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5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

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

#281

Post by markedathome »

Animats wrote: post #77

> Of course, sophisticated representations of entire 3D scenes for large groups of users interacting with one another in-world could conceivably push bandwidth requirements up. But at this point, we’re getting into Matrix-like imagined technologies without any solid evidence to suggest a good 4G or 5G connection wouldn’t meet the tech’s bandwidth demands. Open-world games such as Cyberpunk 2077 already have hours-lon…

> The Unreal Engine 5 demo, "The Matrix Awakens", is a download of more than a terabyte. That's before decompression.

The PS5 and Xbox Series S/X both had disks that were incapable of holding a terabyte at the launch of The Matrix Awakens. Not sure where you are getting that info from, but both the X S/X and PS5 were about 30GB in size on disk, and the later packaged PC release is less than 20GB.

The full PC development system might total a TB with all Unreal Engine, Metahumans, City Sample packs, Matrix Awakens code and assets (audio, mocap, etc) but even then the consumer download will be around the 20-30GB size as noted above.

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

#282

Post by Peanuts99 »

john_minsk wrote: post #272
kmeisthax wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my current mobile plan (Google Fi[0]) the kind of streaming 3D world they think I would want to download on my phone would get me throttled in less than a minute. 200 MB is about a day's usage, if I'm out and about burning through my data plan. The reason why there isn't as much demand for mobile data as they want is because the carriers have horrendously overpriced it, because they want a business model where the…

So true. I remember the first time I got access to 5G was on a short visit to Dubai. I got a sim card with ~20GB of traffic and was super excited to try speedtest. My brother told me not to do that because 5G is so fast that if speedtest doesn't limit the traffic size for the test it will consume all of it within 30 seconds the test runs. Guess what? I didn't run the test because I didn't want to pay another $50 for…

Seems damn expensive. In the UK you can get a SIM card for £20 with unlimited data & calls which is run on one of the larger 5G networks. I usually have the opposite problem though, I barely use 5GBs on a given month.

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

#283

Post by rglullis »

sureIy wrote: post #253
viraptor wrote: post #147

> Could maximum data speeds—on mobile devices, at home, at work—be approaching “fast enough” for most people for most purposes? That seems to be the theme across all consumer electronics as well. For an average person mid phones are good enough, bargain bin laptops are good enough, almost any TV you can buy today is good enough. People may of course desire higher quality and specific segments will have higher needs,…

I don't understand this "good enough" argument. We never really needed anything we use daily today. Life was "good enough" 100 years ago (if you could afford it), should we have stopped? 4K video reaches you only because it's compressed to crap. It's "good enough" until it's not. 360p TV was good enough at some point too.

> 4K video reaches you only because it's compressed to crap.

Streaming video gets compressed to crap. People are being forced to believe that it is better to have 100% of crap provided in real time instead of waiting just a few extra moments to have the best possible experience.

Here is a trick for movie nights with the family: choose the movie you want to watch, start your torrent and tell everyone "let's go make popcorn!" The 5-10 minutes will get enough of the movie downloaded so you will be able to enjoy a high quality video.

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

#284

Post by nsteel »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #237
nsteel wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's frustrating the author took this falsehood and ran with it all throughout this article.

Why? The conclusion that "somewhere between 100 Mb/s and 1 Gb/s marks the approximate saturation point" wouldn't be any different.

Yes, you've nailed exactly why it's frustrating. They still could have written his piece almost as is, even including the napkin-math extrapolations for future tech, and it would have carried a little more weight.

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

#285

Post by graemep »

bobthepanda wrote: post #244
ssl-3 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may have been decades ago, but there was a time when it did not seem awkward or even unusual to just...call someone's house, or to simply stop by. There was usually a purpose in this that was more profound than just being bored or lonely or something, but none was really required. And maybe the person they were trying to find wasn't home right now, but that was OK. It was not weird to talk to whoever for a minute,…

unfortunately, these days the inundation of spam from hucksters trying to sell you something, or worse, has now made everyone extremely distrustful of unprovoked interaction.

There is a lot less of that in IRL interaction than online interaction. I find months can go buy without anyone knocking on my door.

IT does not help with the just phoning bit but does with stopping by.

I do not get that many spam calls but I think that varies a lot, especially between countries with different laws about it.

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

#286

Post by Dalewyn »

rglullis wrote: post #283
sureIy wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this "good enough" argument. We never really needed anything we use daily today. Life was "good enough" 100 years ago (if you could afford it), should we have stopped? 4K video reaches you only because it's compressed to crap. It's "good enough" until it's not. 360p TV was good enough at some point too.

> 4K video reaches you only because it's compressed to crap. Streaming video gets compressed to crap. People are being forced to believe that it is better to have 100% of crap provided in real time instead of waiting just a few extra moments to have the best possible experience. Here is a trick for movie nights with the family: choose the movie you want to watch, start your torrent and tell everyone "let's go make po…

>Streaming video gets compressed to crap.

That's because your source video is crap.

I'm not sure if you realize it, but all forms of digital media playback are streaming. Yes, even that MP4 stored locally on your SSD. There is literally no difference between "playing" that MP4 and "streaming" a Youtube or Netflix video.

Yes, even playing an 8K Blu-Ray video is still streaming.

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

#287

Post by gscott »

gerdesj wrote: post #214

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…

Secret is to try off alg.

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

#288

Post by pjmlp »

bityard wrote: post #178
aceazzameen wrote: post #170

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 can vouch that pass the phone around is still a thing in southern Europe, or being sundenly dropped into a group video call where everyone gathers around the phone to be in view.

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

#289

Post by munhitsu »

My personal bugbear is the network coverage. Context: London / UK (EE). Yes, I have 5G at home, but it's just one bar and sometimes even this one bar will disappear. Yes, there is 5G/4G all around the city, but you can't hold an uninterrupted conversation over FaceTime Audio while on the overground train or driving. I'll not even discuss the underground. However, uninterrupted, low-latency, average bandwidth is a hard market and even harder to design.

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

#290

Post by rsynnott »

munhitsu wrote: post #289

My personal bugbear is the network coverage. Context: London / UK (EE). Yes, I have 5G at home, but it's just one bar and sometimes even this one bar will disappear. Yes, there is 5G/4G all around the city, but you can't hold an uninterrupted conversation over FaceTime Audio while on the overground train or driving. I'll not even discuss the underground. However, uninterrupted, low-latency, average bandwidth is a har…

My impression (from pretty limited recent experience) is that mobile networks in UK cities (at least London and Manchester) are _notably_ worse than in other European cities. I initially thought it was just a London thing, and, okay, London's very, very big, but was recently in Manchester, which has no such excuse, and it was also pretty terrible.

Not sure what's going on there.

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