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> Does this also mean that 5G will suck, when it’s raining? [from a comment below the article] If 5G uses almost the same frequency where microwaves detect wat

> Does this also mean that 5G will suck, when it’s raining? [from a comment below the article] If 5G uses almost the same frequency where microwaves detect water vapour (around 24 GHz), won't the weather have a great impact on it? Also, I always thought that such small waves would have problems with obstacles, with good signal just when your phone is in line-of-sight with antennas.

chrisswanda 8y ago
It's called Rain Fade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_fade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_fade
penagwin 8y ago
That's all correct, the higher frequency suffers from worse object penetration. Solutions I've heard was that 5G would likely involve neighborhood or even building repeaters. IMO 5G is massively overhyped. My iPhone 7+ isn't limited by 4G LTE, it's limited by Verizon deciding to only allow it 10mbps down (with great signal). 5G won't matter one bit if the current bottleneck isn't 4G LTE in the first place.
- opencl 8y ago
  Is Verizon really that bad? I usually get around 100mbps on TMobile LTE.
  - penagwin 8y ago
    That's with their rate limiting to fast.com (Netflix). Speedtest.net (with Verizon hosted servers) was at a very consistent 50mbps/4.5mbps which would make sense for my unlimited plan. Please note that speedtest.net is REALLY not a good representation of real world network usage, and I don't just mean like how they throttle netflix. They get to host the server in-network as well as full traffic shaping to get those juicy benchmark numbers.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - tjoff 8y ago
      Well, seems like exactly the test you would want if you are testing the 4G network or your phone. Lack of competition and sensible operators isn't 4Gs fault...
- mikeash 8y ago
  Cell capacity is a shared resource. The reason (or part of it) that Verizon limits your speed is to let others use it too. 5G brings smaller cells and more capacity in each cell, which means less need to throttle.
  - ummonk 8y ago
    They'd have to upgrade the backhaul too though to take advantage of 5G capacity.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      I’m sure they would. For all the faults of telecoms companies, they generally don’t like spending a massive amount of money on upgrades that do nothing.
      - udwum 8y ago
        It does something, it makes your mobile say 5G on the top. That's worth paying more money for some people.
        baddox 8y ago
        But that can be (and has been!) done with a phone software update, which is much cheaper.
        udwum 8y ago
        Depends on how expensive the settlement will be. :)
      - penagwin 8y ago
        They love to when customers pay for it! ;) They spend massive amounts of money on marketing, at that doesn't benefit the product at all.
      - JohnFen 8y ago
- SkyPuncher 8y ago
  > My iPhone 7+ isn't limited by 4G LTE, it's limited by Verizon deciding to only allow it 10mbps down (with great signal) This is in fact a limitation of 4G. A single device is fine, but there is only so much bandwidth available. When you get lots of devices in the same area, something has to be limited.
  - rocqua 8y ago
    Smaller cells allow for fewer devices per tower, does it not?
    - tedunangst 8y ago
      Unfortunately, the density of people who don't want towers "too close to me" means we need bigger towers farther apart.
      - rocqua 8y ago
        Smaller cells require lower signal power to prevent nearby cells from interfering.
  - dzhiurgis 8y ago
    That seems to be american thing. Most countries I’ve lived easily get 100mbps.
    - AnssiH 8y ago
      Yeah, in especially good conditions you can get over 800Mbps on a Galaxy S10 over here (e.g. https://bbs.io-tech.fi/threads/nettiliittymaesi-taemaenhetkinen-nopeus-keskustelua.2994/page-40#post-4773590 https://bbs.io-tech.fi/threads/nettiliittymaesi-taemaenhetki...), and over 100Mbps is normal.
- isoprophlex 8y ago
  > building repeaters so... sorta like a WiFi access point?
  - ip26 8y ago
    Yeah, my thought exactly. People like to talk about how 5G will eliminate the need for wired internet because there will be 5G stations on every block, even on every building! I don't know if they simply assume it will be wirelessly repeated or they just haven't really thought about it too hard.
    - rocqua 8y ago
      The main value of 5G as opposed to WiFi is that it comes with an entire system for roaming over different networks. WiFi has no built-in system for authentication across different operators, no system for accounting usage, no system for ensuring trust. This is what 3gpp brings. Their systems are hopelessly convoluted, and have some issues. However, it works.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
- darkpuma 8y ago
  > "building repeaters" In other words glorified wifi, except the AP is no longer owned or controlled by me.
cptskippy 8y ago
> If 5G uses almost the same frequency where microwaves detect water vapour (around 24 GHz), won't the weather have a great impact on it? There's a general misunderstanding about the technology that leads people down this road of thought. 5G is broken up into two frequency ranges, FR1 and FR2. FR1 is everything below 6Ghz and encompasses the same spectrum as traditional cellular technologies. FR2 is everything over 24Ghz and that's the bit everyone is confused about. FR1 is like traditional cellular and will be slapped on cell towers to provide broad coverage over a wide area with performance characteristics similar to what we have today with LTE. It's not very exciting but it's 5G and this is what everyone is currently rolling out. FR2 is meant to be absorbed, otherwise you'd have a big problem. Unlike FR1 which limits you to 100mhz bandwidth per channel, FR2 mandates that channel bandwidth be between 50-400mhz. So at a minimum, an FR2 channel will have half the maximum allowable bandwidth of FR1. If FR2 propagated more than a very short distance the airwaves would be quickly saturated by a small number of users. FR2 is intended to be deployed in very dense areas like indoors. You'd be able to deploy many cell sites without worrying about overlap or signal propagation because everything from walls to moisture in the air will absorb the signals. It might also be possible to slap an FR2 cell site on top of every lamp post going down a street.
- bdamm 8y ago
  Wouldn't there be a great deal of contention with an FR2 on each lamp post; how would they avoid that? Are these cell sites meshing internally to create a backhaul, or is the idea that each lamp post is wired?
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    Why? The sites backhauls could be wires or wireless, it doesn't matter much as the backhaul is independent of the interface tranceiver. The sites interface would be attenuated for the short ranges. We can do this today with Wifi, every always thinks more power is better but sometimes less is more. Samsung's 28Ghz solution was rated at something like 1500ft at maximum power. So one per city block might be more realistic than one per lamp post but it will ultimately come down to capacity. The mmWave portion of 5G is designed to high density deployments.

chrisswanda 8y ago

It's called Rain Fade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_fade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_fade

penagwin 8y ago

That's all correct, the higher frequency suffers from worse object penetration. Solutions I've heard was that 5G would likely involve neighborhood or even building repeaters. IMO 5G is massively overhyped. My iPhone 7+ isn't limited by 4G LTE, it's limited by Verizon deciding to only allow it 10mbps down (with great signal). 5G won't matter one bit if the current bottleneck isn't 4G LTE in the first place.

opencl 8y ago
Is Verizon really that bad? I usually get around 100mbps on TMobile LTE.
- penagwin 8y ago
  That's with their rate limiting to fast.com (Netflix). Speedtest.net (with Verizon hosted servers) was at a very consistent 50mbps/4.5mbps which would make sense for my unlimited plan. Please note that speedtest.net is REALLY not a good representation of real world network usage, and I don't just mean like how they throttle netflix. They get to host the server in-network as well as full traffic shaping to get those juicy benchmark numbers.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - tjoff 8y ago
    Well, seems like exactly the test you would want if you are testing the 4G network or your phone. Lack of competition and sensible operators isn't 4Gs fault...
mikeash 8y ago
Cell capacity is a shared resource. The reason (or part of it) that Verizon limits your speed is to let others use it too. 5G brings smaller cells and more capacity in each cell, which means less need to throttle.
- ummonk 8y ago
  They'd have to upgrade the backhaul too though to take advantage of 5G capacity.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    I’m sure they would. For all the faults of telecoms companies, they generally don’t like spending a massive amount of money on upgrades that do nothing.
    - udwum 8y ago
      It does something, it makes your mobile say 5G on the top. That's worth paying more money for some people.
      - baddox 8y ago
        But that can be (and has been!) done with a phone software update, which is much cheaper.
        udwum 8y ago
        Depends on how expensive the settlement will be. :)
    - penagwin 8y ago
      They love to when customers pay for it! ;) They spend massive amounts of money on marketing, at that doesn't benefit the product at all.
    - JohnFen 8y ago
SkyPuncher 8y ago
> My iPhone 7+ isn't limited by 4G LTE, it's limited by Verizon deciding to only allow it 10mbps down (with great signal) This is in fact a limitation of 4G. A single device is fine, but there is only so much bandwidth available. When you get lots of devices in the same area, something has to be limited.
- rocqua 8y ago
  Smaller cells allow for fewer devices per tower, does it not?
  - tedunangst 8y ago
    Unfortunately, the density of people who don't want towers "too close to me" means we need bigger towers farther apart.
    - rocqua 8y ago
      Smaller cells require lower signal power to prevent nearby cells from interfering.
- dzhiurgis 8y ago
  That seems to be american thing. Most countries I’ve lived easily get 100mbps.
  - AnssiH 8y ago
    Yeah, in especially good conditions you can get over 800Mbps on a Galaxy S10 over here (e.g. https://bbs.io-tech.fi/threads/nettiliittymaesi-taemaenhetkinen-nopeus-keskustelua.2994/page-40#post-4773590 https://bbs.io-tech.fi/threads/nettiliittymaesi-taemaenhetki...), and over 100Mbps is normal.
isoprophlex 8y ago
> building repeaters so... sorta like a WiFi access point?
- ip26 8y ago
  Yeah, my thought exactly. People like to talk about how 5G will eliminate the need for wired internet because there will be 5G stations on every block, even on every building! I don't know if they simply assume it will be wirelessly repeated or they just haven't really thought about it too hard.
  - rocqua 8y ago
    The main value of 5G as opposed to WiFi is that it comes with an entire system for roaming over different networks. WiFi has no built-in system for authentication across different operators, no system for accounting usage, no system for ensuring trust. This is what 3gpp brings. Their systems are hopelessly convoluted, and have some issues. However, it works.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
darkpuma 8y ago
> "building repeaters" In other words glorified wifi, except the AP is no longer owned or controlled by me.

cptskippy 8y ago

> If 5G uses almost the same frequency where microwaves detect water vapour (around 24 GHz), won't the weather have a great impact on it? There's a general misunderstanding about the technology that leads people down this road of thought. 5G is broken up into two frequency ranges, FR1 and FR2. FR1 is everything below 6Ghz and encompasses the same spectrum as traditional cellular technologies. FR2 is everything over 24Ghz and that's the bit everyone is confused about. FR1 is like traditional cellular and will be slapped on cell towers to provide broad coverage over a wide area with performance characteristics similar to what we have today with LTE. It's not very exciting but it's 5G and this is what everyone is currently rolling out. FR2 is meant to be absorbed, otherwise you'd have a big problem. Unlike FR1 which limits you to 100mhz bandwidth per channel, FR2 mandates that channel bandwidth be between 50-400mhz. So at a minimum, an FR2 channel will have half the maximum allowable bandwidth of FR1. If FR2 propagated more than a very short distance the airwaves would be quickly saturated by a small number of users. FR2 is intended to be deployed in very dense areas like indoors. You'd be able to deploy many cell sites without worrying about overlap or signal propagation because everything from walls to moisture in the air will absorb the signals. It might also be possible to slap an FR2 cell site on top of every lamp post going down a street.

bdamm 8y ago
Wouldn't there be a great deal of contention with an FR2 on each lamp post; how would they avoid that? Are these cell sites meshing internally to create a backhaul, or is the idea that each lamp post is wired?
- cptskippy 8y ago
  Why? The sites backhauls could be wires or wireless, it doesn't matter much as the backhaul is independent of the interface tranceiver. The sites interface would be attenuated for the short ranges. We can do this today with Wifi, every always thinks more power is better but sometimes less is more. Samsung's 28Ghz solution was rated at something like 1500ft at maximum power. So one per city block might be more realistic than one per lamp post but it will ultimately come down to capacity. The mmWave portion of 5G is designed to high density deployments.