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Australia’s 4G network is faster than 5G: study
- reaperducer 7y agoI've found that 3G in Beatty, Nevada is faster than 4G in Pasadena, California. (The downside is that you have to live in Beatty, Nevada. ;)) I've noticed these kinds of discrepancies every time I leave a major city. I don't trust the G anymore. It's all either really good, or really terrible from mile to mile regardless of how it's branded.
- jmckib 7y agoI'm assuming this is a case of unusually slow 4G, and not fast 3G? I travel frequently and I've noticed that sometimes my 4G speeds are very slow even when I have good signal strength, always in rural areas. I'm not sure what explains that.
- fullofstack 7y agoThe mast that your phone communicates with doesn't always have lots of fiber bandwidth. Sometimes it's only connected to other masts using microwave links (which could be outdated).
- JohnFen 7y agoI've always considered "#G" to be just a marketing term, and therefore largely meaningless.
- grecy 7y agoIt absolutely is. I worked at a Telco that installed extremely old hardware, but because it was theoretically capable of achieving speeds that were similar to the low-end of 3G, they branded and marketed it as 3G. Marketing loved it. When you pulled out your phone it clearly said "2G" on the screen, but you were paying for 3G.
- nikanj 7y agoA city street in Beatty is faster than a 8-lane highway in LA
- p49k 7y agoShould be noted that one stated advantage of 5G over 4G is latency, which is certainly a component of determining what is “faster.”
- dzhiurgis 7y agoPointless didactics, but latency determines who is quicker, not faster :) Medium (wireless vs copper vs fiber) defines who is faster.
- tpmx 7y ago"The United States, meanwhile, enjoyed a 5G maximum speed of 1815Mbps – about three times as fast as 4G users’ maximum speed." This report seems to be lacking a reality check. (Is it practically possible to get ~600 Mbps from LTE? Exotic bundles like LTE MIMO don't really count unless they're actually offered as part of regular plans.)
- stagger87 7y agoAt the 30.72 MS/s rate, 2k FFT size, 1201 subcarriers occupied per FFT, QAM256 on each subcarrier, 4x4 MIMO, you get ~576Mbps max throughput (pure number of bits transferred per second). This ignores encoding, cyclic prefix, and all the other overheads associated with the LTE protocol.
- tpmx 7y agoSo I guess that's where the article author got the "LTE speed". It was probably from some aussie mobile operator's "theoretical maximum speed" number or similar.
- sasaf5 7y agothere's also carrier aggregation, you could multiply that throughput by the number of carrier components provided by the telco (rarely more than 2 or 3).
- djsumdog 7y agoYou pretty much need a direct line-of-sight to the 5G tower, without trees in the way, or clouds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CTUs_2hq6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CTUs_2hq6Y
- GhettoMaestro 7y agoThat video had so much bullshit I had to stop. 1ms ping? Get a clue dumbass. Physics.
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- ricardobeat 7y agoAmazingly the article refrains from providing any numbers for Australia. From the original report: - 5G: 792mbps - 4G: 950mbps https://www.opensignal.com/blog/2019/07/08/5g-boosts-the-maximum-real-world-download-speed-by-up-to-27-times-4g-users-top-speeds https://www.opensignal.com/blog/2019/07/08/5g-boosts-the-max...
- jwilliams 7y agoAustralia has the Telstra "4GX" and Optus "4G plus" networks - it's AU 4G with its own spectrum and band aggregation. I have seen gigabit speeds on 4GX - once, when it was new and the spectrum was hardly used. Since the reports are quoting real world maximums, I'm sure that number is true - but doesn't reflect your average experience.
- contingencies 7y agoIIRC the largest ISP in Australia is Vodafone who provide more mobile IP connectivity than anyone else. (Source: Personal discussion with senior management, ~5? years ago)
- mcbridematt 7y agoWhoever told you that was being very liberal with the truth, Vodafone has always been #3 in the Australian mobile market since they started, they were hemorrhaging subscriptions for most of this decade due to underinvestment (known as "Vodafail"). They only started providing wireline services very recently, one of the few "western" markets they were not a full telco player in.
- contingencies 7y agoThe discussion was around mobile IP connections. I am not sure if your calculation includes for example (just guessing!) other mobile carrier branded services using their network (MNVO[0]), non consumer (eg. IOT type or vehicular) mobile nodes, etc. I would trust this person implicitly as I used to work for them, they are an engineer not a salesperson and they are not known to extend the truth. While no information is infallible and perhaps they were wrong, given their position, however, I doubt it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_mobile_virtual_network_operators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_mobile_virt... Edit: Seems my info was bad. Disappointing! Latest stats page 9 @ http://clients3.weblink.com.au/pdf/HTA/02127798.pdf http://clients3.weblink.com.au/pdf/HTA/02127798.pdf and page 31 @ https://www.acma.gov.au/-/media/Research-and-Analysis/Report/pdf/Communications-report-2017-18-pdf.pdf?la=en https://www.acma.gov.au/-/media/Research-and-Analysis/Report... They are indeed third (last!), though currently the fastest growing. Their MNVO base = 350K customers, total = just under 6M customers. Guess it shows how long I've been outta dodge :)
- gzu 7y agoLTE seems plenty fast enough for typical phone usage. Not sure how much 5G will improve mobile experience in the near future without massive advances in VR. Is all this telecom positioning to setup a replacement for landline internet service?
- mfer 7y ago5G can handle more devices being connected. All those smart things that want to phone home. It's likely 5G will let many more devices be connected and phoning home without using our personal internet connections. I wonder what it would look like for my TV to be connected and sending my viewing habits back to the manufacturer without a method for me to turn it off. 5G makes this idea much easier. Phone companies can get contracts with all these device manufacturers and make money that way.
- Flockster 7y agoSo in the future hacker TVs will be covered with tin foil on the back?
- birdyrooster 7y agoI need a firewall for my house to let 5G signals thru.
- reaperducer 7y agoI wonder what it would look like for my TV to be connected and sending my viewing habits back to the manufacturer without a method for me to turn it off. If you have cable, satellite, or streaming this already happens. The only way to watch TV without being watched is to use an antenna or local storage.
- krn 7y ago> The only way to watch TV without being watched is to use an antenna or local storage. Pi-hole[1] might still help at the moment, until the TVs start coming with their own SIM cards. In any case, I wouldn't use a TV as anything more than an extra large monitor for Raspberry Pi running something like Kodi[2]. [1] https://pi-hole.net/ https://pi-hole.net/ [2] https://kodi.tv/ https://kodi.tv/
- mfer 7y agoThis is where marketing and confusion can come in. There is what the technology is capable of and then the network backing it. For example, where I live I get a fraction of what 4G can provide. The reason is the cell phone providers network. I could get far faster speeds out of 4G if the providers provided it. 5G has some positives and negatives over 4G. For example, 5G frequencies interfere with the detection of water vapor for weather forecasts, are hyper local so lower latency but need to have towers in every neighborhood, can handle more devices connected (so all the hardware reporting back to manufacturers and others can phone home), and has the potential for faster speeds. In theory, 5G is faster than 4G. In practice, I'm not likely to see the faster and I don't need it for my day to day activity.
- selectodude 7y ago5G is just a protocol. It'll be rolled out on low band frequencies because it is more efficient than LTE, but re-farming spectrum is a big deal so they're going to roll it out on high band frequencies first.
- kurtisc 7y agoI thought 5G and 4G are both LTE?
- Synaesthesia 7y agoNo, 5G is a new standard. It's kinda confusing because there are so many standards, 3G, 3.5G, 3.95G, 4G etc.
- snuxoll 7y agoIt’s also hella confusing because there’s not a marketing or real protocol name attached beyond the “5G” moniker, at least not that I could easily find. I can name GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSPA, 1xRTT, EVDO, WiMAX, and LTE off the top of my head and tell you what “G” they are associated with (1, 2, 3, 3.5, 2, 3, 4, 4 respectively). 5G is a vaporous term with no real definition right now other than “whatever the fuck the ITU has decided to call 5G”. EDIT: I guess they’re calling the air interface “5G NR (New Radio)”. How memorable. Guess with everyone finally getting on the same page with LTE in the current generation they felt no need to come up with a real name.
- thereare5lights 7y agoThis is a clickbait title. Their 5G network is worse than their 4G network. Their 4G network is not faster than 5G in general.
- Synaesthesia 7y agoTheir 4G beats a lot of other countries 5G. But yes theoretically 5G is a lot better and generally should be faster. It’s also got other capabilities like support for higher density (devices per sq km)
- contingencies 7y agoAustralian density is significantly less than Asia. In China FWIW on typical mobile devices I often observe connectivity issues with planes landing, trains moving and so forth. Especially near borders (HK/Macau).
- test1978 7y agoSame in India 4G was slower than 3G in the beginning
- duxup 7y agoI remember when I got an early 4G phone on Verizon (I think it was a Droid something or other). It was INSANELY fast. Presumably because I was one of the few folks on it and Verizon had built out all the towers and bandwidth was ready for growth. As time passed the performance suffered, granted 4G seems plenty for me most of the time.
- ip26 7y agoDon't forget bloat. Back in the 3G days no one would wait for your 50MB website to load. But once 4G became commonplace, what's the harm in adding another 10MB of assets? Basically, as an early adopter you were a 4G user visiting the 3G web. But now it's the 4G web.
- bscphil 7y agoIt still is insanely fast, from my perspective. I get at least 50 Mbps down, which is just crazy which you think about the fact that it's a low power handheld device. Enough to stream 4k video, if I wanted to (I don't). More than enough to load even the absurdly large web framework of the month in less than a second. I can't see ever wanting faster Internet on my phone.
- dzhiurgis 7y agoProviders in Lithuania now sell mobile broadband. We’ve got one for a marina with 60 boats and 8 cameras. They setup little router with a bit more serious antenna. We get ~130/30 for €25 per month - all actually unlimited data.
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- rb808 7y agoAnyone know of a dirt cheap 3G-only plan in the USA? I saw some in Europe and its just what I need really.
- eloisius 7y agoI use Ting wireless for a home made cellphone project. It costs me about $14/mo
- JohnJamesRambo 7y agoI used redpocket.com for a plan for my Nokia 3310 3G. I think it was $10 a month.
- bacon_waffle 7y agoHow do you like the Nokia 3310 3G? Have been tempted to buy one of those (or the 8110 4G bananaphone), main hesitation is around losing Signal and maps(?) though I understand there are ways to sideload an old version of Google Maps to the 3310.
- JohnJamesRambo 7y agoI loved it. I was so free. Unfortunately I had to go back to a smartphone in order to monitor security cameras and my Simplisafe alarm system at my new business. I wish I could go back.
- p4bl0 7y agoNot in the US but in France I have a 5€/month plan that includes unlimited calls/sms/mms and 40GB of data either in 3G or 4G (after that I still got access to Internet but the bandwidth is supposed to be reduced, I never got there). It also includes unlimited calls and sms from EU countries (+ a few others) to French numbers, and 3GB of data in 3G or 4G usable in those countries if I travel. I guess there may be cheap plans like this that you could use. It's generally operated by MVNOs [1], you could look for those. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virtual_network_operator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virtual_network_operato...
- djsumdog 7y agoI wish they wouldn't just use '4G' and '5G' as if they were one concrete thing. List the actual individual protocols. Sprint use to offer 4G in the United States that was Wi-Max based, but now almost all 4G is LTE. In Australia there was a Wi-Max provider (Vivi Wireless) but on a different frequency than the US and only via hot-spots (no phone support, that I know of). Is 4G for all these reports LTE? What exactly is 5G in all these contexts? Are we talking about the same protocol, or another collection of protocols expected to have x speed at y range?
- wmf 7y agoAFAIK NR is the only 5G protocol. Exposing protocol details to consumers when those details do not correlate with performance is likely to just cause confusion.
- pdemporg 7y agoNR is the only 5G protocol (aside from Verizon's abortive proprietary 5G TF), but it couldn't hurt to at least specify if the spectrum being used is sub-6 or mmWave. This factor (700--3500 Mhz vs 26, 28, 39 GHz) is going to have the largest impact by far on the experience in terms of the bandwidth/coverage tradeoff. When it comes to discussing these two distinct clusters of spectrum, the difference is so stark that we might as well be talking about different protocols. 5G and 5G pro?...
- devnulloverflow 7y agoBut the 4G, 5G monikers don't correlate either.
- anderspitman 7y agoIn the US at least almost all 4G is LTE. Sometimes I'll see mine drop to HSPA, but rarely.
- crispinb 7y agoWell I don't know about faster than 5G, but for my rural location it's a lifesaver. I get a steady 60Mbps down, 12-15 up, which is just a tad better than my previous 0.3Mbps ADSL. It's kind of amazing and is literally what enables me to live where I do (ie. for remote work). 4g here is also far better than the shithouse fake NBN foisted on us by our far-right government, which loathes and fears any technology more recent than coal & witch burning.
- hug 7y agoFor some people, 4G is definitely better than NBN. Not all people. I’m not saying the NBN isn’t a trash fire of an infrastructure project (it is), or that our 4G is bad (it isn’t), but at least for me I get rock solid 100/40 on HFC, which is for sure better than my NBN service in inner-North Melbourne
- crispinb 7y agoYes of course you're right. In a way that's the big problem with the NBN - a 'national infrastructure' project that is a complete lottery regarding what you get is not worth the name. 40 odd km from me there are estates wired up with NBN's original FTTP. Yet in my location, all that's available is the hopeless Sky Muster satellite service, which tends to go offline for days at a time, and has trouble with weird contingencies like rain. It was originally slated as a last-ditch option for people in truly remote areas, but the hapless NBN Co has gradually extended its use to anywhere they can't be arsed to serve properly. [Edit: as a side note, my location shows the corporate fakery behind the 'mixed tech' model. Using a cheap 4g modem from ebay, and without even so much as a fixed antenna, I can get 60Mbps down with 4g. Yet NBNCo doesn't make the fixed wireless option available here, instead foisting on us the 'outback solution' of satellite with its 600ms ping times, pitiful data caps & unreliability]
- tenryuu 7y agoIt's interesting, becusee I moved from FTTC getting 100/40 to HFC and still getting 100/40. Each technology has their own hardware faults though, and I've witnessed both. But as a user of the service, I'm actually surprised how decent HFC has been working. My parents of FTTN get about 50/20,which is what I expect a lot of users on these lines would only be able to access. But the sheer cost of using a NBN over 4G makes it a lot easier to sell, data sims are not cheap
- basicplus2 7y agoAustralias 4G is 3Gpp and their 4G plus is 4G, I dont know what their 5G is bit I suspect it is not 5G
- armagon 7y agoPeople are actually demanding 5G? (Or is that hype, trying to make people think that other people are demanding it?) I can only think of one conversation I've had in which 5G was even mentioned, but boy, I know people here in rural Canada would like affordable data plans, and I don't see that 5G is going to help at all.
- microcolonel 7y agoUrban Canada needs affordable data too. We have the most expensive telco in the world, across the board.
- dzhiurgis 7y agoI think it's got a decent chance to leapfrog VDSL for last mile in many places (as is already case with 4G in more advanced places).
- mehrdadn 7y agoRelated question: what exactly is the LT in LTE supposed to mean? What's considered "long-term" here? Been confused to see 5G coming out already when 4G was supposed to be long-term.
- wmf 7y agoThe 5G protocol is literally named "New Radio"; if they aren't going to put much thought in to the names I'm not going to put any thought into analyzing them.
- freehunter 7y agoIt's not "long term" in "this technology will exist for a long time" but rather "it will take a long time to get this technology fully rolled out". Carriers started releasing what they called "4G" networks, but those networks did not meet the standards required to call it 4G. So they came up with LTE because it's a long-term evolution of 3G service, evolving until it meets the standards for 4G.
- mehrdadn 7y agoWow, you just blew my mind, thanks. So what is "true" 4G here? Is it LTE-A? Or does it not even exist? All this time I used to think the "fake" 4G (3.9G?) was HSPA and the "real" one was LTE and that LTE-A went beyond that, but now I'm not sure what's what anymore!
- freehunter 7y ago4G requires data rates of 100mbps while moving and 1Gbps while stationary. LTE-A only hits 300Mbps, but the ITU eventually gave up fighting it and now calls LTE-A officially "4G" even though it doesn't meet the original standard. http://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/press_releases/2010/48.aspx http://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/press_releases/2010/48.as...
- wmf 7y agoIn retrospect this is evidence that sometimes setting ridiculously ambitious goals isn't enough to make them happen. IMO a new generation per decade is a good pace but 10x per decade is a lot more reasonable than 100x.
- danfo 7y ago4G is plenty fast enough. The next tangible leap has got to be unlimited data. Is that something 5G might help with? Recently moving back to Australia after a year living in Finland, I really miss unlimited 300Mbit/sec 4G for 25€/month (~$40 AUD). It's well and good that our mobile networks are as good as the Finns (anecdotally), speed and reliability wise (whoops, as long as you dodge Telstra outages). Sure there are a couple of 'unlimited' plans popping up in Australia now, but it's more like 'trickle at 1.5Mbit/sec when you use up your allowance'. Like a lot of things, I think Australia would do well to copy-paste what the Finns are doing. Education, telecoms, energy, well-being, ... for our post-coal economy we'd do well to learn it and scale it.
- rosege 7y agoOptus have offered a 5g plan that I think is unlimited - its only available in a very small footprint though while they continue to roll it out. I moved back from the Netherlands a few years ago. I'm awaiting the NBN at my place in the next few weeks hopefully. Then I will be able to get the same connection that I had in Amsterdam in 2011. This is after the government has spent $50bil+ on the NBN - go Australia!
- danfo 7y agoOh, it's happening! That's fantastic. Good luck with the NBN lottery! In inner-city Brisbane I'm lucky to have NBN and non-NBN fibre options. But I would cancel fixed fibre in a heartbeat for unlimited 5G if it meant only taking a bandwidth hit.
- rstuart4133 7y ago> 4G is plenty fast enough. It's fast, but it's not cheap compared to landline. Unless you use a absurdly high frequency that probably won't work in most of Australia, 5G won't be much faster for the individual user. However MIMO does up the cell capacity, so it will probably be cheaper. That's not a small thing.
- treelovinhippie 7y agoProbably because Telstra 5G is currently using the same spectrum as 4G. Telstra 5G 2019: 3.5GHz Telstra 5G planned future: 26 - 28GHz
- m3kw9 7y agoProb not using 5Gs fastest modes
- noodlesUK 7y agoAnd here I am in the Pacific Northwest, remembering how insanely fast LTE felt like a few years back, but now it’s awful in my area (used to consistently get >50mbps). Now LTE often means that my phone has a connection of ~3mbps... Is it just T-mobile, or is this just normal levels of congestion?
- ffk 7y agoFor me, the exciting part of 5G is the connection density. The estimated density for a 4G network is: 4,000 devices / km^2. The estimated density for a 5G network is: 1,000,000 devices / km^2. The density means we can scale up machine <-> machine interactions significantly, rather than focus on human <-> machine interactions that we have today.
- jsjohnst 7y agoWhile I don’t know the exact numbers for 5G, those numbers are way way way off (on the high side) for 4G and I highly suspect are more than an order of magnitude on 5G, if not more.
- Synaesthesia 7y agoWikipedia said 4G (LTE) supports 100,000 people per sq km whereas 5G up to a million.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoThe purpose of 5G isn't to deliver faster speed to an individual end point. It's to add more capacity to a single cell site. Marketing will continue to lie with their "up to" promises but don't expect to reap any significant gains from the latest radio tech.
- wmf 7y agoIf the cell site has more capacity but a similar number of customers, would those customers not get more throughput?
- MarkMc 7y agoIn Australia cost of 4G has been the limiting factor, not speed. But now we can get 200gb per month for $40 [0] which makes me wonder weather the NBN was worth it. [0] https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2019/06/mobile-broadband-vs-home-wireless-broadband-whats-the-difference https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2019/06/mobile-broadband-vs-ho...
- paranoidrobot 7y ago>which makes me wonder weather the NBN was worth it. Yes, the original NBN plan was definitely worth it. Even the current NBN plan is still in many cases going to be better. The reason <choose wireless technology> is "faster" than <choose NBN connection option> is because there's a lower density of people using it for higher bandwidth applications. Do you remember the 3G networks in Australia before the iPhone 3G launch? It was fantastic and fast, and there were some unlimited plans but few phones that could make use of it. Then the iPhone comes along, everyone suddenly every mobile network grinds to a halt as they don't have a high enough tower density and/or not enough tower backhaul. It took Vodafone and Optus a long long time to fully recover from that. If carriers don't carefully manage demand, they're going to run into major congestion issues - their networks just can't handle a significant shift of data from wired to wireless.