7 ms·

Everything I've heard about it indicates that it's a trash technology. Unless you're standing next to an emitter, it's no faster than 4G and potentially even sl

Everything I've heard about it indicates that it's a trash technology. Unless you're standing next to an emitter, it's no faster than 4G and potentially even slower. Like you walk one block or behind a wall and it's not good anymore. So you gotta put one of these up on every block. I'm banking on it being a complete dud, like 3D televisions.

renaudg 7y ago
Maybe you'll be interested to hear from actual 5G users before making uninformed claims. I have home wireless broadband in central London (no other good broadband offering in my street) and was upgraded from 4G to 5G last week. I went from an average of 5-10Mbps at peak times and 20Mbps max on 4G, to 150-250Mbps peak time and 350MBps max on 5G, on the same carrier (Three). Enough said.
- wikibob 7y ago
  How did you manage to get upgraded?
  - renaudg 7y ago
    It's available commercially. http://www.three.co.uk/5g http://www.three.co.uk/5g
- hyperbovine 7y ago
  Is it? I don’t really see how that contradicts what op was saying.
- ptero 7y ago
  But does it matter for you? I know it would not for me. I can certainly find counterexamples, but for me the last leg bandwidth is seldom the bottleneck. My 2c.
  - renaudg 7y ago
    Back in the day I didn't think upgrading from a 56K PSTN modem to DSL broadband would matter that much to me. I was naively thinking in terms of downloading things a bit faster, the classic futurologist mistake of seeing things through today's frame of reference. What happened instead is that it enabled Youtube, Skype, Facetime, and that did change the world.
- jhncls 7y ago
  Maybe it just works fast because there still are only a very limited number of users? And will speeds and latencies drop as the airspace gets more saturated?
  - renaudg 7y ago
    I believe 5G handles congestion much better. But even if the speed drops, it will still be an order of magnitude faster than 4G. Absolutely worth it.
  - apcragg 7y ago
    In short - some but not really. 5G NR allows for extremely efficient resource block allocation and can handle ~10x more concurrent users than 4G. The latency should not degrade as long as the carriers don't do weird things with traffic allocation - the standard allows for ~4ms worst case latency.
- kube-system 7y ago
  How is real-world throughput across the internet? I have a gigabit pipe that works just fine on a speed test, but most real-world usage doesn’t go that fast because of bottlenecks elsewhere.
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  I have 150Mbps right now (checked on fast.com) with 4G in Central Denver. It’s not about the number before the G, but whether the carriers are building enough infrastructure to support it.
  - renaudg 7y ago
    It is definitely about the number before the G. With perfect infrastructure investment like what your carrier seems to have done with 4G in Denver, 5G could reach 1-2GBps. In other words, real world imperfect 5G is ten times better than 4G with all stars aligned.
    - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
      It doesn't look like like your old "4G" was legitimate full performance LTE. Cell carriers lie and demur about what performance they actually provide. You can't trust the number to mean anything.
      - soulofmischief 7y ago
        I don't know much about the specifics behind 5G but if asciident's claim is true then towers on every block should perform very well under high load. What kind of performance are you referring to? Throughput? Latency? Availability? Reliability?
      - renaudg 7y ago
        It was definitely a busy area and dozens of Mbps are more typical on 4G. My point is that real world 5G is an order of magnitude faster than real world 4G, much like 4G was in comparison to 3G.
        inimino 7y ago
        Your 5G, and your 4G. That doesn't mean it is the 5G that is the difference, unless you did an exhaustive root cause investigation of the poor performance of the 4G.
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  "Maybe you'll be interested to hear from actual 5G users instead making uninformed claims." Claims from "what I've heard" /are/ informed claims; your anecdotal information doesn't automatically beat other people's anecdotal information.
- asciident 7y ago
  I appreciate your perspective but I did base my comments on what actual 5G users told me. Here's a video review that captures about what I said: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CTUs_2hq6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CTUs_2hq6Y But I will add your data point to my opinion of 5G.
apcragg 7y ago
You have heard wrong - it's amusing that you're so confident in its failure despite having the wrong information. There are two phases in the 5G NR standard. The first phase relies on some elements of the LTE control plane to coordinate data services. These data services use new numerologies for their OFDM modulation, vastly more flexible resource block, allocation, improved error control coding, lower maximum latency, better channel allocation, and standardized MIMO support - all of which will improve reliability and throughput, especially in crowded channel conditions. Phase 2 formally introduces millimeter wave signaling - this is what does primarily propagates through line of sight (LOS) channels. Clever beam forming and beamsteering can alleviate this to an extent but these cells are intended for dense urban environments or interiors of large buildings. These will supplement the lower frequency bands when available but 5G NR devices will still use the lowband when mmWave is unavailable. Phase 2 also switches over to an entirely 5G NR backed control plane (Standalone, or 5G NR SA) which has its own reliability and throughput improvements though these will all happen in the lowband since mmWave isn't suited for these tasks.
- rgrieselhuber 7y ago
  Do you work in the industry?
  - apcragg 7y ago
    Not for the big telecomm's but I design parts of the radios and DSP algorithms implementing the major cellular technologies.
    - rgrieselhuber 7y ago
      What are your thoughts on the safety concerns?
      - apcragg 7y ago
        Not my area of expertise. The main study I'm aware of showing some harmful affects uses an unrealistic amount of power and curiously only showed effects for male mice. I'm hesitant to dismiss it, because effects from heating caused by non-ionizing radiation are well documented but that amount of power is just not present in cellular systems whether that's LTE or 5G NR.

renaudg 7y ago

Maybe you'll be interested to hear from actual 5G users before making uninformed claims. I have home wireless broadband in central London (no other good broadband offering in my street) and was upgraded from 4G to 5G last week. I went from an average of 5-10Mbps at peak times and 20Mbps max on 4G, to 150-250Mbps peak time and 350MBps max on 5G, on the same carrier (Three). Enough said.

wikibob 7y ago
How did you manage to get upgraded?
- renaudg 7y ago
  It's available commercially. http://www.three.co.uk/5g http://www.three.co.uk/5g
hyperbovine 7y ago
Is it? I don’t really see how that contradicts what op was saying.
ptero 7y ago
But does it matter for you? I know it would not for me. I can certainly find counterexamples, but for me the last leg bandwidth is seldom the bottleneck. My 2c.
- renaudg 7y ago
  Back in the day I didn't think upgrading from a 56K PSTN modem to DSL broadband would matter that much to me. I was naively thinking in terms of downloading things a bit faster, the classic futurologist mistake of seeing things through today's frame of reference. What happened instead is that it enabled Youtube, Skype, Facetime, and that did change the world.
jhncls 7y ago
Maybe it just works fast because there still are only a very limited number of users? And will speeds and latencies drop as the airspace gets more saturated?
- renaudg 7y ago
  I believe 5G handles congestion much better. But even if the speed drops, it will still be an order of magnitude faster than 4G. Absolutely worth it.
- apcragg 7y ago
  In short - some but not really. 5G NR allows for extremely efficient resource block allocation and can handle ~10x more concurrent users than 4G. The latency should not degrade as long as the carriers don't do weird things with traffic allocation - the standard allows for ~4ms worst case latency.
kube-system 7y ago
How is real-world throughput across the internet? I have a gigabit pipe that works just fine on a speed test, but most real-world usage doesn’t go that fast because of bottlenecks elsewhere.
ilikehurdles 7y ago
I have 150Mbps right now (checked on fast.com) with 4G in Central Denver. It’s not about the number before the G, but whether the carriers are building enough infrastructure to support it.
- renaudg 7y ago
  It is definitely about the number before the G. With perfect infrastructure investment like what your carrier seems to have done with 4G in Denver, 5G could reach 1-2GBps. In other words, real world imperfect 5G is ten times better than 4G with all stars aligned.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    It doesn't look like like your old "4G" was legitimate full performance LTE. Cell carriers lie and demur about what performance they actually provide. You can't trust the number to mean anything.
    - soulofmischief 7y ago
      I don't know much about the specifics behind 5G but if asciident's claim is true then towers on every block should perform very well under high load. What kind of performance are you referring to? Throughput? Latency? Availability? Reliability?
    - renaudg 7y ago
      It was definitely a busy area and dozens of Mbps are more typical on 4G. My point is that real world 5G is an order of magnitude faster than real world 4G, much like 4G was in comparison to 3G.
      - inimino 7y ago
        Your 5G, and your 4G. That doesn't mean it is the 5G that is the difference, unless you did an exhaustive root cause investigation of the poor performance of the 4G.
jodrellblank 7y ago
"Maybe you'll be interested to hear from actual 5G users instead making uninformed claims." Claims from "what I've heard" /are/ informed claims; your anecdotal information doesn't automatically beat other people's anecdotal information.
asciident 7y ago
I appreciate your perspective but I did base my comments on what actual 5G users told me. Here's a video review that captures about what I said: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CTUs_2hq6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CTUs_2hq6Y But I will add your data point to my opinion of 5G.

apcragg 7y ago

You have heard wrong - it's amusing that you're so confident in its failure despite having the wrong information. There are two phases in the 5G NR standard. The first phase relies on some elements of the LTE control plane to coordinate data services. These data services use new numerologies for their OFDM modulation, vastly more flexible resource block, allocation, improved error control coding, lower maximum latency, better channel allocation, and standardized MIMO support - all of which will improve reliability and throughput, especially in crowded channel conditions. Phase 2 formally introduces millimeter wave signaling - this is what does primarily propagates through line of sight (LOS) channels. Clever beam forming and beamsteering can alleviate this to an extent but these cells are intended for dense urban environments or interiors of large buildings. These will supplement the lower frequency bands when available but 5G NR devices will still use the lowband when mmWave is unavailable. Phase 2 also switches over to an entirely 5G NR backed control plane (Standalone, or 5G NR SA) which has its own reliability and throughput improvements though these will all happen in the lowband since mmWave isn't suited for these tasks.

rgrieselhuber 7y ago
Do you work in the industry?
- apcragg 7y ago
  Not for the big telecomm's but I design parts of the radios and DSP algorithms implementing the major cellular technologies.
  - rgrieselhuber 7y ago
    What are your thoughts on the safety concerns?
    - apcragg 7y ago
      Not my area of expertise. The main study I'm aware of showing some harmful affects uses an unrealistic amount of power and curiously only showed effects for male mice. I'm hesitant to dismiss it, because effects from heating caused by non-ionizing radiation are well documented but that amount of power is just not present in cellular systems whether that's LTE or 5G NR.