Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theregister.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 250 posts

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

#201

Post by msh »

esseph wrote: post #199
msh wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LTE is what the telecom people wanted. The rest (slightly exaggerated) wanted wimax.

Wimax hasn't been something anybody I've known in the US has talked about for more than 15 years. I've built fiber networks and fixed wireless networks. Almost ended up becoming an LTE network as well. It didn't make any sense in any sort of financial modeling, even with spectrum availability. LTE helps solve "general connectivity". What it does not do is build scalable, reliable, high speed, economical sensitive bro…

Back when LTE was rolled out initially the competitor was wimax.

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

#202

Post by trueismywork »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #91
kergonath wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great one! Or, if you are not being sarcastic, the solution to wireless networking issues is to… rebuild cities in which billions of people live and spread those people over… where? Never mind the fact that cities are the best way of arranging lots of people, where would you build those "houses not so close to each other" that is not a desert, a cliff, or an ocean?

Whether they’re joking or not, it’s a good example of the sort of reasoning you see in those town hall meetings where a bunch of ancient home owners come up with straight faced reasons for why an apartment complex shouldn’t get built. “They’ll have congested internet!” would go well alongside “It will block the sun on my daily walk on that part of the street!”

I was joking yes. Should have put an /s

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

#203

Post by Seattle3503 »

stego-tech wrote: post #154
matt-p wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We gave WiFi 800Mhz in the 5Ghz band and we said the same thing at the time 'this is the last we'll need'. That's 10x as much as in 2.4ghz and at a higher frequency. I remember a lot of people at the time getting really upset about how wasteful that was. Just saying.

It’s wasteful on its face when not combined with regulation and incentives to shift stuff off of Wi-Fi. 6GHz has practical applications in the AR/VR space, which is why I’m in favor of giving it to Wi-Fi. Ultimately though, we need the industry to stop being lazy and start really agitating for ethernet in construction and devices as the norm, not Wi-Fi.

Yeah it seems like channel width should be limited to 80mhz or narrower per AP

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

#204

Post by matt-p »

esseph wrote: post #184
matt-p wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given we know 5Ghz can give us like 600Mbps real world on 80Mhz channels, would a fixed line in India typically be above that speed? Is it all GPON these days or still DSL/WISP type stuff?

WISP can do 1Gbps in 6GHz now, reliably, with Tarana. The technology is staggering.

I'm aware, but, um, without sounding insensitive, not for $50 per sub in hardware cost. Tarana is about 10X that. If you have that kind of money labour is cheap enough to run fibre for the same amount.

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

#205

Post by matt-p »

esseph wrote: post #187
matt-p wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Mobile doesn't scale in cities" is the exact reason they need 6Ghz (because higher frequencies enable much higher density of cells, reducing terminals per cell). 6Ghz will penetrate buildings terribly, I agree, but it's honestly just not that simple, for example it's now becoming really common for carriers to be doing in building deployments; shopping centres, sports stadiums, the transit network (e.g 4g in the subw…

You could do gigabit fixed wireless for less than 1/10 the cost of LTE, and have better performance. LTE is what somebody would do without much telecom experience and more money than sense.

I was not at any point talking about fixed wireless.

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

#206

Post by esseph »

msh wrote: post #201
esseph wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wimax hasn't been something anybody I've known in the US has talked about for more than 15 years. I've built fiber networks and fixed wireless networks. Almost ended up becoming an LTE network as well. It didn't make any sense in any sort of financial modeling, even with spectrum availability. LTE helps solve "general connectivity". What it does not do is build scalable, reliable, high speed, economical sensitive bro…

Back when LTE was rolled out initially the competitor was wimax.

It was around that same timeframe that "TV Whitespace" was going to become the next big thing.

Anyway, LTE should be the literal last option. It requires more than 2x as many towers as fixed wireless, with gear more than 20x more expensive. That's also more than 2x-3x the required amount of of battery backup systems, networking equipment, and land / tower leases.

If you have extreme density, you NEED fiber and you need WiFi. You extend from the fiber network with extremely high quality ngFW. To fill gaps, use satellite.

Fiber requires a certain density of subscriber/mile(km), the same as any technology.

Even with 0 labor cost, you still need to get conduit in the ground (materials), fiber, terminations, switching, routing, OLT/ONT cost, handholes, any permitting or utilities location, horizontal boring equipment , jackhammers, splicers, etc. The upfront cost is many, many, many times higher for fiber and if you're okay with your cost-per passing being more than you would ever make on customer ARPU, then sure do that. Even if labor cost was 0. And it will take YEARS longer to deploy and see a return on investment from, of ever.

It doesn't matter if there's broadband to the location if nobody at the location can afford it.

If you want broadband, LTE is the worst option.

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

#207

Post by [deleted] »

matt-p wrote: post #94
mr_toad wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So few devices have Ethernet ports these days.

You say that but my TV, Games console, computer, smart lights bridge, printer etc all do. Having said that I'm still mad they removed it from the MacBook pro and that was like 14 years ago now so I feel you.

[deleted]

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

#208

Post by stego-tech »

Seattle3503 wrote: post #200
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…

> The fact new construction in 2025 doesn’t mandate ethernet drops in every non-bathroom is what’s contributing to Wi-Fi crowding, and prevalent last-mile wired access ensures that mobile operators have to compete on cost rather than data caps - and thus hinders their monopolization efforts. This would raise the cost of construction, in the middle of widespread housing shortages.

By peanuts and pennies for a significant ROI. Many places still mandate some form of coaxial or telephone wiring, which means you already have the drop points for ethernet. Even better, telephone runs are often done with CAT5e due to cost, and could easily be rewired for ethernet if it’s laid structurally in the first place.

You’re talking a $10k expense on a new home, tops. That’s chump change and easily shoved into regulations regarding new builds without significantly harming progress. The real regulations impacting housing are zoning anyway.

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

#209

Post by drewg123 »

throw0101d wrote: post #196
drewg123 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I live the USA in a 100 year old apartment building, and can see a zillion ISP provided routers, all squabbling over the same handful of 5GHz channels. 6E is a game changer. 5Ghz is stuttery and laggy and makes it pretty much impossible to have a clean video call. I don't game, but gaming on it would be miserable. I've measured latency, and it regularly spikes above 1s. 6E is far, far better. Rock solid video…

> I live the USA in a 100 year old apartment building, and can see a zillion ISP provided routers, all squabbling over the same handful of 5GHz channels. 6E is a game changer. What channel width (20/40/80/other) are you typically seeing?

I've been using the free version of NetSpot, and it does not seem to show the width. The ISP really should configure the narrowest width possible.

Our ISP provided router does seem to default to 20MHz (I think; I cannot recall if I changed it). It offers the choice of 20 or 40Mhz.

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

#210

Post by MichaelZuo »

drewg123 wrote: post #176
fguerraz wrote: post #60

This is just corporate greed! I live in a EU country in an apartment and 5GHz is completely crowded and pretty much unusable because of DFS (making your WiFi AP unexpectedly stop to do a complete scan and choose a new channel), so 6GHz is the only stable, high bandwidth option here, and we need more channels so that most peopole chan switch to it. The cellular networks operators can have that shitty 5GHz part of the…

Agreed. I live the USA in a 100 year old apartment building, and can see a zillion ISP provided routers, all squabbling over the same handful of 5GHz channels. 6E is a game changer. 5Ghz is stuttery and laggy and makes it pretty much impossible to have a clean video call. I don't game, but gaming on it would be miserable. I've measured latency, and it regularly spikes above 1s. 6E is far, far better. Rock solid video…

How is this even possible?

Even a few sheets of drywall greatly attenuates 5 GHz. Your scenario simply seems impossible unless you have a weird router that can only utilize a tiny portion of the channels.

Post reply on HN