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This post, and most of the comments here, seem to miss the main selling point of 5G (at least for consumers): consistency and reliability. With wireless data c

This post, and most of the comments here, seem to miss the main selling point of 5G (at least for consumers): consistency and reliability. With wireless data connections, you're sharing the medium (and therefore the bandwidth) with all other users of the same frequencies. This is the reason that you can have absolutely terrible performance in a densely populated city, despite having a maximum strength 4G signal. Having the 20+Ghz channels enables operators to install a large number of micro-cells in these areas. Even if they don't penetrate walls, moving everyone outdoors on to these cells free's up the lower-frequency cells for indoor users, substantially reducing contention. Another improvement over 4G that hasn't been mentioned by anyone is, supposedly, that it will significantly reduce latency and interruptions from moving between cells. This is especially apparent when travelling at speed (e.g. on a train). The effect to consumers of both of these is that we'd get much more consistent performance.

acdha 8y ago
At least in the U.S., the real problem is the billing model. Those kind of incremental improvements will be nice but that doesn’t seem like enough to justify more than a gradual upgrade since most people won’t see much benefit other than a few edge cases — how many people are going to buy a new phone so they can get online slightly faster when their subway car approaches a new tower? Every other application, especially the cool ones like AR/VR which do seem plausible for people dropping a lot of cash, will be constrained by the enormous markup on data well before it hits the limits of LTE. Fewer milliseconds on handoff could be nice but it’s hard to think of an application which can’t buffer but is going to fit within a few GB per month.
- monkeynotes 8y ago
  Yeah, I don't get this either. I live in Canada and mobile data is $$$s. I don't see the point in more-better-data when we can barely afford to utilize the current infrastructure. Providers are likely to recover this new infrastructure cost through price hikes. I don't give a crap about faster mobile data, I've got a 5GB plan and faster data just means I could chew through it faster. All of the data heavy applications I can think of I use almost exclusively on wifi where it's available. I think the real sell for 5G is it's capacity to carry thousands of concurrent connections, allowing for everything to be connected. A true IOT solution where anything you can think of can connect without congesting towers.
  - acdha 8y ago
    Yeah, I get that there are benefits to the providers but it just seems like it's going to be a tough sell for get a premium from users to pay for it.
bad_user 8y ago
Not saying you're wrong, but the 4G speed in many US or European cities isn't very representative. I live in Bucharest, Romania, a city of 2 million people, but it's very densely populated and the 4G data plans are cheap, on prepay or contract, so everybody with a phone has 4G bandwidth to use (not necessarily for watching Netflix, but enough for music or facebook). And we get good 4G coverage both indoors and outdoors. Right now I'm at my office, indoors. As I'm writing this I just did a speed test on my connection and I'm getting 105 Mbps download, 10 Mbps upload, 17 ms ping. And this is the norm, I know because I like going to coffee shops and use my mobile connection for real work. Here's a screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pw86k6tgd9rc5fd/Screenshot%202019-01-18%2015.33.00.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/pw86k6tgd9rc5fd/Screenshot%202019-... I haven't seen such good coverage and performance in the several European or US cities I've traveled too. E.g. in my experience the Internet in Germany or France is really poor. But I don't believe that it is because of the 4G technology.
creeble 8y ago
It doesn't enable operators to install a large number of micro-cells, it requires it. And this is where I think 5G may end up being disappointing. I think telcos will encounter increased resistance to putting up millions of microcells, and the cost will end up being way higher than they anticipate. So coverage in the mm bands will end up being extremely spotty (way worse than 4G now), and may end up being a near-bust. That's my .02 anyway. But I live in a suburban-ish place where 4G coverage is mostly a cruel joke, despite being just across the Golden Gate Bridge from 4G-ground-zero SF.
- fivefive55 8y ago
  I'm amazed at how bad the 4g coverage is in the bay area. I barely get a signal at my house or at my office. One's in the middle of a city, the other is literal minutes from Google. Yet I get a single bar of reception. It's a sad joke..
griffinkelly 8y ago
While that's the selling point of 5G; it's difficult for the general consumer to rationalize paying more for something of only marginal benefit to them. While many of us reading HN understand how this can help computing and moving heavy amounts of data, to your grandma with a smart phone, how's it going to improve her life? She can still google a recipe for cake in a few seconds, what's 1 second faster to her? The potential benefit though I see is that you potentially no longer have to pay an ISP like Comcast. You would only pay one bill for 5g for both your computer/phone. Aside from that, its a difficult marketing sell.

acdha 8y ago

At least in the U.S., the real problem is the billing model. Those kind of incremental improvements will be nice but that doesn’t seem like enough to justify more than a gradual upgrade since most people won’t see much benefit other than a few edge cases — how many people are going to buy a new phone so they can get online slightly faster when their subway car approaches a new tower? Every other application, especially the cool ones like AR/VR which do seem plausible for people dropping a lot of cash, will be constrained by the enormous markup on data well before it hits the limits of LTE. Fewer milliseconds on handoff could be nice but it’s hard to think of an application which can’t buffer but is going to fit within a few GB per month.

monkeynotes 8y ago
Yeah, I don't get this either. I live in Canada and mobile data is $$$s. I don't see the point in more-better-data when we can barely afford to utilize the current infrastructure. Providers are likely to recover this new infrastructure cost through price hikes. I don't give a crap about faster mobile data, I've got a 5GB plan and faster data just means I could chew through it faster. All of the data heavy applications I can think of I use almost exclusively on wifi where it's available. I think the real sell for 5G is it's capacity to carry thousands of concurrent connections, allowing for everything to be connected. A true IOT solution where anything you can think of can connect without congesting towers.
- acdha 8y ago
  Yeah, I get that there are benefits to the providers but it just seems like it's going to be a tough sell for get a premium from users to pay for it.

bad_user 8y ago

Not saying you're wrong, but the 4G speed in many US or European cities isn't very representative. I live in Bucharest, Romania, a city of 2 million people, but it's very densely populated and the 4G data plans are cheap, on prepay or contract, so everybody with a phone has 4G bandwidth to use (not necessarily for watching Netflix, but enough for music or facebook). And we get good 4G coverage both indoors and outdoors. Right now I'm at my office, indoors. As I'm writing this I just did a speed test on my connection and I'm getting 105 Mbps download, 10 Mbps upload, 17 ms ping. And this is the norm, I know because I like going to coffee shops and use my mobile connection for real work. Here's a screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pw86k6tgd9rc5fd/Screenshot%202019-01-18%2015.33.00.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/pw86k6tgd9rc5fd/Screenshot%202019-... I haven't seen such good coverage and performance in the several European or US cities I've traveled too. E.g. in my experience the Internet in Germany or France is really poor. But I don't believe that it is because of the 4G technology.

creeble 8y ago

It doesn't enable operators to install a large number of micro-cells, it requires it. And this is where I think 5G may end up being disappointing. I think telcos will encounter increased resistance to putting up millions of microcells, and the cost will end up being way higher than they anticipate. So coverage in the mm bands will end up being extremely spotty (way worse than 4G now), and may end up being a near-bust. That's my .02 anyway. But I live in a suburban-ish place where 4G coverage is mostly a cruel joke, despite being just across the Golden Gate Bridge from 4G-ground-zero SF.

fivefive55 8y ago
I'm amazed at how bad the 4g coverage is in the bay area. I barely get a signal at my house or at my office. One's in the middle of a city, the other is literal minutes from Google. Yet I get a single bar of reception. It's a sad joke..

griffinkelly 8y ago

While that's the selling point of 5G; it's difficult for the general consumer to rationalize paying more for something of only marginal benefit to them. While many of us reading HN understand how this can help computing and moving heavy amounts of data, to your grandma with a smart phone, how's it going to improve her life? She can still google a recipe for cake in a few seconds, what's 1 second faster to her? The potential benefit though I see is that you potentially no longer have to pay an ISP like Comcast. You would only pay one bill for 5g for both your computer/phone. Aside from that, its a difficult marketing sell.