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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

#341

Post by jsbisviewtiful »

xattt wrote: post #19
jsbisviewtiful wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you are being sarcastic but 3G antennas in the US were only just recently shut down. 20~ years isn't bad for how rapidly tech advancement has been happening in the recent decades. Obviously AM and FM radio have been continuing for far longer than that but there are legal and logistical reasons for that, at least for now.

Similar to how Apple how moved forward with breaking compatibility for apps with older OS X versions.

Incredibly different scenario, but I think you knew that before leaving a snarky comment... or at least I hope you did.

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

#342

Post by Night_Thastus »

My biggest issue isn't the raw speed, it's the quality of the connection. What does it matter if it's theoretically so fast if you can never get a decent connection? I live in a decent size city with supposedly great 5G coverage according to 3rd party maps. Yet, I often struggle to load simple images with a brand new phone and an unlimited data plan.

It's metro, which is lower-priority, but still.

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

#343

Post by mrandish »

This article is just a mess. It constantly switches contexts between speed and data usage. In the paragraph about White House task force projections it implies they were wrong but switches between speed/data usage context to justify the claim. It also bounces between mobile and wired, which are obviously very different.

It's obvious that mobile data usage is constrained by available user time in mobile usage contexts. People use their mobile devices when they aren't busy doing something else and that time is limited. Most people are at the limit. Previous growth was driven both by adding more per user hours AND by adding new users. The author only showing data for overall bandwidth consumption masks the real drivers of the trends being discussed.

Mobile speed requirements are constrained by being a ~6-inch hand-held screen. You don't need 4K or ultra-res textures on a 6-inch screen.

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

#344

Post by ssl-3 »

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.

Not everyone is paranoid.

Besides, telemarketing, door-to-door sales, and scams of all kinds aren't new -- at all.

All of these things existed Back In The Day when a friend might just knock on the door because they happened to be in the neighborhood, too.

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

#345

Post by xattt »

lozf wrote: post #331
ksec wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not on paper. Couple of ms ( 4ms ) is real, except it is not normal 5G but specific superset / version of 5G. Your network needs to be End to End running on 5G-A ( 3GPP Rel 18 ) with full SA ( Stand Alone ) using NR ( New Radio ) only. Right now AFAIK only Mobile networks in China has managed to run that. ( Along with turning on VoNR ) Most other network are still behind in deployment and switching.

On that note, the BBC deployed a temporary 5G SA non-public-network to broadcast King Charles' Coronation, giving over 1Gbps uplink over 1km of the procession route. More details are in the award-winning white paper linked from this[0] blog post. [0]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2023-05-5g-non-public-network-...

I could not imagine any private news-gathering organization to set up a temporary cell network for coverage.

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

#346

Post by xattt »

richardwhiuk wrote: post #339
lambdaone wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is until you congest it. Then, like all other network technologies, performance collapses. You can still force traffic through with EDC, buffering, and re-tries, but at massive cost to overall network performance.

Cellular technologies can be configured to degrade differently to WiFi. The device gets fewer assigned slices, so the bandwidth reduces, but latency should remain static.

How does voice call quality degrade? Does it switch to a tinny bit rate?

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

#347

Post by marzullo »

hocuspocus wrote: post #201
protocolture wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5G's trick is MIMO. Basically just using more channel space for more data. In some places that means 3G/4G spectrum + 24GHz + 60GHz. And responding when you close a door and the 60GHz goes away. In some parts of the world where licensing worked out differently, it might just be a couple chunks of old 4G spectrum. Its not a monolith.

In most places it's 2G/3G/4G bands, either repurposed or through dynamic spectrum sharing, plus sub-6 bands. mmWave is a flop.

mmWave is amazing in any kind of packed arena/stadium. Never was able to even use my phone at a basic level before, now can get low latency gigabit+ speeds which is insane.

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

#348

Post by thmsths »

nerdponx wrote: post #330
gambiting wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but why is my Samsung tumble dryer "enhanced with AI" now? You know what it does? You turn it on, it shows "optimising with AI" on the screen....to show you the most used programme. That's not AI, that's a counter in a text file somewhere. But of course everything has to have AI now so my tumble dryer now has AI. The market has spoken.

And in the meantime the real physical buttons that last for millions of presses have been replaced with finicky touch buttons that don't work when there's a drop of moisture on the screen, and the whole panel dies after 2 years (only 1 year warranty sorry) and they don't sell replacements so you have to buy a new dryer or get a janky offbrand replacement off of Ebay and spend an afternoon trying to figure out how to…

We need to enforce minimum warranty periods per product category. We already have a detailed classification of every single product for import duty purposes, let's reuse that and apply specific warranties. For instance, a car or an appliance should have a 5 years warranty. They simply consume too much resources to produce, transport and recycle to justify a shorter lifespan.

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

#349

Post by asdff »

The issue is that they never offer the actual listed speed. Not anywhere close to it. Mobile network is usually worthless in my experience these days in most busy cities. I might be waiting a good 2 minutes for a pageload if the tower is heavily saturated. That is most of my experience in fact. Websites like the mobile version of reddit are way too heavy and don't work at all. HN works, but the articles it links usually don't unless its an html blog post. Social media like instagram buffers terribly for crappy connections. Even the old guard youtube doesn't let you cache a large portion of the video anymore before playing.

I guess its a nice quality filter, but still. I can't be the only one but feel like the mobile web experience has taken a nose dive over the last 10 years as we got so many more mobile data users, and mobile web developers forgot how to write for slow internet speeds in the same time.

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