Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks • Hacker News Board

Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#141

Post by ddalex » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 4:37 PM UTC

freehorse wrote: post #112

ddalex wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's why I'm running only 2.4Ghz APs, enough bandwidth for mobile common uses, all static hardware has wires to them. Far better then 5GHz band

Isn't 2.4GHz too congested already, esp considering a lot of wifi-connected devices still work at that range? I typically go the other way around to avoid congestion.

This is Europe where we have concrete or masonry walls and good insulation, I see maybe 2 other APs in the worst days in the apartment. On the good days I have no other APs.

Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#142

Post by jandrewrogers » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 4:41 PM UTC

lazide wrote: post #24

KAMSPioneer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my personal experience, people from Latin American countries will sometimes point out that they are American because they come from North or South America. Which is, of course, true; however, in English conversation, it's often nothing more than pedantry. In Spanish it makes more sense, since there is a separate demonym for a US person that doesn't co-opt the term "American." Outside of Romance language speakers b…

It’s even more amusing in some ways. A common way to refer to those from the USA in Brazil, for instance (even an official one!) is ‘Norte Americano’. Which is all kinds of weird because - what about Mexico and Canada? And what about the ‘United states’ part? It’s just to disambiguate from ‘Americano’ as in what others in South America sometimes use to refer to latin Americans and as a little bit of a FU to the USA,…

North America also formally has two United States: Mexico and America.

Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#143

Post by craftkiller » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 4:42 PM UTC

freehorse wrote: post #127

craftkiller wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I count approximately twice as many channels available on 6ghz than 5ghz, so even if we ignore the penetration differences between 5 and 6ghz, the 6ghz band is still better. Plus this isn't a "pick one" type of scenario (especially with MLO), 5ghz + 6ghz is 3x as many channels as 5ghz alone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels

> I count approximately twice as many channels available on 6ghz than 5ghz Isn't this mostly arbitrary? Eg what frequency range one defines channels over and thus how many channels? Eg in the wikipedia link that "6GHz" goes up to ~7.1GHz. Because otherwise channels seem to be more or less spread centered 20MHz apart in each case.

Yeah, I wasn't making that argument as some sort of intrinsic benefit to frequencies around 6ghz, but rather we have administratively decided that the slice of spectrum available for "6ghz" wifi has approximately twice the room compared to the slice of spectrum we have administratively allocated for "5ghz" wifi. In reality, "5ghz" wifi is more like 5.2-5.9ghz (with a hole around 5.4ghz) and "6ghz" wifi is more like 5.9ghz to 7.1ghz.

The intrinsic benefit for the frequencies around 6ghz is the reduced penetration through walls which will also reduce the congestion.

Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#144

Post by matt-p » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 4:42 PM UTC

jdewerd wrote: post #139

matt-p wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India has 15% fixed broadband penetration. So let's say you've got a town of 100K households. You can; A) give the richest 15K of them absolutely no faster WiFi whatsoever because 5GHZ will not be congested at all for them (so there is no problem to solve really) OR B) you can have the mobile carrier install a 6Ghz base station on every other telecoms/power pole in town and offer up terabits of mobile data capacity a…

The most efficient way to extract money from people is to sell off the spectrum to the highest bidding rent seeker, I agree. As for most efficient use of the resource, well, consulting my spectrum analyzer, ISM bands are winning by a mile and we should want more of them.

Sure obviously giving it to WiFi and then installing town wide free WiFi would be the absolute most efficient option but I'm trying to stay realistic.

Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#145

Post by matt-p » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 4:45 PM UTC

bethekidyouwant wrote: post #138

matt-p wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We said this about 5Ghz when that came out. I'm sorry to say it's not true, there's more than enough spectrum in 5Ghz if properly managed and co-ordinated. I would rather fix that first. Why is it we can run WiFi for thousands of developers in one room/venue just fine but people living in apartment blocks are apparently struggling with a dozen devices per 60sqm apartment? APs using 160MHZ channel widths with 1 or 2 s…

It’s faster to fix this by moving to 6 GHz than retrofitting everybody’s 5 GHz routers.

Moving to 6Ghz will require a new router. Realistically it's even worse because it's not moving to 6Ghz it's adding 6Ghz.

Now each AP has to have 3 radios, 2.4ghz for compatibility, 5ghz for compatibility while still maintaining some performance and 6ghz for performance.

What about when 6ghz is full of the same crap, do we add 7ghz?

Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#146

Post by alerighi » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 4:45 PM UTC

crote wrote: post #105

alerighi wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't shut down 2G, because there are a lot of devices, mainly embedded systems like alarms, lift emergency call button, GPS trackers, etc. that still use 2G. Also 2G is the only reliable network connection in a lot of areas that are not otherwise reached by 3G/4G/5G, mainly because a 2G connection is more tolerant to low signal and noise, and also is low frequency, thus 2G is the only option available in situati…

A lot of this is a chicken-and-egg problem. For example, lower-frequency bands have longer reach, but lower bandwidth. Because everyone has 2G support, it makes sense to put 2G on the lower frequencies as fallback, with 3G/4G/5G on higher frequencies as optional bandwidth booster. But this also means 5G reliability is being limited by its frequency! You could have better 5G - if it could use the frequency currently o…

It's not that simple. There are a ton of legacy systems that upgrading would cost a lot of money and it's not the fact or replacing a 100 euros smartphone. A lot of these systems have a critical (safety) function, and thus if they stop working there would be consequences (I've mentioned the elevator alarm, but consider alarms for plants in remote areas that use 2G to send out alarms, let's say a pumping station for sewer, remote sensors in the mountains, dataloggers, electronic bracelet given to people that has restrictive sentences, etc).

This is the same reasoning why they keep active the "old" analog telephone network, why not everyone is switched to VOIP, because there are situations where it's still used by stuff that is critical or too expensive to replace.

> with 3G/4G/5G on higher frequencies as optional bandwidth booster.

There are 5G bands in the ~700MHz bandwidth (that was recovered by switching to more efficient encoding for DTV) that could be used that are even lower than 2G that is around 900MHz.

They could (and probably will) dismiss 2G for consumer use, but keep some frequencies that are used by operators that provide MTM SIM.

> Give them a reason to switch and they will adopt it - they both ditched their land lines.

I've tried to make my grandma learn how to use a phone to send SMS multiple times and failed. If she uses a mobile phone (rare situation) she uses it as a landline phone, that is type the number that she wants to call, not even using the contacts in the phone. To be fair I had difficulties explaining how to use a cordless landline phone.

Speaking of elderly, there are a lot of them that have dedicated devices that they can use to make emergency calls to registered numbers, that probably use 2G network (some other use even landline). Since these devices are even provided for free by the national healthcare system, I see that there is not much money to spend to upgrade them.

BTW, are we sure that all the smartphone out there support VoLTE? If not, to make phone calls they need to fallback to 3G/2G, it was a common problem not many years ago, with some providers (Iliad) that even started supporting VoLTE like less than 2 years ago...

Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#147

Post by alerighi » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 4:47 PM UTC

Hendrikto wrote: post #71

alerighi wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't shut down 2G, because there are a lot of devices, mainly embedded systems like alarms, lift emergency call button, GPS trackers, etc. that still use 2G. Also 2G is the only reliable network connection in a lot of areas that are not otherwise reached by 3G/4G/5G, mainly because a 2G connection is more tolerant to low signal and noise, and also is low frequency, thus 2G is the only option available in situati…

You claim that they cannot be disabled, while this is already happening [0][1][2]. Some countries, like Switzerland, already completed the shutdown years ago [2]. [0]: https://newsroom.vodafone.de/2g-abschaltung-macht-lte-und-5g... [1]: https://www.telekom.de/hilfe/2g-abschaltung [2]: https://www.rosenberger-telematics.com/en/news/switching-off...

It's easy to make the switch in a rich country with less than 10 millions of inhabitants, mostly living in big cities.

Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#148

Post by PunchyHamster » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 4:51 PM UTC

throw0101d wrote: post #132

friendzis wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"significantly" is 50%, but still nowhere near 1 channel per network even if all networks cooperated.

> "significantly" is 50%, but still nowhere near 1 channel per network even if all networks cooperated. 5Ghz has 500Mhz worth of total bandwidth, while 6Ghz has (in US/CA, and hopefully in EU eventually) 1200Mhz. That's over double . 6Ghz has more 160Mhz channels (7) than 5Ghz has 80Mhz channels (6).

so in reality you're 1 channel up over 6GHz becasue people are not buying wifi6 router to stay on 80MHz channel

Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#149

Post by PunchyHamster » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 4:53 PM UTC

ddalex wrote: post #141

freehorse wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't 2.4GHz too congested already, esp considering a lot of wifi-connected devices still work at that range? I typically go the other way around to avoid congestion.

This is Europe where we have concrete or masonry walls and good insulation, I see maybe 2 other APs in the worst days in the apartment. On the good days I have no other APs.

I saw about 50 in maybe 10 years old apartment building, once the new ISP in the block started giving people routers with wifi enabled by default

Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#150

Post by stego-tech » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 4:57 PM UTC

valzam wrote: post #103

stego-tech wrote: post #101

Multiple things can be true simultaneously. For instance: * The reach for 6GHz by mobile service providers is straight-up greed, as Wi-Fi is a threat to their business expansions towards monopolization * Wi-Fi is incredibly overcrowded, and a shift to 6GHz will not solve the underlying issues causing the crowding in the first place (mobile device density, over-reliance on Wi-Fi instead of running ethernet to capable…

I mean given the computing devices most people use are you suggesting a large majority of the population switches to ethernet adapter's for their tablets and phones?

No, not remotely? I don’t know why folks jump to that (wrongest) conclusion whenever someone mentions ethernet being made a requirement in construction or use.

Can tablets and phones use ethernet? Yes! Should they? Perhaps for a fixed installation, but otherwise no, because that’s not their primary role? Same goes for laptops: if it’s stationary, plug it in; if not, WiFi is fine.

The goal is to shift traffic where reasonable and practical onto wired networks. Desktops, laptops, set top boxes, streaming rigs, control panels, SBCs, game consoles, the list goes on. The only “Wi-Fi required” devices are really just laptops, phones, tablets, watches, and similarly high-mobility devices.

Otherwise, ethernet should be the norm.