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The speeds are theoretical and plummet as spectrum utilization increases. If everybody replaced their xDSL/DOCSIS/FTTx connections with 4G/5G and utilized them

The speeds are theoretical and plummet as spectrum utilization increases. If everybody replaced their xDSL/DOCSIS/FTTx connections with 4G/5G and utilized them the same, the speeds would be terrible. Restrictive data transfer quotas and the proliferation of free Wifi access make existing 4G+ implementations look fast.

supertrope 8y ago
Wi-Fi is still a largely under-utilized resource. With the right incentives a lot of LTE usage could be off-loaded and hopefully create significant competitive pressure on cellular plans. Indoor usage should be all Wi-Fi, with LTE capacity saved for truly mobile scenarios like riding in a car or walking down the street. Those incentives being a kickback/royalty payment to Wi-Fi operators who allow roaming and cheaper bills and higher quotas for customers. Right now I have a choice between $10/GB fast LTE and free but very slow store Wi-Fi. Free means the venue operator spends as little money as possible and users over-consume. A revenue stream for accepting off-loaded traffic would give them a business justification to subscribe to a decent connection and install additional access points. To this day it seems like only the equipment manufacturers are profiting off Wi-Fi. Venue owners only indirectly profit by attracting more foot traffic. Cellular operators plug coverage holes with Wi-Fi calling, and address severely congested areas with efforts like attwifi, but they do not want to disrupt their main product.
- ferongr 8y ago
  There's just not enough unlicensed spectrum for something like that to happen I'm afraid.
  - supertrope 8y ago
    2.4 GHz is indeed congested. There's nine 20 MHz channels in the 5 GHz band in USA. An additional 16 are available if client devices support DFS channels. Even if there's weather radar and you lose channels 120-128, that's 22 channels.
- xur17 8y ago
  I really wish Wifi to 4g handoff was truly seamless since that's a lot of the reason I end up turning wifi off. As I'm walking around an office building or a college campus, loading webpages is a subpar experience at best since it's constantly losing wifi, switching to 4g, and re-establishing all of my connections. I have the same issue with sticky wifi connections where my phone stays connected for 10-20 seconds after I am out of range of the network, during which nothing works. I would love to either have a vpn that connects over 4g and wifi and seamlessly redirects traffic depending on conditions, or have widespread support for something like multipath-tcp that supposedly fixes this issue.
  - ksec 8y ago
    1. WiFi, even the current 802.11ac were never designed for those usage. It was for a few people in small area using it lightly, not constantly. 2. WiFi / Unlicensed Spectrum has limited power compared to licensed Spectrum. Which means full coverage is few order of magnitude harder. 3. I still think weak signal and hand off is an software and implementation issues. We should just disconnect WiFi if its signal is only 2 bars and not try to do edge location transfer. The upcoming 802.11ax fixes that somewhat, and it should be able to handle 32+ concurrent users, and with up 8x8 antenna in phase 1 ( Not confirmed yet ) and hopefully 16x16 in phase 2. I am not sure if Phase 1 and Phase 2 are compatible in such a way so Phase 2 router would benefits Phase 1 users as well. After-all these manufacture are there to make you spend more money to upgrade. Another problem is all these are good on paper, but once 802.11ax are mixed with 802.11ac, its performance and capacity drops dramatically. So I actually wish in the far future we force more users on ax, drop ac from 5Ghz band and users uses N on the 2.4Ghz band. Or better yet, LAA, ( License Assisted Access ). While technically superior I am not entirely comfortable of putting everything in carrier's hand. And Full LTE in Unlicensed Spectrum; MulteFire, is an entirely Qualcomm tech.
gst 8y ago
> The speeds are theoretical and plummet as spectrum utilization increases. If everybody replaced their xDSL/DOCSIS/FTTx connections with 4G/5G and utilized them the same, the speeds would be terrible. The provider A1 in Austria (around 45% marketshare for broadband) uses ADSL for most of its broadband lines, which is significantly slower than cable. A few years ago they merged with the largest wireless provider and now use hybrid-ADSL-LTE modems that use ADSL by default, but which automatically switch to LTE when higher bandwidths are required. In addition there are several wireless providers (and MVNOs) that sell data flatrates which are cheaper and faster than ADSL. E.g., I recently replaced my ADSL connection with a LTE flatrate for 20 EUR a month that allows 20mbit down and 6mbit up (and almost all of the time it also reaches that speed). I often hear the argument that LTE would be too congested if everyone uses it. But I can't see any evidence of that in places where LTE is heavily used.
- jbarham 8y ago
  > I recently replaced my ADSL connection with a LTE flatrate for 20 EUR a month that allows 20mbit down and 6mbit up Jealous! Here in Australia I'm paying A$70/month (~44 EUR) for 12/1 4G home broadband service. Still better than the 3/0.5 service I was getting with ADSL for the same price...

supertrope 8y ago

Wi-Fi is still a largely under-utilized resource. With the right incentives a lot of LTE usage could be off-loaded and hopefully create significant competitive pressure on cellular plans. Indoor usage should be all Wi-Fi, with LTE capacity saved for truly mobile scenarios like riding in a car or walking down the street. Those incentives being a kickback/royalty payment to Wi-Fi operators who allow roaming and cheaper bills and higher quotas for customers. Right now I have a choice between $10/GB fast LTE and free but very slow store Wi-Fi. Free means the venue operator spends as little money as possible and users over-consume. A revenue stream for accepting off-loaded traffic would give them a business justification to subscribe to a decent connection and install additional access points. To this day it seems like only the equipment manufacturers are profiting off Wi-Fi. Venue owners only indirectly profit by attracting more foot traffic. Cellular operators plug coverage holes with Wi-Fi calling, and address severely congested areas with efforts like attwifi, but they do not want to disrupt their main product.

ferongr 8y ago
There's just not enough unlicensed spectrum for something like that to happen I'm afraid.
- supertrope 8y ago
  2.4 GHz is indeed congested. There's nine 20 MHz channels in the 5 GHz band in USA. An additional 16 are available if client devices support DFS channels. Even if there's weather radar and you lose channels 120-128, that's 22 channels.
xur17 8y ago
I really wish Wifi to 4g handoff was truly seamless since that's a lot of the reason I end up turning wifi off. As I'm walking around an office building or a college campus, loading webpages is a subpar experience at best since it's constantly losing wifi, switching to 4g, and re-establishing all of my connections. I have the same issue with sticky wifi connections where my phone stays connected for 10-20 seconds after I am out of range of the network, during which nothing works. I would love to either have a vpn that connects over 4g and wifi and seamlessly redirects traffic depending on conditions, or have widespread support for something like multipath-tcp that supposedly fixes this issue.
- ksec 8y ago
  1. WiFi, even the current 802.11ac were never designed for those usage. It was for a few people in small area using it lightly, not constantly. 2. WiFi / Unlicensed Spectrum has limited power compared to licensed Spectrum. Which means full coverage is few order of magnitude harder. 3. I still think weak signal and hand off is an software and implementation issues. We should just disconnect WiFi if its signal is only 2 bars and not try to do edge location transfer. The upcoming 802.11ax fixes that somewhat, and it should be able to handle 32+ concurrent users, and with up 8x8 antenna in phase 1 ( Not confirmed yet ) and hopefully 16x16 in phase 2. I am not sure if Phase 1 and Phase 2 are compatible in such a way so Phase 2 router would benefits Phase 1 users as well. After-all these manufacture are there to make you spend more money to upgrade. Another problem is all these are good on paper, but once 802.11ax are mixed with 802.11ac, its performance and capacity drops dramatically. So I actually wish in the far future we force more users on ax, drop ac from 5Ghz band and users uses N on the 2.4Ghz band. Or better yet, LAA, ( License Assisted Access ). While technically superior I am not entirely comfortable of putting everything in carrier's hand. And Full LTE in Unlicensed Spectrum; MulteFire, is an entirely Qualcomm tech.

gst 8y ago

> The speeds are theoretical and plummet as spectrum utilization increases. If everybody replaced their xDSL/DOCSIS/FTTx connections with 4G/5G and utilized them the same, the speeds would be terrible. The provider A1 in Austria (around 45% marketshare for broadband) uses ADSL for most of its broadband lines, which is significantly slower than cable. A few years ago they merged with the largest wireless provider and now use hybrid-ADSL-LTE modems that use ADSL by default, but which automatically switch to LTE when higher bandwidths are required. In addition there are several wireless providers (and MVNOs) that sell data flatrates which are cheaper and faster than ADSL. E.g., I recently replaced my ADSL connection with a LTE flatrate for 20 EUR a month that allows 20mbit down and 6mbit up (and almost all of the time it also reaches that speed). I often hear the argument that LTE would be too congested if everyone uses it. But I can't see any evidence of that in places where LTE is heavily used.

jbarham 8y ago
> I recently replaced my ADSL connection with a LTE flatrate for 20 EUR a month that allows 20mbit down and 6mbit up Jealous! Here in Australia I'm paying A$70/month (~44 EUR) for 12/1 4G home broadband service. Still better than the 3/0.5 service I was getting with ADSL for the same price...