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With flagship phone sales plummeting, the industry hopes 5g will save them. I really don’t know anyone that has told me they want or need 5g. With current drac

With flagship phone sales plummeting, the industry hopes 5g will save them. I really don’t know anyone that has told me they want or need 5g. With current draconian data plans of just a few gb what use would 5g be to the average consumer?

rayiner 7y ago
> With current draconian data plans of just a few gb what use would 5g be to the average consumer? I have no idea where this argument comes from. Was 4G useless because carriers stuck with the same data caps we had from the 3G era? Today, the average U.S. smartphone subscriber uses 6GB/month of cellular data, well below the 20GB+ soft-cap of every provider's unlimited plan: https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/10/28/heres-how-much-smartphone-data-americans-are-using.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/10/28/heres-how-much-sma.... With 5G, those caps will go up further. Verizon isn't even applying the 22GB 4G throttling limit to 5G yet: https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/13/18263593/verizon-5g-service-price-location-launch-date https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/13/18263593/verizon-5g-servi....
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- DataWorker 7y ago
  No, you are totally misrepresenting the link you posted. Only those who have paid for an unlimited plan hit 6GB. The average person has no need for this sort of service. It’s a way to wring more money out of cellphone users, already an area long overdue for better consumer protection. Companies want 5g, consumers do not.
- JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
  You couldn’t do what you needed to on 3g since it wouldn’t support video streaming etc. What killer app does 5g have that 4g doesn’t already do? When I’m on my phone and have good LTE strength I never find myself saying “I wish this was downloading faster.” If it was for a home pc sure, but there’s only so much I need to do on a phone. Maybe I’m being really short-sighted and people will VR interact soon on 5g.
  - jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
    My guess is that everyone is itching to deploy 5G in order to expand the surveillance (advertising) industry. It seems pretty clear that they want every object in the world to constantly be observing and reporting images, sound, temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, etc. 5G helps to do this silently, without your permission. I can choose whether or not my computer can connect to my IP network. Good luck disconnecting your car or your washing machine when they each have modem chips soldered into their motherboards.
- SomeOldThrow 7y ago
  Is there any reason to upgrade when it works fine and is already expensive?
thelazydogsback 7y ago
We need 5G to support small 8K displays, which we also don't need...
jotm 7y ago
I'm on gigabit fiber and can't saturate it most of the time since now servers become the bottleneck (speed limited since they can't serve everyone at a nice 300Mbps+), I get 40Mbps on 4G, which I never saturate either. It's good for the evergrowing number of users though, average speed for everyone should improve once most people use 5G. Plus, far future with AR/VR and whatnot.

rayiner 7y ago

> With current draconian data plans of just a few gb what use would 5g be to the average consumer? I have no idea where this argument comes from. Was 4G useless because carriers stuck with the same data caps we had from the 3G era? Today, the average U.S. smartphone subscriber uses 6GB/month of cellular data, well below the 20GB+ soft-cap of every provider's unlimited plan: https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/10/28/heres-how-much-smartphone-data-americans-are-using.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/10/28/heres-how-much-sma.... With 5G, those caps will go up further. Verizon isn't even applying the 22GB 4G throttling limit to 5G yet: https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/13/18263593/verizon-5g-service-price-location-launch-date https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/13/18263593/verizon-5g-servi....

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
DataWorker 7y ago
No, you are totally misrepresenting the link you posted. Only those who have paid for an unlimited plan hit 6GB. The average person has no need for this sort of service. It’s a way to wring more money out of cellphone users, already an area long overdue for better consumer protection. Companies want 5g, consumers do not.
JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
You couldn’t do what you needed to on 3g since it wouldn’t support video streaming etc. What killer app does 5g have that 4g doesn’t already do? When I’m on my phone and have good LTE strength I never find myself saying “I wish this was downloading faster.” If it was for a home pc sure, but there’s only so much I need to do on a phone. Maybe I’m being really short-sighted and people will VR interact soon on 5g.
- jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
  My guess is that everyone is itching to deploy 5G in order to expand the surveillance (advertising) industry. It seems pretty clear that they want every object in the world to constantly be observing and reporting images, sound, temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, etc. 5G helps to do this silently, without your permission. I can choose whether or not my computer can connect to my IP network. Good luck disconnecting your car or your washing machine when they each have modem chips soldered into their motherboards.
SomeOldThrow 7y ago
Is there any reason to upgrade when it works fine and is already expensive?

thelazydogsback 7y ago

We need 5G to support small 8K displays, which we also don't need...

jotm 7y ago

I'm on gigabit fiber and can't saturate it most of the time since now servers become the bottleneck (speed limited since they can't serve everyone at a nice 300Mbps+), I get 40Mbps on 4G, which I never saturate either. It's good for the evergrowing number of users though, average speed for everyone should improve once most people use 5G. Plus, far future with AR/VR and whatnot.