16 ms·

Funny how people even on a tech website seems to be stuck at "640 KB is enough for everyone". When technology gets a lot cheaper, a lot more powerful, a lot le

by chvid 7y ago

Funny how people even on a tech website seems to be stuck at "640 KB is enough for everyone". When technology gets a lot cheaper, a lot more powerful, a lot less power consuming, the magic of the market creates completely new categories of use that unlock new demand at consumers. Right now your phone has a sim-card. There might be one in your tablet or your car too. But there is not one in your TV or the lights in your bathroom. But at some point telecommunications technology is going to be so cheap that drawing a wire to connect a button to a light is going to be the expensive option. 5G is a step on the way.

wongarsu 7y ago
> But there is not one in your TV or the lights in your bathroom. But at some point telecommunications technology is going to be so cheap that drawing a wire to connect a button to a light is going to be the expensive option. For stationary objects like TVs and lights we already have wifi, and a range of simpler low-power options used by IoT basestations. What does 5G bring to the table here?
- dwaltrip 7y ago
  That's the point. We don't know all of the future applications. But it's very unlikely to be nothing interesting. Do you think everyday appliances in the 50 years will function essentially the same as today? It's a very general enhancement in capability with lots of potential but currently unknown use cases. I say this while also recognizing that most IoT stuff today is overhyped BS.
  - mcguire 7y ago
    Yes? A refrigerator will still keep things cold. A stove will still heat things up. An AC will still AC. Other than home automation systems that go belly up when their servers go offline, most things do the same thing they did 50 years ago. 5g isn't revolutionary.
    - jnordwick 7y ago
      Doing something substantially faster almost always leads to a revolution in it: internet, manufacturing, cars, planes, computers. At every step, you could always say "it is just faster". Only in retrospect can you ever see how world changing "faster" was.
- liability 7y ago
  WiFi makes it easy[ish] for consumers to firewall their IoT bullshit to inhibit spying. IoT devices with cellular radios promises to remove even this small level of control from consumers.
  - pas 7y ago
    You can already buy a nanocell/femtocell. Probably with 5G and "LTE-WLAN aggregation" it'll eventually be easy to secure your network. At least if enough people are willing to care about, advocate and pay for this feature.
- llukas 7y ago
  Manufacturer can bypass any user firewall.
inimino 7y ago
> drawing a wire to connect a button to a light How are you getting power to the light?
- rorykoehler 7y ago
  Wirelessly?
  - chvid 7y ago
    Or a battery maybe? I don't know ... if you try to think ahead of what is within the realm of physics but not yet economically or technologically viable there are actually quite a few possibilities. For the record. I don't think that there will be a physical sim card in your bathroom light but I think that all these wireless communication standards (infrared remote controls, wifi, bluetooth, 4g mobile data ...) will converge into one and the use of that will be so cheap that it will be used everywhere.
  - inimino 7y ago
    So you'd rather run the mains power to a device that beams power through the air to a light fixture rather than just run a wire to the light fixture?
  - liability 7y ago
    I hope you're aware that uBeam is a scam which cannot work.
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      There are perfectly valid electromagnetic methods for doing wireless power. Not that you'd ever use them for a light bulb.
- wongarsu 7y ago
  Being able to mount buttons anywhere is nice, and Philips even has a switch that works without batteries (the power for the Zigbee radio comes from the button press). Sending a signal over 5G to the internet and back however sounds like peak inefficiency for two devices in the same room that could choose any local wireless protocol
JustSomeNobody 7y ago
> But at some point telecommunications technology is going to be so cheap that drawing a wire to connect a button to a light is going to be the expensive option. But it won't be cheap for the consumer. At best, our data plans will stay the same price. But more likely they'll rise and, well, I just don't think people give a crap enough about having a sim card in their TV to pay the extra. Maybe if you make SF money, but most people don't. I think, too, people are starting to get teched out. Just a little for now, but it's happening.
- chvid 7y ago
  Where I live 4G is good and so cheap that I am thinking about dropping my DSL connection. I would still need a wifi-router as my laptop and my tv does not support 4G. But my guess is eventually those devices will support xG mobile data and my wifi-router will be a thing of the past.
  - wideasleep1 7y ago
    Been doing this for a few years now..AT&T UL data hotspot SIM ($20.mo, aka 'Mobley' plan) plugged into a TMobile ASUS AC1900 router...tripled my speed of Sonic DSL, for 1/3 the cost of Sonic DSL. Do it.
    - mycall 7y ago
      AT&T UL data hotspot SIM $25 is 3GB per month. @ $50/mo for 10GB means no video streaming (eg. Netflix). DSL gives you 1.5Mb 24/7. I went the Sprint 50GB (really 100GB) @ $60 per month.
- jdietrich 7y ago
  >But it won't be cheap for the consumer. At best, our data plans will stay the same price. ...for entirely political reasons. Here in the UK, you can get unlimited 4G data (with 5G in some areas) for $25 a month. If you pay through the nose for shitty service, take it up with Ajit Pai.
delecti 7y ago
Obviously sentiments like "640 KB is enough for everyone" hilariously failed to predict the value of faster and more powerful computers. At the same time, most people's personal use of computers hasn't kept up with the capabilities of the high-end of consumer grade products. Lots of people only really use a web browser, and even an ad-infested website will run fine on most 10-20 year old computers. You can say "we don't need to frantically rush to deploy 5G" without also saying "nobody will ever benefit from 5G".
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > most people's personal use of computers hasn't kept up with the capabilities of the high-end of consumer grade products Increasingly, consumers don’t even own a personal computer. (Unless we’re being pedantic and calling our phones PCs.) Asking what a PC will do with faster mobile internet will be misleading.
  - liability 7y ago
    I feel that you're deliberately missing the point. Most users don't max out their '4G' connections either.
    - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
      > Most users don't Max out their '4G' connections either But sometimes, some do. That margin is what describes new opportunity.
      - liability 7y ago
        That margin is slim. For many users, vanishingly thin. Somebody like you or I might frequently max our our cellular connections, but I wager most users never do. And how would they? Streaming 4k YouTube videos onto a screen smaller than a postcard? It just won't make a difference for them.
        7y ago
cesarb 7y ago
> Right now your phone has a sim-card. [...] But there is not one in your TV or the lights in your bathroom. But at some point telecommunications technology is going to be so cheap that drawing a wire to connect a button to a light is going to be the expensive option. You don't need a SIM card or 5G for that. Technologies like 802.15.4, or even simpler, are more than enough.
- liability 7y ago
  Ethernet over Powerline LANs could also theoretically be used for those applications, since your TV, lightbulbs, etc will be running off mains power anyway.
  - labawi 7y ago
    Please don't use powerline broadband noise sources.
criddell 7y ago
> Right now your phone has a sim-card. There might be one in your tablet or your car too. But there is not one in your TV or the lights in your bathroom. But at some point telecommunications technology is going to be so cheap that drawing a wire to connect a button to a light is going to be the expensive option. Hopefully we don't get there before proper regulation of tech companies is put in place.
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  Is it not already the expensive option when a cheap microphone+chip can be embedded in a light as The Clapper? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clapper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clapper When you can have a smartbulb and a smartphone app, if you already have a smartphone and wifi access point? When you can buy a wireless doorbell system for $12 which is a free-floating button and triggers a mains powered doorbell remotely? https://www.amazon.com/wireless-doorbell/s?k=wireless+doorbell https://www.amazon.com/wireless-doorbell/s?k=wireless+doorbe... All of that is cheaper than buying, and paying a qualified electrician to run, 10m of cable to a light switch and then plaster/box/paint over it.
  - criddell 7y ago
    None of those things have SIM cards. I wonder over the long run which is better - hard wiring or using batteries?
mcguire 7y ago
5G is a step back. It's a short range link, which may be nice in a densely populated area, but is useless outside that. And it already seems like providers are rolling back 4G support in rural areas.
- esmi 7y ago
  Depends what you’re optimizing for. If you want improved bandwidth and latency it’s definitely not a step back. If you want larger cell sizes it is. The good news is they are not exclusive. One can have 5/4/3 G all coexist, as we do today. Unless the FCC wins it’s court case that is...
Koshkin 7y ago
Why have a switch on a wall, even, when you have your phone with you all the time...
- petre 7y ago
  In case someone hacks your lights potentially triggering an epileptic seizure.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    Is that the most notable example? I mean... "Around 1 in 100 people has epilepsy and of these people, around 3% have photosensitive epilepsy."
mcv 7y ago
> "But at some point telecommunications technology is going to be so cheap that drawing a wire to connect a button to a light is going to be the expensive option." It already is. I've got wireless light buttons in some rooms because it's too expensive to put new wires in the walls. It doesn't require a lot of bandwidth, though.
dreamcompiler 7y ago
I'd be happy to have all the switches in my house be networked and smart as long as the switches, the devices they control, and the network in between are under my control. But sadly they won't be because the companies that sell me the switches will want to monetize me by owning and monitoring that network. To which I say "No thanks, I'll stick with dumb switches."

by chvid 7y ago

wongarsu 7y ago

> But there is not one in your TV or the lights in your bathroom. But at some point telecommunications technology is going to be so cheap that drawing a wire to connect a button to a light is going to be the expensive option. For stationary objects like TVs and lights we already have wifi, and a range of simpler low-power options used by IoT basestations. What does 5G bring to the table here?

dwaltrip 7y ago
That's the point. We don't know all of the future applications. But it's very unlikely to be nothing interesting. Do you think everyday appliances in the 50 years will function essentially the same as today? It's a very general enhancement in capability with lots of potential but currently unknown use cases. I say this while also recognizing that most IoT stuff today is overhyped BS.
- mcguire 7y ago
  Yes? A refrigerator will still keep things cold. A stove will still heat things up. An AC will still AC. Other than home automation systems that go belly up when their servers go offline, most things do the same thing they did 50 years ago. 5g isn't revolutionary.
  - jnordwick 7y ago
    Doing something substantially faster almost always leads to a revolution in it: internet, manufacturing, cars, planes, computers. At every step, you could always say "it is just faster". Only in retrospect can you ever see how world changing "faster" was.
liability 7y ago
WiFi makes it easy[ish] for consumers to firewall their IoT bullshit to inhibit spying. IoT devices with cellular radios promises to remove even this small level of control from consumers.
- pas 7y ago
  You can already buy a nanocell/femtocell. Probably with 5G and "LTE-WLAN aggregation" it'll eventually be easy to secure your network. At least if enough people are willing to care about, advocate and pay for this feature.
llukas 7y ago
Manufacturer can bypass any user firewall.

inimino 7y ago

> drawing a wire to connect a button to a light How are you getting power to the light?

rorykoehler 7y ago
Wirelessly?
- chvid 7y ago
  Or a battery maybe? I don't know ... if you try to think ahead of what is within the realm of physics but not yet economically or technologically viable there are actually quite a few possibilities. For the record. I don't think that there will be a physical sim card in your bathroom light but I think that all these wireless communication standards (infrared remote controls, wifi, bluetooth, 4g mobile data ...) will converge into one and the use of that will be so cheap that it will be used everywhere.
- inimino 7y ago
  So you'd rather run the mains power to a device that beams power through the air to a light fixture rather than just run a wire to the light fixture?
- liability 7y ago
  I hope you're aware that uBeam is a scam which cannot work.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    There are perfectly valid electromagnetic methods for doing wireless power. Not that you'd ever use them for a light bulb.
wongarsu 7y ago
Being able to mount buttons anywhere is nice, and Philips even has a switch that works without batteries (the power for the Zigbee radio comes from the button press). Sending a signal over 5G to the internet and back however sounds like peak inefficiency for two devices in the same room that could choose any local wireless protocol

JustSomeNobody 7y ago

> But at some point telecommunications technology is going to be so cheap that drawing a wire to connect a button to a light is going to be the expensive option. But it won't be cheap for the consumer. At best, our data plans will stay the same price. But more likely they'll rise and, well, I just don't think people give a crap enough about having a sim card in their TV to pay the extra. Maybe if you make SF money, but most people don't. I think, too, people are starting to get teched out. Just a little for now, but it's happening.

chvid 7y ago
Where I live 4G is good and so cheap that I am thinking about dropping my DSL connection. I would still need a wifi-router as my laptop and my tv does not support 4G. But my guess is eventually those devices will support xG mobile data and my wifi-router will be a thing of the past.
- wideasleep1 7y ago
  Been doing this for a few years now..AT&T UL data hotspot SIM ($20.mo, aka 'Mobley' plan) plugged into a TMobile ASUS AC1900 router...tripled my speed of Sonic DSL, for 1/3 the cost of Sonic DSL. Do it.
  - mycall 7y ago
    AT&T UL data hotspot SIM $25 is 3GB per month. @ $50/mo for 10GB means no video streaming (eg. Netflix). DSL gives you 1.5Mb 24/7. I went the Sprint 50GB (really 100GB) @ $60 per month.
jdietrich 7y ago
>But it won't be cheap for the consumer. At best, our data plans will stay the same price. ...for entirely political reasons. Here in the UK, you can get unlimited 4G data (with 5G in some areas) for $25 a month. If you pay through the nose for shitty service, take it up with Ajit Pai.

delecti 7y ago

Obviously sentiments like "640 KB is enough for everyone" hilariously failed to predict the value of faster and more powerful computers. At the same time, most people's personal use of computers hasn't kept up with the capabilities of the high-end of consumer grade products. Lots of people only really use a web browser, and even an ad-infested website will run fine on most 10-20 year old computers. You can say "we don't need to frantically rush to deploy 5G" without also saying "nobody will ever benefit from 5G".

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> most people's personal use of computers hasn't kept up with the capabilities of the high-end of consumer grade products Increasingly, consumers don’t even own a personal computer. (Unless we’re being pedantic and calling our phones PCs.) Asking what a PC will do with faster mobile internet will be misleading.
- liability 7y ago
  I feel that you're deliberately missing the point. Most users don't max out their '4G' connections either.
  - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > Most users don't Max out their '4G' connections either But sometimes, some do. That margin is what describes new opportunity.
    - liability 7y ago
      That margin is slim. For many users, vanishingly thin. Somebody like you or I might frequently max our our cellular connections, but I wager most users never do. And how would they? Streaming 4k YouTube videos onto a screen smaller than a postcard? It just won't make a difference for them.
      - 7y ago

cesarb 7y ago

> Right now your phone has a sim-card. [...] But there is not one in your TV or the lights in your bathroom. But at some point telecommunications technology is going to be so cheap that drawing a wire to connect a button to a light is going to be the expensive option. You don't need a SIM card or 5G for that. Technologies like 802.15.4, or even simpler, are more than enough.

liability 7y ago
Ethernet over Powerline LANs could also theoretically be used for those applications, since your TV, lightbulbs, etc will be running off mains power anyway.
- labawi 7y ago
  Please don't use powerline broadband noise sources.

criddell 7y ago

> Right now your phone has a sim-card. There might be one in your tablet or your car too. But there is not one in your TV or the lights in your bathroom. But at some point telecommunications technology is going to be so cheap that drawing a wire to connect a button to a light is going to be the expensive option. Hopefully we don't get there before proper regulation of tech companies is put in place.

jodrellblank 7y ago
Is it not already the expensive option when a cheap microphone+chip can be embedded in a light as The Clapper? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clapper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clapper When you can have a smartbulb and a smartphone app, if you already have a smartphone and wifi access point? When you can buy a wireless doorbell system for $12 which is a free-floating button and triggers a mains powered doorbell remotely? https://www.amazon.com/wireless-doorbell/s?k=wireless+doorbell https://www.amazon.com/wireless-doorbell/s?k=wireless+doorbe... All of that is cheaper than buying, and paying a qualified electrician to run, 10m of cable to a light switch and then plaster/box/paint over it.
- criddell 7y ago
  None of those things have SIM cards. I wonder over the long run which is better - hard wiring or using batteries?

mcguire 7y ago

5G is a step back. It's a short range link, which may be nice in a densely populated area, but is useless outside that. And it already seems like providers are rolling back 4G support in rural areas.

esmi 7y ago
Depends what you’re optimizing for. If you want improved bandwidth and latency it’s definitely not a step back. If you want larger cell sizes it is. The good news is they are not exclusive. One can have 5/4/3 G all coexist, as we do today. Unless the FCC wins it’s court case that is...

Koshkin 7y ago

Why have a switch on a wall, even, when you have your phone with you all the time...

petre 7y ago
In case someone hacks your lights potentially triggering an epileptic seizure.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  Is that the most notable example? I mean... "Around 1 in 100 people has epilepsy and of these people, around 3% have photosensitive epilepsy."

mcv 7y ago

> "But at some point telecommunications technology is going to be so cheap that drawing a wire to connect a button to a light is going to be the expensive option." It already is. I've got wireless light buttons in some rooms because it's too expensive to put new wires in the walls. It doesn't require a lot of bandwidth, though.

dreamcompiler 7y ago

I'd be happy to have all the switches in my house be networked and smart as long as the switches, the devices they control, and the network in between are under my control. But sadly they won't be because the companies that sell me the switches will want to monetize me by owning and monitoring that network. To which I say "No thanks, I'll stick with dumb switches."