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The Disappointment of 5G

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Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#161

Post by kjellsbells »

eli wrote: post #35

> No wireless technology has been a bigger flop than 5G when comparing the hype to the eventual reality. Well that’s obviously not true. I was at the launch event for WiMAX which had huge hype and now you’ve probably never heard of it. 5G actually exists and works. In my home (admittedly near a tower) it’s faster than my gigabit Fios over wifi.

Ironically, T-mobile is sitting pretty for 5G spectrum because the acquisition of Sprint gave them a boatload of spectrum that Sprint in turn got when they acquired Clearwire...who acquired the spectrum for WiMax. Funny how life turns out.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#162

Post by pie_flavor »

> It seems like the industry has embarked on subdividing what was originally considered as 5G spectrum into small chunks so that the carriers roll out subsequent generations of 6G, 7G, and 8G—all of which were supposedly part of the original 5G revolution.

4G proved too hard, so the industry instead adopted what they called 4G Long Term Evolution, or LTE for short, where they'd start with a minor improvement over 3G and keep improving over time. Then they forgot to improve over time. 5G was transparently just 4G again. Then it proved too hard, so etc etc. Sigh

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#163

Post by ksec »

Was it really the carrier generating those hype?

My biggest problem is Tech / Media / people who believed in those hype and continue to spread it, plenty of them on HN saying "true" 5G is mmWave. Or 5G is all about capacity ( that was my tagline ) which they used but then suggest the capacity is all because of mmWave ( no it is not ). And people became disappointed because mmWave never came.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#164

Post by speedbird »

Don’t know about 5G, haven’t experienced a personal need for it, but in contrast to the position taken in the articles the 3G to 4G upgrade has been huge where it’s reliably available. Can now easily web conf while commuting, whereas with 3G would be waiting tens of seconds for web pages to load.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#165

Post by robben1234 »

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'm not sure about cost comparison between 4G tower and 5G tower, but from consumer standpoint it feels like doing expenses for the sake of saving carrier's money.

As consumer I get to pay for a compatible device, frequently pay more for the compatible plan, and realistically, get nothing in return to show for it.

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#167

Post by VagueMag »

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.

5G will enable the sorts of edge computing needed for stuff like facial recognition. It's fundamentally a policing/military/counterinsurgency technology being laundered as consumer tech.

https://twitter.com/2youngBadazz/status/1364621468999409666?...

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#168

Post by lmpdev »

The worst thing the Australian government has done in recent years is backflip on the onus being on them to connect you to fibre via their National Broadband Network (NBN) programme, now the onus is on the consumer to spend thousands to connect to 5G instead.

I've been doing up my mother's connection 25 mins away from a city CBD (I live in another state). I have had to purchase a $1,000 5G modem, 2x2 MIMO directional antennae, rewired the property myself with Cat6 and an old Cisco switch and waps.

I got a 22-26x increase in download off peak and 30x increase in upload (up to about 600-700mb/s off peak)

Would've been wonderful if they just gave them the fibre they promised, though

Fixed wireless 5G is definitely faster but the medium's line of sight requirement means I'd really prefer slow 250mb/s fibre to volatile 100-750mb/s 5G

I've worked out I could hit about 2.5-3gb/s if I went 4x4 MIMO with a 10m mast and aimed it perfectly (tower is 300m away) - but there's no way to control who else is connected and taking the bandwidth - so I'm not investing anymore in her property

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#169

Post by lmpdev »

lmpdev wrote: post #168

The worst thing the Australian government has done in recent years is backflip on the onus being on them to connect you to fibre via their National Broadband Network (NBN) programme, now the onus is on the consumer to spend thousands to connect to 5G instead. I've been doing up my mother's connection 25 mins away from a city CBD (I live in another state). I have had to purchase a $1,000 5G modem, 2x2 MIMO directional…

Keep in mind Americans reading this that in Australia we have more and different 5G bands to you so YMMV if you reconstructed this setup

Re: The Disappointment of 5G

#170

Post by alden5 »

daneel_w wrote: post #14

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.

At least for me individually 5G has been a worse experience vs LTE because of how quickly it drains the tiny 2,227mah battery in my iphone 12 mini, turning off 5G doesn't noticeably affect my cell performance while at the same time increases my battery life by 1-2 hours. I can't imagine how bad it'd be if i had a ultra-wideband plan, that radio requires a giant cutout in the metal frame which is also only present on u.s. region iphones. 5g ultra-wideband has always seemed like just a party trick to me (who would ever need gigabyte speeds on a phone??)
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