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5G Rollout Disappointments

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Re: 5G Rollout Disappointments

#51

Post by mschild »

kalleboo wrote: post #30
mschild wrote: post #4

I live in a large European city and am very often out and about and use my phone to navigate and consume content. I simply don't see the need for 5G. 4G was a major stepup in speed and given the rise of smartphones and platforms like YouTube, the speed increase made sense. There was an actual use for it. The speed increase for 5G seems to not really be needed though? At least for a majority of people 4G seems to do e…

Where I live, mobile base stations are a popular form of home broadband since it's cheaper than fiber (the only other option for most homes). The 4G networks have long been inadequate as they are too overloaded and only with expanded 5G coverage have these solutions actually worked well.

Our providers offer that as well, but its significantly more expensive for the same speeds you'd get from cable/fiber/dsl. 500Mbits is 49 for wired, but 79 for having a 5G modem. And typically, if you have a 5G station close to you, you usually also have a fast wired internet option so baring edge cases, it doesnt make sense here.

Re: 5G Rollout Disappointments

#52

Post by fafzv »

f6v wrote: post #31
ksec wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5G is about capacity, if you want more people to use the network, using more Data, and more affordable. Then you want 5G. Yes, your 1Gbps Ethernet is enough for majority of your needs. Except you are not the only one using the 1Gbps Ethernet.

> 5G is about capacity If that’s right, then all the consumer-oriented ads for 5G are pointless.

They are not, because if you stay in 4G, your experience will only worsen with time.

Re: 5G Rollout Disappointments

#53

Post by jackvalentine »

roxgib wrote: post #43
jackvalentine wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They really are, but you can’t convince people to upgrade their handset on ‘our network is going to get shittier and shitter unless you move to a new technology’.

But it's not like they're dismantling the 4G infrastructure yet right? For a while at least I would have assumed people moving to 5G would steadily free up capacity on 4G bands.

Carriers are moving allocated spectrum to 5G from 4G, my carrier’s 4g service is basically unusable at times now.

Even if they weren’t, people are using more and more bandwidth just naturally loading ads and shit I guess.

Re: 5G Rollout Disappointments

#54

Post by SSLy »

AHOHA wrote: post #28

5G is an umbrella for different types and technologies, and I believe that’s the confusion part of what the artice mentioned and the reader views. 5G has three main categories (technically two but separating the 2nd one to further explain it), 5G NSA (non stand alone), where the 5G RAN uses an existing 4G LTE core, 5G SA (stand alone), as the name implies, is stand alone from previous generations and has its own arch…

5G mmWave is best used in dense - ie. not so often in North America - urban areas. I's going to work great in busy metro stations, shopping streets/malls, concerts. Not in suburbia.

Re: 5G Rollout Disappointments

#55

Post by SSLy »

Klathmon wrote: post #9

I've just found that any time my phone says it's on 5G, it barely works at all. I've actually gone in and set the preferred network to LTE and every now and then I try setting it back, and almost every time I set it back within the day. Doing some speed tests back and forth, LTE tends to have significantly less latency, higher bandwidth, and just works while every single web page load on 5G feels like a gamble.

That's a problem with your UE (phone), what model is it?

Re: 5G Rollout Disappointments

#56

Post by SSLy »

throwaway4good wrote: post #13

Back when it was 4G western suppliers were under really strong competition from Chinese suppliers (ZTE and Huawei). Now these suppliers are banned/effectively banned in most Western countries. And we are left what seems to be just Ericsson and surprisingly things have gotten a lot more expensive, only slowly built-out, and not really that good. Having said that, I just went through Copenhagen airport and the 5G netwo…

>just Ericsson

Uh, Nokia? Samsung? Whatever Amazon and the startups are cooking?

Re: 5G Rollout Disappointments

#57

Post by MisterBastahrd »

I'm about half a mile from a 5G tower and have been using a T-Mobile hotspot for about a month because the only telco that has run internet on my side of the street (in a town that literally has fiber 300 feet away) is AT&T, and then they only have DSL. This is in a Dallas suburb. AT&T? Nearly 90 bucks for 50Mbps down, 12 up. T-Mobile? 50 bucks 140 down, 50 up during peak times.

Re: 5G Rollout Disappointments

#58

Post by Ekaros »

jackvalentine wrote: post #41
f6v wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 5G is about capacity If that’s right, then all the consumer-oriented ads for 5G are pointless.

They really are, but you can’t convince people to upgrade their handset on ‘our network is going to get shittier and shitter unless you move to a new technology’.

Handsets I think start to be there. Even for reasonable prices, not for the cheapest, but reasonably priced ones.

But they still charge extra and lot of it here for the contract...

Re: 5G Rollout Disappointments

#59

Post by SSLy »

lucumo wrote: post #48

I just figured I'd do some measurements of the different speeds. Location: in the center of a modern well isolated family home, with HR++ glass. So not ideal for optimal reception, but I didn't care to get up from the kitchen table. Tested with speedtest.net in the browser with Android Chrome. Network is T-Mobile NL. 5G: 69.52 Mbps down, 37 ms ping 4G: 56.79 Mbps down, 34 ms ping 3G: 4.01 Mbps down, 56 ms ping I'm no…

For a comparision, 80's apartment complex on a city outskirts

5G: Rx 233 mbps, Tx 90 mbps, ping 18 ms

4G (LTE): Rx 185 mbps, Tx 63 mbps, ping 19 ms

It's hard for me to tell where is the 5G tower, but the LTE one is on the condo block across the street. EDIT: I think they're co-located.

I guess it just depends on what is the infrastructure around you and how close is it.

Re: 5G Rollout Disappointments

#60

Post by CaptainZapp »

muro wrote: post #44
blensor wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangentially, if you are from outside Switzerland make sure to know your roaming charges very very well. Swiss carriers have gigantic roaming charges. Every time. I fly through Zurich (from Austria) I blow through my roaming limit 60 seconds after landing because I forgot to disable data. 1MB/16€ Yes that is Megabyte not Gigabyte

Similar if you are from Switzerland and cross any border. If you are in Switzerland semi-regularly, either get a plan that has cheap roaming in and out of EU, or two SIMs.

Swisscom, for quite some time now, includes roaming in EU countries and the UK with unlimited calling and SMS and 40GB highspeed Internet per month.

Ironically, calling a friend in Paris from Prague is free, while calling from Zurich is 70 cents a minute.

My sister, who lives in Vienna, is shocked about our subscription prices (ca 70 EUR a month, unlimited everything and EU roaming as described above) while I'm more surprised by costs she incurs while visiting.

To me the deal is fine. It may not be the cheapest but I never incur any additional costs.

Even globally you get 100MB free internet with your subscription per month and can buy additional packages for about 20EUR per GB, which I don't think is unreasonable.

Other carriers are more on a rip off spree. While SALT intices customers with cheap subscription offers they may hit you very badly with internet roaming costs. Until very recently they didn't even allow to set a limit.

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