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Will there be a 7G?

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Re: Will there be a 7G?

#151

Post by wolvoleo »

general1465 wrote: post #83
wolvoleo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well mmWave was never for large areas. It's for ultra high density like in stadiums with 100k people. You know those cases where current networks are completely unusable because they saturate. Its extremely limited range and penetration is a benefit there because you can put up thousands of cells without them interfering with each other. It was also meant for offices as a managed WiFi replacement. Stuff like that. In…

> It was also meant for offices as a managed WiFi replacement. Stuff like that. In this vision every laptop would have 5G built in and could work anywhere. It just didn't take off because of the chicken egg problem. Not many phones with mmWave. Not many providers with it. It did not took off because the whole sales pitch was utter nonsense. Why would anyone put 3rd party 5G BTS inside their buildings and then pay for…

Data would have been unlimited at the company's own locations of course.

And it would have worked similarly to managed WiFi. Lots of companies outsource their WiFi and network. Many don't want to have that knowledge in house. Basically the provider would play the role of network outsourcing party inside the office and the outdoor connectivity would be more of a value-add.

The benefit would have been much higher speeds due to much more available bandwidth (way more than even 6Ghz WiFi), more security (people can't just poke at it with some packet injectors), less interference due to managed spectrum, higher density due to the beamforming and low penetration. Oh and it would have improved phone connectivity inside those buildings to boot. It could be combined with VPN/MPLS like connectivity so that laptops would always be behind the firewall even outdoors without having to run a VPN client.

This was also the pitch that led to those laptops with 5G built in that intel and Qualcomm were on about (Qualcomm was heavily trying to get into the laptop market back then). But it kinda stalled. I don't think it was a bad pitch though. It also came at a time when people weren't actually working in the office due to the pandemic and it lost momentum, beside the chicken and egg problem.

I could really see this taking off under the right conditions. But the whole laptop with mmWave isn't a thing anymore now. Perhaps 6G will bring a renewed push with it. Personally I don't think it's a bad pitch at all.

Re: Will there be a 7G?

#152

Post by wolvoleo »

tliltocatl wrote: post #79
wolvoleo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's more of a physics thing. For building penetration you need low frequencies but those low frequencies have less bandwidth available because the bands are smaller. At the same time bandwidth needs rapidly go up, making those low bands fuller. Because there's a limit to how many bits per second you can get out of a Hz of spectrum. What would really help is the easy provisioning of signal boosters. A bit like the…

> What would really help is the easy provisioning of signal boosters. But that's also a physics thing. Plain same-frequency boosters hamper frequency reuse on neighbor cells, so less bandwidth for you. And if boosters run on a separate band, you'd need to do frequency planning for them just like it's done for cells now. Wireless is finicky, we should really avoid using it everywhere wired can be used instead.

Well yes but once you transmit from inside the building you can use the higher frequencies which are much more plentiful. And use many low power nodes similar to the way we deploy WiFi in offices, with one every 15 metres or so.

The bandwidth available at 26Ghz is huge and the low penetration means you dont need to have as much distance before you can reuse them again. A simple wall is already enough.

But no I didn't mean those old style signal boosters that basically just retransmit the analog signal.

Re: Will there be a 7G?

#153

Post by Scoundreller »

toast0 wrote: post #99
Scoundreller wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s always a gradual refarming of the spectrum into the next G. Usually the most penetrating frequencies (ie lowest) are kept on the lower G to maximize legacy support. For a while I had my phone stick to 3G, which doesn’t support emergency alerts, because my jurisdiction kept sending them out for joint custody disputes at 3AM 1000km away. It was fine But the 3G became unbearable and they tightened up the alert c…

> There’s always a gradual refarming of the spectrum into the next G. Not necessarily for 4G to 5G. 5G can run a 4G compatible control channel and timeslices can be 4G or 5G. > Usually the most penetrating frequencies (ie lowest) are kept on the lower G to maximize legacy support. Maybe, but at least in the US, 4G wad deployable on new lower frequency spectrum that had previously been used for TV. LTE 71, 600 Mhz is…

that's why I said "kept on the lower G". If a new lower one pops up, that's a different story.

Re: Will there be a 7G?

#154

Post by anon7000 »

On 5g, I’ll say this. I’m on a Verizon MVNO with a fairly recent iPhone Pro model in a major metro area.

I frequently have to disable 5g and switch data to LTE to get any actual service, even when I have full bars of service. It’s highly annoying phones don’t do this by default

Re: Will there be a 7G?

#155

Post by mod50ack »

Zigurd wrote: post #140
mdasen wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5GUW on Verizon isn't necessarily mm wave. Originally, it meant mm wave, but that hasn't been the case since 2022. Now it means the 3-5GHz C-Band spectrum or the 20-50GHz mm wave. If you're seeing 5GUW on your phone, it's going to be C-Band a lot more than mm wave. C-Band spectrum also makes sense given a speed test of 400-800Mbps. That's fast, but not hugely faster than what you should expect with really good covera…

Everyone uses the example of stadiums, but the occupancy rate of stadiums makes the economics of the network and backhaul iffy. I would guess only the biggest NFL stadiums get it as a showcase. Maybe parts of Manhattan, too. Chinese cities, especially at train stations and the surrounding area get really impressive flows of people every day. But even in China I would expect that while they might have a lot more 5G SA…

I've gotten mmWave on Verizon in certain spots in Midtown Manhattan. But it doesn't really give me a lot of practical benefits over non-mmWave 5G.

In general, putting aside the bandwidth/crowding concerns (which are real, of course), I don't find 5G that much of a step above LTE - it's nothing compared to the jump from 3G to LTE. LTE changed how I used my phone in a big way (e.g., I could now watch video or download something on my phone practically). LTE got pretty fast over time anyway.

Re: Will there be a 7G?

#156

Post by krapcys »

Zigurd wrote: post #140
mdasen wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5GUW on Verizon isn't necessarily mm wave. Originally, it meant mm wave, but that hasn't been the case since 2022. Now it means the 3-5GHz C-Band spectrum or the 20-50GHz mm wave. If you're seeing 5GUW on your phone, it's going to be C-Band a lot more than mm wave. C-Band spectrum also makes sense given a speed test of 400-800Mbps. That's fast, but not hugely faster than what you should expect with really good covera…

Everyone uses the example of stadiums, but the occupancy rate of stadiums makes the economics of the network and backhaul iffy. I would guess only the biggest NFL stadiums get it as a showcase. Maybe parts of Manhattan, too. Chinese cities, especially at train stations and the surrounding area get really impressive flows of people every day. But even in China I would expect that while they might have a lot more 5G SA…

Same here. 5G mostly feels like a refinement of LTE, not a generational leap.

Re: Will there be a 7G?

#158

Post by general1465 »

wolvoleo wrote: post #151
general1465 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was also meant for offices as a managed WiFi replacement. Stuff like that. In this vision every laptop would have 5G built in and could work anywhere. It just didn't take off because of the chicken egg problem. Not many phones with mmWave. Not many providers with it. It did not took off because the whole sales pitch was utter nonsense. Why would anyone put 3rd party 5G BTS inside their buildings and then pay for…

Data would have been unlimited at the company's own locations of course. And it would have worked similarly to managed WiFi. Lots of companies outsource their WiFi and network. Many don't want to have that knowledge in house. Basically the provider would play the role of network outsourcing party inside the office and the outdoor connectivity would be more of a value-add. The benefit would have been much higher speed…

The problem is control of the network. If you don't control your network, then you don't know if network provider will go from "unlimited data" to "I am changing the deal now it is 1USD/GB" and you can either take it or be without connection which would likely collapse your operations. So the only logical step is to use network which you have full control over, like WiFi.

The much higher speed also does not hold together when you will look at it. When you have a device which is generating or processing a lot of data (GB/s ~ TB/s) such device needs substantial computational power to pull it off, so it is likely a stationary device connected to 230V. So why won't you drag a fiber there?

Re: Will there be a 7G?

#159

Post by cindyllm »

PaulHoule wrote: post #65
ksec wrote: post #49

It needs to work backwards, much like Video Codec and ask what do the stakeholders really want or need? We are closing in to rolling out the last / final phase of 5G. And yet none of the Massive MIMO on FDD is happening. We are still stuck on 32T32R, hardly that impressive considering we have that in LTE already. Not to mention the insane complexity increase from 4G to 5G. And judging from the previews of 6G that see…

4G used clever ideas to get much better practical spectrum efficiency than people thought was possible... At the cost of very expensive infrastructure. The biggest selling point to carriers was standalone 5G networks that were cheaper to build but paradoxically carriers are prone to frame 5G as a feature customers pay more for. The area where wireless networks fall short is coverage. Obviously many homes and business…

[dead]

Re: Will there be a 7G?

#160

Post by msh »

grahamburger wrote: post #101
msh wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s also because the best frequencies are already occupied by 2g/3g and 4g so it’s hard to provide good 5g coverage over large areas.

'best' is relative here; lower bands travel further, which is great for maximizing coverage footprint, but not great for high-density. Each node can only handle so much traffic, and you can pack them in more densely with short-range spectrum. mmWave really is the best frequency for very high density, high capacity networks, but the bottleneck is you have to deploy all the extra nodes to get the coverage.

But 5g can handle more calls and data compared to 2g and 3g with the same spectrum as it’s more efficient.
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