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5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

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Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#11

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

ianburrell wrote: post #9
kfarr wrote: post #5

I was hoping to see some mention of latency. Agree with the premise that for most consumer applications we don’t need much more wireless throughput but latency still seems way worse than Ethernet heyday times in college

LTE latency is 20-50ms, 5G is 1ms, Gigabit Ethernet is less than 1ms, Wifi is 2-3ms. Overall latency is more about distance, 300km is 1ms, number of hops, and response times. With mobile, I bet contention and poor signal are more of an issue. 5G is a noticeable improvement over LTE, and I am not sure they can do much better.

> 5G is 1ms

I have never seen this. Where do I have to get 5G service to see these latencies?

Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#13

Post by mbesto »

ianburrell wrote: post #9
kfarr wrote: post #5

I was hoping to see some mention of latency. Agree with the premise that for most consumer applications we don’t need much more wireless throughput but latency still seems way worse than Ethernet heyday times in college

LTE latency is 20-50ms, 5G is 1ms, Gigabit Ethernet is less than 1ms, Wifi is 2-3ms. Overall latency is more about distance, 300km is 1ms, number of hops, and response times. With mobile, I bet contention and poor signal are more of an issue. 5G is a noticeable improvement over LTE, and I am not sure they can do much better.

When 5G first rolled out this was absolutely not the case. Not only was it not 1ms, it was like full 1000's of ms to the point where I actively turned off 5G on my iPhone because it was so bad.

I can only speculate 5G was so saturated on the initial rollout so it led to congestion and now its stabilized. But latency isn't only affected by distance and hops - congestion matters.

Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#14

Post by jsbisviewtiful »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #4

Oh boy oh boy I'm excited for the 5G shutdown when the phone I haven't even bought yet will quit working :)

I know you are being sarcastic but 3G antennas in the US were only just recently shut down. 20~ years isn't bad for how rapidly tech advancement has been happening in the recent decades. Obviously AM and FM radio have been continuing for far longer than that but there are legal and logistical reasons for that, at least for now.

Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#15

Post by supertrope »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #11
ianburrell wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LTE latency is 20-50ms, 5G is 1ms, Gigabit Ethernet is less than 1ms, Wifi is 2-3ms. Overall latency is more about distance, 300km is 1ms, number of hops, and response times. With mobile, I bet contention and poor signal are more of an issue. 5G is a noticeable improvement over LTE, and I am not sure they can do much better.

> 5G is 1ms I have never seen this. Where do I have to get 5G service to see these latencies?

1ms to the cell tower. Even on fiber Internet there’s still single digit ms latency to servers in the same metro area. Only T-Mobile has deployed 5G SA (standalone). ATT and Verizon use 5G NSA (non standalone) which is a 4G control channel bonded with 5G channels so it has 4G latency.

Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#16

Post by jquery »

kfarr wrote: post #5

I was hoping to see some mention of latency. Agree with the premise that for most consumer applications we don’t need much more wireless throughput but latency still seems way worse than Ethernet heyday times in college

I was hoping to see any mention of large file downloads and uploads. Nevermind the article’s ponderous “I can’t imagine any use case for more than 5GB/s”, that’s a use case today where higher speeds above 5GB/s would be helpful. For example, a lot of AAA games are above 100GB, with the largest game in my steam library being over half a terabyte (DCS World). Ideally I wouldn’t have to store these games locally, but I do if I want to have access to them in any reasonable amount of time.

It also takes ages to back up my computer. 18 terabytes of data in my case, and that’s after pruning another 30 terabytes of data as “unnecessary” to back up.

Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#17

Post by harrall »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #8

> Transmitting high-end 4K video today requires 15 Mb/s, according to Netflix. Home broadband upgrades from, say, hundreds of Mb/s to 1,000 Mb/s (or 1 Gb/s) typically make little to no noticeable difference for the average end user. What I find fascinating is that in a lot of situations mobile phones are now way faster than wired internet for lots of people. My parents never upgraded their home internet despite there…

5G can be extremely fast. I get 600 MBit over cellular at home.

…and we only pay for 500 MBit for my home fiber. (Granted, also 500 Mbit upload.)

(T-Mobile, Southern California)

Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#18

Post by James_K »

I got a 5G capable phone a few months back, and I can't say I've noticed a difference from my old one. (Aside from the new phone being more expensive, worse UI, slower, heavier, unwieldy, filled with ads, and constantly prompting me to create a "Samsung account".)

Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#19

Post by xattt »

jsbisviewtiful wrote: post #14
01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #4

Oh boy oh boy I'm excited for the 5G shutdown when the phone I haven't even bought yet will quit working :)

I know you are being sarcastic but 3G antennas in the US were only just recently shut down. 20~ years isn't bad for how rapidly tech advancement has been happening in the recent decades. Obviously AM and FM radio have been continuing for far longer than that but there are legal and logistical reasons for that, at least for now.

Similar to how Apple how moved forward with breaking compatibility for apps with older OS X versions.

Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#20

Post by ziml77 »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #8

> Transmitting high-end 4K video today requires 15 Mb/s, according to Netflix. Home broadband upgrades from, say, hundreds of Mb/s to 1,000 Mb/s (or 1 Gb/s) typically make little to no noticeable difference for the average end user. What I find fascinating is that in a lot of situations mobile phones are now way faster than wired internet for lots of people. My parents never upgraded their home internet despite there…

On one hand it's nice that the option for that fast wireless connection is available. But on the other hand it sucks that having it means the motivation for ISPs to run fiber to homes in sparse towns goes from low down to none, since they can just point people to the wireless options. Wireless doesn't beat the reliability, latency, and consistent speeds of a fiber connection.
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