7 ms·

Somewhat High-level article https://www.edn.com/5G/4458325/What-is-5G-NR- https://www.edn.com/5G/4458325/What-is-5G-NR- Another somewhat high-level PPT http:/

Somewhat High-level article https://www.edn.com/5G/4458325/What-is-5G-NR- https://www.edn.com/5G/4458325/What-is-5G-NR- Another somewhat high-level PPT http://www.5gsummit.org/docs/slides/John-Smee-5GSummit-SiliconValley-11162015.pdf http://www.5gsummit.org/docs/slides/John-Smee-5GSummit-Silic... I've worked on LTE; the 5G NR physical layer look to me to be very similar to LTE. See http://www.3gpp.org/DynaReport/38-series.htm http://www.3gpp.org/DynaReport/38-series.htm and https://www.keysight.com/upload/cmc_upload/All/Understanding_the_5G_NR_Physical_Layer.pdf https://www.keysight.com/upload/cmc_upload/All/Understanding... for gory details

thisrod 8y ago
Thanks.
elboru 8y ago
From someone who doesn't know anything about wireless technologies. Is there any chance 5g will break the walls that prevent real unlimited data? If not, what must happen in order to allow everyone use Netflix on their phones without wifi?
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > Is there any chance 5g will break the walls that prevent real unlimited data? No. For a while, perhaps. But demand will scale to meet supply as new uses for the network are found.
- josteink 8y ago
  > Is there any chance 5g will break the walls that prevent real unlimited data? For providers to provide true unlimited data, you have to have true unlimited bandwidth. Wireless connectivity is provided through a shared medium. For comparison you have wired networking where every customer has a dedicated medium, the wire, for themselves. This is what makes all the difference between actually unlimited and capped plans. So, no. Not today. Not anytime soon.
  - boramalper 8y ago
    > Wireless connectivity is provided through a shared medium. For comparison you have wired networking where every customer has a dedicated medium, the wire, for themselves. Isn’t wire also a shared medium? It’s not that there is an end-to-end circuit when you connect to another machine on the Net; your packets will be send along with others’.
    - signa11 8y ago
      > Isn’t wire also a shared medium? It’s not that there is an end-to-end circuit when you connect to another machine on the Net; your packets will be send along with others’. not since you have had ethernet switches.
      - fulafel 8y ago
        But you can't access the Internet if you don't have an uplink on it - and it's shared.
    - adrianN 8y ago
      Technically yes, but the traffic for a whole city fits through a single strand of fiber with room to spare.
      - dx034 8y ago
        It does only because the end user has slow speeds. If anyone could stream 4k, the bandwidth for a whole city during peak hours would probably not fit through that fiber anymore.
        adrianN 8y ago
        A strand of fiber can carry something like 20 Terabits/s. Streaming 4k takes less than 20 Megabits per second. That's still a million people streaming 4k simultaneously.
    - oasisbob 8y ago
- fulafel 8y ago
  Netflix bandwidth usage is pretty predictable and limited, as it's a realtime service that requires a human at the other end to consume the stream. Probably limiting-happy ISPs will sell you a Netflix worth of monthly traffic allowance at a reasonable price. (And to nitpick, nothing really prevents unlimited traffic today with LTE - some places have multiple operators offering it: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/finnish-like-unlimited-mobile-data-model-now-europe-pal-zarandy https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/finnish-like-unlimited-mobile...)
  - fleetfox 8y ago
    As data point. You can get "real unlimited data" plan for ~10EUR in baltics
    - gst 8y ago
      Same in Austria (but 20 EUR instead of 10). LTE is a competitor for ADSL and Cable here and LTE providers sell WiFi routers that use LTE instead of ADSL/Cable as uplink. I recently replaced my home ADSL connection with LTE (for 20 EUR a month: https://www.yesss.at/tarifoptionen/unlimited https://www.yesss.at/tarifoptionen/unlimited) and get approx 2x the download bandwidth and 10x the upload bandwidth for the same price as my previous ADSL connection. Even when there's congestion (which doesn't happen a lot) it's still significantly faster than ADSL.
      - NullPrefix 8y ago
        >get approx 2x the download bandwidth What about latency?
        doikor 8y ago
        In a LTE network that is not over its capacity the latency is a bit under 20ms these days in my experience. With 5G this should go down to 1 to 2ms.
        8y ago
- Rjevski 8y ago
  Greed is what prevents unlimited data. When greed is not the problem (due to competition, etc) then those markets already have unlimited data.
- arrrg 8y ago
  Deutsche Telekom is currently offering 24 hours of real unlimited data for free in Germany at every World Cup game of the German soccer team. (Their usual plans offer single-digit GB data per month.) I would expect that to be a near worst case scenario from a bandwidth perspective. Everyone all at once suddenly has unlimited data during roughly the same 24 hour window. Apparently their existing infrastructure is good enough to handle such a spike. This is limited somewhat in that this is a manual process (you have to click a link on a website to get it and then click a link in the confirmation SMS), but still. I think they could offer unlimited data at a price well below what they are currently offering (€80 per month for unlimited data – actually that’s not so bad, only a couple months ago the situation was much worse).
  - dx034 8y ago
    It's actually a good test case. They get the marketing benefit and can also stress-test their systems to see how feasible unlimited plans would be.
    - solarkraft 8y ago
      I would hope that this is really their goal - But I'm not too sure about it. I expect them to aim to only slightly surpass their competitors. Maybe this is actually to signal to them their capabilities?
    - gsich 8y ago
      you don't need a testcase for that. just ask the daughter company in Austria.
- alex_duf 8y ago
  I don't think unlimited data is a technical issue, it's a competition issue
- gsich 8y ago
  Real unlimited data is, well real. At least in Austria. Prices range from 20-50 €. It is only usable in Austria though, but that's not an issue. This has been this way even before LTE.
  - baybal2 8y ago
    Zong Pakistan sells 200GB at around $30, with unlimited topups at $0.8 per GB
- ksec 8y ago
  Define Unlimited. Because there is no such thing as unlimited. The average household uses 250GB per month with broadband. An HEVC 1Mbps stream should offer decent enough quality on a mobile phone. That is only 30GB a month if you watch 2 hours everyday. And if you live in EU that is hardly a problem even with 4G network. It is a problem with high population density such as Tokyo, Hong Kong or Philippines. But 5G will fix all those capacity problem. Most of the problem you read / have are likely from US. In 2016 the data show US has 3 times less cell tower per area when comparing to UK or other EU countries, but US is also much less populated. I have no idea how the business maths works out or if there are any regulation that requires them to cover most part of US.
matt4711 8y ago
From the first link: "Comparing OFDM to LTE today we find a better scalability to a much lower latency (an order of magnitude lower round-trip time [RTT] than LTE today) in OFDM." Doesn't LTE already have quite good latency properties?
- padelt 8y ago
  One data point: LTE gives me 65-90ms ping RTT in reasonable non-crowded indoor conditions. Subjectively, working interactively via LTE is totally fine for me. Compare that to UMTS (3G T-Mobile DE) where I think RTT was more like 350ms and working interactively is a pain.
  - dx034 8y ago
    Anything >10ms can be noticeable if you have a lot of requests or symmetric applications. But I find reliability the far bigger problem with LTE than performance if everything goes right. Not sure how 5G will perform there.
- gballan 8y ago
  As I understand it, not good enough for "vehicular communication, industrial control, factory automation, remote surgery, smart grids and public safety applications" [1]. A lot of the improvement is down to the frame structure (i.e., how user and training data are distributed in time and frequency). See "Frame structure" in [1]. [1] https://www.ericsson.com/en/ericsson-technology-review/archive/2017/designing-for-the-future-the-5g-nr-physical-layer https://www.ericsson.com/en/ericsson-technology-review/archi...
- chrispeel 8y ago
  It depends on what you mean by "good". With 5G NR it will at least be possible to get to .5 ms or less. https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/5g-waves/4460346/5G--The-road-to-low-latency https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/5g-waves/4460346/5G--T...
rgrieselhuber 8y ago
I've heard serious concerns about lack of safety testing and regulatory oversight. The problem is that it's difficult to find credible sources pro / con. Would be interested in reading if you have any to share.
TorKlingberg 8y ago
The first article feels confused, as if the author copy-pasted from various press releases without understanding the topic. OFDM is not new at all for example. The PPT is from 2015, when 5G was still just a bunch of ideas.

thisrod 8y ago

Thanks.

elboru 8y ago

From someone who doesn't know anything about wireless technologies. Is there any chance 5g will break the walls that prevent real unlimited data? If not, what must happen in order to allow everyone use Netflix on their phones without wifi?

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Is there any chance 5g will break the walls that prevent real unlimited data? No. For a while, perhaps. But demand will scale to meet supply as new uses for the network are found.
josteink 8y ago
> Is there any chance 5g will break the walls that prevent real unlimited data? For providers to provide true unlimited data, you have to have true unlimited bandwidth. Wireless connectivity is provided through a shared medium. For comparison you have wired networking where every customer has a dedicated medium, the wire, for themselves. This is what makes all the difference between actually unlimited and capped plans. So, no. Not today. Not anytime soon.
- boramalper 8y ago
  > Wireless connectivity is provided through a shared medium. For comparison you have wired networking where every customer has a dedicated medium, the wire, for themselves. Isn’t wire also a shared medium? It’s not that there is an end-to-end circuit when you connect to another machine on the Net; your packets will be send along with others’.
  - signa11 8y ago
    > Isn’t wire also a shared medium? It’s not that there is an end-to-end circuit when you connect to another machine on the Net; your packets will be send along with others’. not since you have had ethernet switches.
    - fulafel 8y ago
      But you can't access the Internet if you don't have an uplink on it - and it's shared.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    Technically yes, but the traffic for a whole city fits through a single strand of fiber with room to spare.
    - dx034 8y ago
      It does only because the end user has slow speeds. If anyone could stream 4k, the bandwidth for a whole city during peak hours would probably not fit through that fiber anymore.
      - adrianN 8y ago
        A strand of fiber can carry something like 20 Terabits/s. Streaming 4k takes less than 20 Megabits per second. That's still a million people streaming 4k simultaneously.
  - oasisbob 8y ago
fulafel 8y ago
Netflix bandwidth usage is pretty predictable and limited, as it's a realtime service that requires a human at the other end to consume the stream. Probably limiting-happy ISPs will sell you a Netflix worth of monthly traffic allowance at a reasonable price. (And to nitpick, nothing really prevents unlimited traffic today with LTE - some places have multiple operators offering it: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/finnish-like-unlimited-mobile-data-model-now-europe-pal-zarandy https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/finnish-like-unlimited-mobile...)
- fleetfox 8y ago
  As data point. You can get "real unlimited data" plan for ~10EUR in baltics
  - gst 8y ago
    Same in Austria (but 20 EUR instead of 10). LTE is a competitor for ADSL and Cable here and LTE providers sell WiFi routers that use LTE instead of ADSL/Cable as uplink. I recently replaced my home ADSL connection with LTE (for 20 EUR a month: https://www.yesss.at/tarifoptionen/unlimited https://www.yesss.at/tarifoptionen/unlimited) and get approx 2x the download bandwidth and 10x the upload bandwidth for the same price as my previous ADSL connection. Even when there's congestion (which doesn't happen a lot) it's still significantly faster than ADSL.
    - NullPrefix 8y ago
      >get approx 2x the download bandwidth What about latency?
      - doikor 8y ago
        In a LTE network that is not over its capacity the latency is a bit under 20ms these days in my experience. With 5G this should go down to 1 to 2ms.
        8y ago
Rjevski 8y ago
Greed is what prevents unlimited data. When greed is not the problem (due to competition, etc) then those markets already have unlimited data.
arrrg 8y ago
Deutsche Telekom is currently offering 24 hours of real unlimited data for free in Germany at every World Cup game of the German soccer team. (Their usual plans offer single-digit GB data per month.) I would expect that to be a near worst case scenario from a bandwidth perspective. Everyone all at once suddenly has unlimited data during roughly the same 24 hour window. Apparently their existing infrastructure is good enough to handle such a spike. This is limited somewhat in that this is a manual process (you have to click a link on a website to get it and then click a link in the confirmation SMS), but still. I think they could offer unlimited data at a price well below what they are currently offering (€80 per month for unlimited data – actually that’s not so bad, only a couple months ago the situation was much worse).
- dx034 8y ago
  It's actually a good test case. They get the marketing benefit and can also stress-test their systems to see how feasible unlimited plans would be.
  - solarkraft 8y ago
    I would hope that this is really their goal - But I'm not too sure about it. I expect them to aim to only slightly surpass their competitors. Maybe this is actually to signal to them their capabilities?
  - gsich 8y ago
    you don't need a testcase for that. just ask the daughter company in Austria.
alex_duf 8y ago
I don't think unlimited data is a technical issue, it's a competition issue
gsich 8y ago
Real unlimited data is, well real. At least in Austria. Prices range from 20-50 €. It is only usable in Austria though, but that's not an issue. This has been this way even before LTE.
- baybal2 8y ago
  Zong Pakistan sells 200GB at around $30, with unlimited topups at $0.8 per GB
ksec 8y ago
Define Unlimited. Because there is no such thing as unlimited. The average household uses 250GB per month with broadband. An HEVC 1Mbps stream should offer decent enough quality on a mobile phone. That is only 30GB a month if you watch 2 hours everyday. And if you live in EU that is hardly a problem even with 4G network. It is a problem with high population density such as Tokyo, Hong Kong or Philippines. But 5G will fix all those capacity problem. Most of the problem you read / have are likely from US. In 2016 the data show US has 3 times less cell tower per area when comparing to UK or other EU countries, but US is also much less populated. I have no idea how the business maths works out or if there are any regulation that requires them to cover most part of US.

matt4711 8y ago

From the first link: "Comparing OFDM to LTE today we find a better scalability to a much lower latency (an order of magnitude lower round-trip time [RTT] than LTE today) in OFDM." Doesn't LTE already have quite good latency properties?

padelt 8y ago
One data point: LTE gives me 65-90ms ping RTT in reasonable non-crowded indoor conditions. Subjectively, working interactively via LTE is totally fine for me. Compare that to UMTS (3G T-Mobile DE) where I think RTT was more like 350ms and working interactively is a pain.
- dx034 8y ago
  Anything >10ms can be noticeable if you have a lot of requests or symmetric applications. But I find reliability the far bigger problem with LTE than performance if everything goes right. Not sure how 5G will perform there.
gballan 8y ago
As I understand it, not good enough for "vehicular communication, industrial control, factory automation, remote surgery, smart grids and public safety applications" [1]. A lot of the improvement is down to the frame structure (i.e., how user and training data are distributed in time and frequency). See "Frame structure" in [1]. [1] https://www.ericsson.com/en/ericsson-technology-review/archive/2017/designing-for-the-future-the-5g-nr-physical-layer https://www.ericsson.com/en/ericsson-technology-review/archi...
chrispeel 8y ago
It depends on what you mean by "good". With 5G NR it will at least be possible to get to .5 ms or less. https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/5g-waves/4460346/5G--The-road-to-low-latency https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/5g-waves/4460346/5G--T...

rgrieselhuber 8y ago

I've heard serious concerns about lack of safety testing and regulatory oversight. The problem is that it's difficult to find credible sources pro / con. Would be interested in reading if you have any to share.

TorKlingberg 8y ago

The first article feels confused, as if the author copy-pasted from various press releases without understanding the topic. OFDM is not new at all for example. The PPT is from 2015, when 5G was still just a bunch of ideas.