5 ms·

If you read the article, it doesn't matter why it's needed, it's about capturing future economic potential. The world is going to 5G. This is a fact. The US say

If you read the article, it doesn't matter why it's needed, it's about capturing future economic potential. The world is going to 5G. This is a fact. The US saying "we don't need it" is basically signing away hundreds of billions of dollars of economic value and wealth transfer. Whether we think we need it or not, why would we willingly give up the chance to capture value from the next emerging tech?

reaperducer 7y ago
The US saying "we don't need it" is basically signing away hundreds of billions of dollars of economic value and wealth transfer. The U.S. isn't saying "we don't need it." The U.S. is saying, "We're a massively large country with a lot of currently underserved areas. How about we concentrate on finishing the 2G, 3G, and 4G rollouts; and we'll do 5G when and where it makes sense?" The United States isn't Luxembourg. We're not going to cover entire nation with a few dozen base stations. You're talking about hundreds of thousands of stations. Plus, how far "behind" can any country be since the first large scale deployment (according to Wikipedia) was only three months ago?
- corodra 7y ago
  You, this, everything. Upvote. After 50+ years of latest tech advancements, everyone keeps forgetting this about America. It's like people think history has nothing to teach us about future tech.
- jorblumesea 7y ago
  The US doesn't need to implement 5G everywhere to be a leader in the field or take advantage of the technology. Just about every major city is an obvious candidate. This isn't an all or nothing thing. We can continue 4G roll out in rural areas while 5G gets kicked off. If we wait until the entire US is ready for 5G we'll have lost the race. Which is exactly what the article points out. It's a winner take all game. Look at the current state of the internet. The US is a leader in cloud services, yet many rural areas lack fast internet. One doesn't preclude the other. The argument that the US should cede leadership in the tech space because some places don't need 5G (may never need it, or are not ready for it) is absurd. edit: please read this: https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/04/2002109654/-1/-1/0/DIB_5G_STUDY_04.04.19.PDF https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/04/2002109654/-1/-1/0/DIB...
freyr 7y ago
We've reached the point where faster last-mile speeds have diminishing returns. In the past, faster transfer speeds have always been a bottleneck for emerging technologies (supporting a progression from text, to images, to audio, to video and streaming audio, streaming 4K video). But we've saturated our sensory inputs, and now nobody really knows what to do with faster last-mile speeds. The networking companies tried pitching everyone on the idea that VR/AR would be the next big thing and require major investment in 5G. But that was hogwash, and networking speed is not what's holding back VR adoption. > Whether we think we need it or not, why would we willingly give up the chance to capture value from the next emerging tech? Because we have a limited amount of resources for investment? Because we can weigh the pros and cons and future potential, and allocate money towards things we actually need?
- jorblumesea 7y ago
  If you read this study: https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/04/2002109654/-1/-1/0/DIB_5G_STUDY_04.04.19.PDF https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/04/2002109654/-1/-1/0/DIB... It's pretty clear that most people saying "we don't need 5g" or "we have better things to do" are completely wrong. The implications of losing the 5G race are enormous, from economic to national security. To the point where some are calling for a "Manhattan project" for wireless. Based on the comments I've seen here, the public is completely misinformed and ignorant of the stakes.
  - freyr 7y ago
    Sorry, but this "study" is fluff. I've worked in telecom and for the DOD. There are many people in these organizations whose careers depend on continual telecom infrastructure upgrades, and so they spend their days writing reports like these. They're filled with scare tactics about being left behind, but there's virtually no substantive discussion about the tangible benefits of 5G. There's some vague references to IOT, but this just further discredits the report IMO because IOT data tends to be small, adoption of IOT tends to be overstated, and I've seen no compelling evidence that IOT is threatening to exhaust the capacity of our network infrastructure. The actual threat here is that there are only three cellular networking companies (Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia), none of which are US-based, and Huawei has taken the lead. But buying a bunch of Ericsson/Nokia equipment and rolling out 5G is not going to fix this. I worked for one of the three companies in Silicon Valley for several years. They paid a non-competitive salary with no stock options, and eventually the skilled people left for greener pastures. The company survives on hiring naive recent graduates who are here on Visas and have limited job mobility. I don't have high expectations for them, and the U.S. buying more 5G equipment from them will not fix the underlying problems.

reaperducer 7y ago

The US saying "we don't need it" is basically signing away hundreds of billions of dollars of economic value and wealth transfer. The U.S. isn't saying "we don't need it." The U.S. is saying, "We're a massively large country with a lot of currently underserved areas. How about we concentrate on finishing the 2G, 3G, and 4G rollouts; and we'll do 5G when and where it makes sense?" The United States isn't Luxembourg. We're not going to cover entire nation with a few dozen base stations. You're talking about hundreds of thousands of stations. Plus, how far "behind" can any country be since the first large scale deployment (according to Wikipedia) was only three months ago?

corodra 7y ago
You, this, everything. Upvote. After 50+ years of latest tech advancements, everyone keeps forgetting this about America. It's like people think history has nothing to teach us about future tech.
jorblumesea 7y ago
The US doesn't need to implement 5G everywhere to be a leader in the field or take advantage of the technology. Just about every major city is an obvious candidate. This isn't an all or nothing thing. We can continue 4G roll out in rural areas while 5G gets kicked off. If we wait until the entire US is ready for 5G we'll have lost the race. Which is exactly what the article points out. It's a winner take all game. Look at the current state of the internet. The US is a leader in cloud services, yet many rural areas lack fast internet. One doesn't preclude the other. The argument that the US should cede leadership in the tech space because some places don't need 5G (may never need it, or are not ready for it) is absurd. edit: please read this: https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/04/2002109654/-1/-1/0/DIB_5G_STUDY_04.04.19.PDF https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/04/2002109654/-1/-1/0/DIB...

freyr 7y ago

We've reached the point where faster last-mile speeds have diminishing returns. In the past, faster transfer speeds have always been a bottleneck for emerging technologies (supporting a progression from text, to images, to audio, to video and streaming audio, streaming 4K video). But we've saturated our sensory inputs, and now nobody really knows what to do with faster last-mile speeds. The networking companies tried pitching everyone on the idea that VR/AR would be the next big thing and require major investment in 5G. But that was hogwash, and networking speed is not what's holding back VR adoption. > Whether we think we need it or not, why would we willingly give up the chance to capture value from the next emerging tech? Because we have a limited amount of resources for investment? Because we can weigh the pros and cons and future potential, and allocate money towards things we actually need?

jorblumesea 7y ago
If you read this study: https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/04/2002109654/-1/-1/0/DIB_5G_STUDY_04.04.19.PDF https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/04/2002109654/-1/-1/0/DIB... It's pretty clear that most people saying "we don't need 5g" or "we have better things to do" are completely wrong. The implications of losing the 5G race are enormous, from economic to national security. To the point where some are calling for a "Manhattan project" for wireless. Based on the comments I've seen here, the public is completely misinformed and ignorant of the stakes.
- freyr 7y ago
  Sorry, but this "study" is fluff. I've worked in telecom and for the DOD. There are many people in these organizations whose careers depend on continual telecom infrastructure upgrades, and so they spend their days writing reports like these. They're filled with scare tactics about being left behind, but there's virtually no substantive discussion about the tangible benefits of 5G. There's some vague references to IOT, but this just further discredits the report IMO because IOT data tends to be small, adoption of IOT tends to be overstated, and I've seen no compelling evidence that IOT is threatening to exhaust the capacity of our network infrastructure. The actual threat here is that there are only three cellular networking companies (Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia), none of which are US-based, and Huawei has taken the lead. But buying a bunch of Ericsson/Nokia equipment and rolling out 5G is not going to fix this. I worked for one of the three companies in Silicon Valley for several years. They paid a non-competitive salary with no stock options, and eventually the skilled people left for greener pastures. The company survives on hiring naive recent graduates who are here on Visas and have limited job mobility. I don't have high expectations for them, and the U.S. buying more 5G equipment from them will not fix the underlying problems.