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Ask HN: Is it just me or is 5G strictly worse than LTE?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or is 5G strictly worse than LTE?

#241

Post by bluGill »

Too wrote: post #213
mdp2021 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know people who are implementing server-based "responses" in cars (e.g. tyre slip control - similar contexts) and need the lowest possible latencies for that. Of course, some of are of the position of "You try to place remote access, control and delegation to critical pieces of my vital infrastructure, expect the most violent level of personal reactions".

Source? I mean. We’ve all heard the marketing bs from the telcos that 5g opens up these possibilities. No engineer, worth the title, would be naive enough to actually believe that and put tire slip control into an rpc call...going over wireless. For real, does anyone actually believe this is a good idea?

There are things worth putting on remote systems, but none of them need real time response or matter for safety.

I work for John Deere (of course do not speak for them), we want to analyze things 'on the cloud', but we are thinking about how to apply the results of data we gather latter. Already it is so the coop sprayer that comes in 2 months knows where the rows really are so it can figure out the most efficient path to drive their field and drive over the least crop. There are also what do I do in this field next year decisions that can be driven by data, and it is nice to not have to take some form of memory device to the tractor.

Companies with trucks are interested in things they can get from connected vehicles. Insurance also is interested to see if they can find the good drivers and give them better rates (governments probably want to force training on bad drivers or something). None of the above is real time critical.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or is 5G strictly worse than LTE?

#242

Post by yawnxyz »

discordance wrote: post #239
kjellsbells wrote: post #45

Having the 5G logo on your phone doesnt necessarily mean your phone is speaking 5G. It's...complicated. - Most US operators do not have ubiquitous 5G radio coverage, so, they do what is called 5G NSA where your traffic ultimately ends up veing processed by the 4G core infrastructure that they have. Which is already overloaded and a bit creaky. - Some operators can do real 5G, "5G SA", where the whole flow end to end…

Here in Australia 5G is awesome: https://imgur.com/gallery/BFTTMRS Measurement was taken a decent distance from the city in the suburbs.

Whoa what service are you using? I’m on Vodafone 300gb plan and it’s always one bar on 5g.

I rarely see speeds that fast too; downloading a game pass game is usually 1MB/s for me

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or is 5G strictly worse than LTE?

#243

Post by faebi »

I always thought of 5G being mostly for the carriers instead of being for the customers. The customers realistically don't gain all that much, but the carriers will be able to scale further. Even more customers will be able use the same service some already used. All the marketing fluff was what it was: marketing fluff.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or is 5G strictly worse than LTE?

#244

Post by etchasketch »

wincy wrote: post #212
dezgeg wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are certainly not using mmWave 5G. Numbers show (1st Google result) that less than 1% of time connected is to a mmWave network. I don't personally get why mmWave part of 5G is talked so much about. 5G over the same cmWave frequencies 4G uses still has a benefit - but mainly for the operator! It allows them more users and throughput for the same amount of spectrum. So in a rational market, the operators should be…

I just benchmarked from my suburban second floor bedroom in the US, and got mmWave (it says 5G UC which is apparently mmWave) and got 500mbit/sec So I guess some people have it, and use it? It’s basically always on around my neighborhood, but I guess I live in a nice city and Sprint’s old HQ is down the street so that probably has a lot to do with it.

That is is T-Mobile “Ultra Capacity”, which is more like.y the midband spectrum they got from sprint.

You basically need line of sight for mmWave. Think of it like light. If you can’t see an access point, then you probably aren’t using mmWave.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or is 5G strictly worse than LTE?

#245

Post by martinald »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #179
Kudos wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a poured concrete house built in 1950s Ireland. My 2.4Ghz doorbell struggles to speak to an AP about 1 meter away from it through the external wall. I just did a 5G speedtest from my bed and got 250Mbps.

And which 5G it was? Because mmWave one won't really penetrate anything on 10GHz+

Only the US really uses mmWave.

~3.4GHz-4GHz (which is the 'primary' 5G band) in Europe can provide excellent speeds (2gbit/sec real world no problem to a phone) but without the terrible signal degrigation you get on mmWave.

mmWave will be used more in the future once the other bands get saturated, but it's a bit ahead of its time now.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or is 5G strictly worse than LTE?

#246

Post by martinald »

pony_sheared wrote: post #125
tremere wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I want to replace my home internet with something less secure, less reliable, lossier, and slower?

In London, in an apartment block, I tried BT broadband (60Mbps max), then Virgin cable (100Mbps for £55 / month, prices go up for more speed), then EE 4G (£30 / month for 200Mbps +/-50Mbps, unlimited d/l upload is also over 60Mbps, about 6x on Virgin). I don't game, so don't care about ping. So, where I am, using 4G for my home internet is faster and cheaper, and I can gift data to my phone. I have not had any issues…

I'd be really surprised if you don't have at least one altnet in an apartment building, Hyperoptic is pretty common in London.

I've got access to 4 seperate FTTH providers now in my apartment (all using different infrastructure, not including resellers): VM, Openreach (BT) FTTP, Hyperoptic and now Community fibre.

The limiting factor on speed now is WiFi, which cannot manage 1gig even closer to the router.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or is 5G strictly worse than LTE?

#247

Post by avidphantasm »

Also battery life. Was in Florida a few weeks ago staying in a house without wifi but with weak 5G signal. My phone’s battery could barely make it through the day (which never happens to me otherwise). Turning off 5G (i.e., LTE only mode) seemed to help some.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or is 5G strictly worse than LTE?

#248

Post by martinald »

jon-wood wrote: post #201
dazc wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Southampton, there are lots of places around the city where 4G coverage is simply not reliable. Even with a strong signal you can get speeds that vary from literally nothing to 60MBPs. I once lived within half a mile of the centre and could never connect to anything between 5pm and 11pm which rendered the service entirely useless. We've had 4G for ten years or more now, I'm not ready to put my faith in 5G and don'…

Mobile signal remains spotty in Southampton, I’m unable to use 5G at home because I’m in the dead zone between the coverage of three masts. That’s less of an issue in recent years though because the terribly named “toob” have rolled out fibre across most of the city, and will sell me a line doing a gigabit up and down for £25 a month, which is less than I was previously paying for DSL over a bit of wet string.

Probably council rejecting new masts if it is like most places in the UK.

3UK have thousands (maybe 10k?) new masts in planning to really improve 5G coverage (and they have the spectrum to actually deliver 2gig/sec to phones in the real world). Annoyingly the (vast in many cases) majority will are being rejected on suprious grounds by the council.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or is 5G strictly worse than LTE?

#249

Post by mattlondon »

Latency and throughput in London appears to be largely the same.

I was hoping for something in the 20ms range for latency, but it always tests as in the 60ms range. Raw throughput seems largely the same as with LTE (ranging from 40-80mbps)

But if a underwhelming waste of time it seems.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or is 5G strictly worse than LTE?

#250

Post by martinald »

ninjha wrote: post #9

In my day to day, 5G uses more battery, has similar speeds to LTE, and is less reliable than LTE... I just go into settings and turn off 5G. Occasionally I'm at the airport (or someplace with the "real" wideband 5G) and I want to download a movie quickly. At that point I turn on 5G and get 2 Gbit down, which is convenient!

The actual real benefit of 5G for me is beating very congested LTE towers at peak times. There are a lot of spots where the 4G mast (especially on LTE800) is completely congested, but 5G is much* better, though definitely starting to see 5G congestion in places now.
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