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The Disappointment of 5G

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Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#151

Post by mustacheemperor »

bradgessler wrote: post #142
lordfrito wrote: post #134

I think one of the biggest improvement points of 5G, which most people don't notice, is that it improves the number of devices that can connect to the local cell tower. With 4G, you get 100k device connections per 1 sq kilometer. With 5G, this number becomes 1 million connections per square kilometer. This is a very big deal if you are in a heavily congested area (big cities, major league sporting events). Also a ver…

This perfectly illustrates why 5G is a disappointment for consumers—increasing the number of devices each tower can support is a carrier problem, not a customer problem. I've never in my life heard somebody on 4G LTE say, "Eugh, my connection is too slow!". It's always "fast enough" to browse the web at reasonable speeds, watch videos, or have an OK-quality FaceTime call.

I have been at concerts/events/trade shows where the 4G cell network dragged to a crawl from overuse - but speaking as a consumer, I never realized a benefit of 5G was reducing that problem.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#152

Post by orev »

Zealotux wrote: post #2

>5G would enable doctors to perform surgery remotely from across the country I never, ever understood that argument; I simply can't imagine a hospital relying on a cellular network for such sensitive work.

Because it’s not a real argument, it’s marketing fluff. “Oh, look how futuristic it is! If you (the government) approve all our demands for reduced regulation and subsidize our installation costs, you’ll get re-elected by your people who now live like the Jetsons!”

They’ve been saying the same exact thing since cellular data was starting to be deployed 30 years ago. Search for the AT&T “you will” campaign from the 90s to see.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#153

Post by OJFord »

scarface74 wrote: post #52
OJFord wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if that's supposed to contradict my point, but I don't think an iPhone user earning $100k is skipping a model, upgrading only every 2.6y, because they can't afford to upgrade faster.

The point I’m making is that most people aren’t buying $110 phones and keeping them for years and most people making what the stereotypical HN user makes also isn’t buying $110 phones.

But that's because they want a phone that happens to be more expensive, not because they (necessarily) have a greater capacity to afford it than (all) those of us with cheaper ones, was my point.

Obviously there are people with a phone choice that has been limited by their ability to spend, I'm not denying that, I'm just saying you don't have to look nearly as far as billionaires for those who aren't.

If you prefer, I could equally have phrased it as people buying iPhones as frequently as they come out or not, either way needn't be billionaires; in the former case becoming a billionaire is unlikely to make you suddenly see that as an excess.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#154

Post by jurschreuder »

5g is a name for a collection of hundreds of improvements to the cellular network I have been told, yes by people wanting us to make applications where you needed low latency for marketing purpose. In the end they made something that bragged about low latency that actually did not even need low latency.

They know themselves there is no such thing as "5g" but try to explain that to the public. They said the low latency and the high bandwidth is also possible with 4g but they're just upgrading a lot of stuff.

I don't think they're selling a lie, they're just upgrading a network and have some breaking changes.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#155

Post by spixy »

izacus wrote: post #75
WithinReason wrote: post #30

Earlier 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

> You can reasonably replace your home internet with 5G Doing that at scale is an amazing way to drive 5G speeds and latency into the ground, making it worse than old cable connections.

I thought 5G solves scalability issues (at least better than 4G)

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#156

Post by scarface74 »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #144
scarface74 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phones have had GPS since the 2G era. 5G is the least of your problem.

You’re wrong here, even the first iPhone did not have a GPS.

Just because the first iPhone didn’t have GPS, it doesn’t mean GPS didn’t exist in phones before then.

I had this phone before the iPhone existed and it had GPS.

https://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=824

It came out in 2005:

https://www.cnet.com/reviews/samsung-mm-a900-sprint-review/

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#157

Post by thomastjeffery »

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. 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.

This goes both ways: how can anyone possibly make (let alone sell) new applications when practically no consumer has a good enough connection to use them?

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#158

Post by FollowingTheDao »

scarface74 wrote: post #156
FollowingTheDao wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re wrong here, even the first iPhone did not have a GPS.

Just because the first iPhone didn’t have GPS, it doesn’t mean GPS didn’t exist in phones before then. I had this phone before the iPhone existed and it had GPS. https://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=824 It came out in 2005: https://www.cnet.com/reviews/samsung-mm-a900-sprint-review/

That is a 3G phone.

And having a GPS on your phone does not make YOU trackable. It only matters if the phone sends that data to someone else. That was not happening on these flip phones.

I cannot believe I fell for this.

The point I am making is that you do not need to have a phone to be surveilled and tracked by 5G. Look at the studies I posted.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#159

Post by scarface74 »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #158
scarface74 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because the first iPhone didn’t have GPS, it doesn’t mean GPS didn’t exist in phones before then. I had this phone before the iPhone existed and it had GPS. https://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=824 It came out in 2005: https://www.cnet.com/reviews/samsung-mm-a900-sprint-review/

That is a 3G phone. And having a GPS on your phone does not make YOU trackable. It only matters if the phone sends that data to someone else. That was not happening on these flip phones. I cannot believe I fell for this. The point I am making is that you do not need to have a phone to be surveilled and tracked by 5G. Look at the studies I posted.

The point was that just because the iPhone didn’t have GPS, it doesn’t mean that phones didn’t have GPS before then.

And government tracking by cell phones was also around in 2005

https://www.fletc.gov/sites/default/files/imported_files/tra...

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#160

Post by kjellsbells »

lordfrito wrote: post #150
grishka wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How well does 5G work wrt distance from the tower? So far, the good old 2G (GSM/GPRS/EDGE) is best in this regard, at least in my own experience. No matter how far from civilization you are, you're more likely to get 2G than no service at all. You can call, sure, but data works so terribly it could as well be unavailable. Does 5G solve that?

Caveat, I'm not exactly an expert at that level. My understanding is that "it depends". I do know that transmission distance goes down as the frequency (and bandwidth) increases. For example, 2.4 GHz WiFi works farther than 5 GHz, but is slower. I also know that 5G enables high speed "micro cells".. Higher bandwidth but smaller coverage zone. The idea that every city block can have a mini cell in their corner traffic…

You're correct but Ill add some nuance: higher frequencies = higher speeds, but lower propagation out in the real world. So you solve the propagation issue by putting the radio closer to users, eg on street poles. But you also take care to propagate the signal optimally, eg instead of blasting it out in a wide cone of coverage, maybe you use beamforming and MIMO to focus on where the users actually are. Additionally 5G tech also provides some energy efficiency benefits on the radio.

The other things that cellular has over wifi are much better handover between radio access points (almost seamless on cellular, less so on wifi) and better behavior in environments where multiple users are transmitting at once (wifi is similar to csma/cd, like in the old days of ethernet). This is going to change with wifi 6E, but that isnt mainstream yet.

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