Live data from Hacker News

5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

spectrum.ieee.org

221–230 of 376 posts

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

#221
post #18

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".)

Does using the internet use less battery?

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

#222
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is yes. But it's not just about speed. The higher speeds drain the battery faster. I say this because we currently use an old 2014 phone as a house phone for the family. It's set to 2G to take calls, and switches to 4g for the actual voice call. We only have to charge it once every 2-3 weeks, if not longer. (Old Samsung phones also had Ultra Power Saving mode which helps with that) 2G is being shutdown tho…

Given that it's a house phone, have you tried enabling Wi-Fi Calling (VoWiFi) in the carrier settings (if you have that option), and then putting the phone in Airplane Mode with wi-fi enabled? AFAIK that should be fairly less impactful on battery. (Alternately, if you don't have the option to use VoWiFi, you could take literally any phone/tablet/etc; install a softphone app on it; get a cheap number from a VoIP numbe…

Or just port the number to Magic Jack for $20 and get a cordless phone $20 at Target that you have to charge once per week if you don’t just keep it on the dock, and pay like $5/mo or less for service. And you can make/receive calls from that number on a mobile phone using their app.

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

#223

We live in a rural location, so we have redundant 5G/Starlink. It's getting pretty reasonable these days, with download speeds reaching 0.5 gbit/sec per link, and latency is acceptable at ~20ms. The main challenge is the upload speed; pretty much all the ISPs allocate much more spectrum for download rather than upload. If we could improve one thing with future wireless tech, I think upload would be a great candidate.

What do you need faster upload speeds for?

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

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is yes. But it's not just about speed. The higher speeds drain the battery faster. I say this because we currently use an old 2014 phone as a house phone for the family. It's set to 2G to take calls, and switches to 4g for the actual voice call. We only have to charge it once every 2-3 weeks, if not longer. (Old Samsung phones also had Ultra Power Saving mode which helps with that) 2G is being shutdown tho…

I actually miss the concept of house phones. Instead of exclusively person-to-person communication, families would call other families to catch up and sometimes even pass the phone around to talk to the grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc.

I set up an old rotary phone via twilio as a house phone for our kids. They just dial 1-9, each number is programmed to a different family member. Their cousins also have one, so they can call each other whenever they want. It’s great to also have a phone that just rings in the house, for when you don’t care about getting a specific person.

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

#226

OK so someone has noticed that you "only" need 15MBs-1 for a 4K stream. Jolly good. Now let's address latency - that entire article only mentioned the word once and it looks like it was by accident. Latency isn't cool but it is why your Teams/Zoom/whatevs call sounds a bit odd. You are probably used to the weird over-talking episodes you get when a sound stream goes somewhat async. You put up with it but you really s…

There is no way that "15MBs-1" is more clear than "15MB/s", especially in an environment which lacks the ability to give text superscript styling.

Sorry mate, an old habit.

Perhaps we should insist on more from formatting from above. That's probably a post processing thing for ... gAI 8)

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

#227
post #18

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".)

What's any of that have to do with 5G? On 2 bars of 5G right now and I get 650Mbit download speed, it's significantly faster than 4G.

Let's say that 5G is 10x faster than 4G. Why do you need faster than 65MBit download speed on a mobile phone?

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

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My public utility is bad at its job because it has literally zero incentive to be cheap, and thus my utilities are expensive

> it has literally zero incentive to be cheap Do private utilities have any incentive to be cheap? The reason we have utility regulations in the first place is because utilities are natural monopolies with literally zero incentive to be cheap. On the contrary, they are highly incentivized to push up prices as much as possible because they have their customers over a barrel.

Utilities do have incentive to be cheap as long as there are is the presence of competing offerings and the lack of collusion.

...which is unusual with many utilities, but is also pretty common with wireless carriers in much of the world.

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

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is yes. But it's not just about speed. The higher speeds drain the battery faster. I say this because we currently use an old 2014 phone as a house phone for the family. It's set to 2G to take calls, and switches to 4g for the actual voice call. We only have to charge it once every 2-3 weeks, if not longer. (Old Samsung phones also had Ultra Power Saving mode which helps with that) 2G is being shutdown tho…

I actually miss the concept of house phones. Instead of exclusively person-to-person communication, families would call other families to catch up and sometimes even pass the phone around to talk to the grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc.

I’m looking to set up an Asterisk server that takes calls over Bluetooth on any paired cell phones inside the house, or falls back to a VoIP line if no phones are at home.

Similarly, I find that it’s hard to catch family on their cell and much easier when I call their home.

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

#230

>Regulators may also have to consider whether fewer operators may be better for a country, with perhaps only a single underlying fixed and mobile network in many places—just as utilities for electricity, water, gas, and the like are often structured around single (or a limited set of) operators. There are no words to describe how stupid this is.

If regulators do this, it would have to be municipal carriers, like the one in that city in Tennessee.
Post reply on HN