gives me 200 megs down for the same price and lower latency, and when you're losing to Comcast, that's not a good sign.
Re: The Disappointment of 5G
#126Ignoring 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. 100mbit/sec LTE with 20-30ms latency is fine for nearly everything; gigabit with 5ms latency on 5G doesn't really change much, at least for the next few years.
I'd say few new consumer applications (other than replacing home internet). In commercial applications like TV production being being able to pack 10x as much data into a connection at lower latency is interesting and enables some things that previously required complex/unreliable cellular bonding or wildly expensive satellite connections.
Re: The Disappointment of 5G
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There are virtually no new applications enabled IMO with 5G speeds vs LTE speeds/latency You can reasonably replace your home internet with 5G
T-Mobile keeps sending me texts trying to get me to sign up for their 5G home internet. They're offering 50 Mbps down for $60/month. Xfinity gives me 200 megs down for the same price and lower latency, and when you're losing to Comcast , that's not a good sign.
T-Mobile is cost effective in rural areas. They’ve done huge investment into rural 5G infrastructure in places like Ohio, which means homes which only get like 6mbps max from Century Link now have a real option for internet. The only competition is StarLink, which is way more expensive.
Re: The Disappointment of 5G
#128In 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?
It's _really_ hard to come up with a coherent theory of European telecom pricing; it is just all over the place. For instance, Ireland is more expensive than the UK thing... So it's a density thing, right? Not so fast; Germany (denser than Ireland) is also more expensive than Ireland... There are some general _trends_, but big exceptions to all of them.
Re: The Disappointment of 5G
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There are virtually no new applications enabled IMO with 5G speeds vs LTE speeds/latency You can reasonably replace your home internet with 5G
T-Mobile keeps sending me texts trying to get me to sign up for their 5G home internet. They're offering 50 Mbps down for $60/month. Xfinity gives me 200 megs down for the same price and lower latency, and when you're losing to Comcast , that's not a good sign.
Comcast isn't the real competitor. Lots of folks are stuck on shitty ADSL because the hassle of getting cables in and run—especially as a renter—are too high. I've even heard of folks who can't get a decent enough signal from Comcast switching because the time and energy to replace the coax to their condo was too much.