5 ms·

Doesn't 5G solve that problem? Lay fiber to a bunch of 5G nodes and then you can service hundreds of customers who only need to install a wireless modem to get

by mrep 7y ago

Doesn't 5G solve that problem? Lay fiber to a bunch of 5G nodes and then you can service hundreds of customers who only need to install a wireless modem to get fiber speeds and latency.

gambiting 7y ago
Oh god, I can't think of many things worse(network-wise) than having wireless internet at home, no matter how fancy the technology behind it is.
- zdragnar 7y ago
  I'm out in the countryside, with wireless 4g lte data through a mvno. It's actually pretty decent compared to my other option, which was 4mbps max DSL. Multiplayer games are out, but streaming video at a decent quality isn't bad at all, certainly better than satellite internet. On the flip side, our local provider got a grant to update their network to fiber (and a threat to lose exclusivity if they didn't improve the network). Oddly enough, they'll be charging $200 for gigabit, and offering lower speeds for more reasonable prices, even though they're installing fiber directly to our home next spring. It is kinda shitty, but then again, it's just another tradeoff to make when living out here. Personally, I wouldn't give it up for anything compared to living in the city.
iagovar 7y ago
It can work for light users who don't really care about speed if they get something decent, otherwise is a very bad idea, not to mention that it's basically impossible to avoid shades or guarantee any coverage at all. The ISP I currently work for (in Spain) is playing with this idea for sparsely populated areas, where we didn't lay FTTH yet and our customers are connected through DSL. It can potentially save a lot of money on deployment but the current BTS locations are not enough, we'd have to build at least 2x for decent coverage, update their links and so on. I don't know, I think we will just lay FTTH in the end. Dealing with saturation on wireless connections is very difficult sometimes.
TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
Unless 5G is literal magic I severely doubt it won't have the same problems with congestion as every preceding wireless networking system. 4G home Internet sucks, the latency, available bandwidth and general connectivity are unreliable. Makes playing an online game miserable and watching streaming video annoying.
- jkilpatr 7y ago
  5G will work differently, if you can get a signal at all it will be pretty fast. But considering leaves are enough to totally block a 5G signal, good luck getting it.
jkilpatr 7y ago
5G (at least the high speed kind) has really really bad penetration, T-mobiles 1.9Ghz has trouble working indoors 5G's 30, 40, and 70Ghz frequencies are much worse. You will need direct line of sight to a tower optimistically a mile away. Otherwise you'll fall back to '5G' on traditional 4G spectrum and you won't get any faster speeds.
- josh2600 7y ago
  We need like 1000x more cell sites working in coordination. Think slightly bigger than picocells. There are a bunch of proposals on how to do this (I think Artemis networks is one if I remember the name). The problem is that existing roof rights don’t map well to a bunch of microcells.
- mrep 7y ago
  So put the base node somewhere high like a water tower, hill, or really tall pole and then put your home modem on the telephone pole or your chimney to establish line of site. They can even use beam forming to bounce their signals against other objects to get to their destination. Homes and base stations don't move so they actually seem like a good use case for 5g over phones which are consistently inside and moving which breaks the line of site.
  - snowwrestler 7y ago
    You don't need "5G" to do this; low-cost line-of-sight wireless networking technologies have existed for well over a decade now. There is a reason line-of-sight WISPs have not replaced, or in most cases even effectively competed against, wireline providers. That reason is: it's far more difficult to provide reliable service this way than it seems at first.
    - mrep 7y ago
      What other low cost options are there and do they work with cell phones so that they get dual usage and thus the costs are amortized over more devices? The verizon 5g home looks pretty good [0] if your current options are only dsl or cable which they are for a bunch of americans. It's even got a 4g backup connection. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/verizon/comments/9lqp6n/i_got_5g_home_internet_installed_this_week_and_it/ https://www.reddit.com/r/verizon/comments/9lqp6n/i_got_5g_ho...

by mrep 7y ago

Doesn't 5G solve that problem? Lay fiber to a bunch of 5G nodes and then you can service hundreds of customers who only need to install a wireless modem to get fiber speeds and latency.

gambiting 7y ago

Oh god, I can't think of many things worse(network-wise) than having wireless internet at home, no matter how fancy the technology behind it is.

zdragnar 7y ago
I'm out in the countryside, with wireless 4g lte data through a mvno. It's actually pretty decent compared to my other option, which was 4mbps max DSL. Multiplayer games are out, but streaming video at a decent quality isn't bad at all, certainly better than satellite internet. On the flip side, our local provider got a grant to update their network to fiber (and a threat to lose exclusivity if they didn't improve the network). Oddly enough, they'll be charging $200 for gigabit, and offering lower speeds for more reasonable prices, even though they're installing fiber directly to our home next spring. It is kinda shitty, but then again, it's just another tradeoff to make when living out here. Personally, I wouldn't give it up for anything compared to living in the city.

iagovar 7y ago

It can work for light users who don't really care about speed if they get something decent, otherwise is a very bad idea, not to mention that it's basically impossible to avoid shades or guarantee any coverage at all. The ISP I currently work for (in Spain) is playing with this idea for sparsely populated areas, where we didn't lay FTTH yet and our customers are connected through DSL. It can potentially save a lot of money on deployment but the current BTS locations are not enough, we'd have to build at least 2x for decent coverage, update their links and so on. I don't know, I think we will just lay FTTH in the end. Dealing with saturation on wireless connections is very difficult sometimes.

TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago

Unless 5G is literal magic I severely doubt it won't have the same problems with congestion as every preceding wireless networking system. 4G home Internet sucks, the latency, available bandwidth and general connectivity are unreliable. Makes playing an online game miserable and watching streaming video annoying.

jkilpatr 7y ago
5G will work differently, if you can get a signal at all it will be pretty fast. But considering leaves are enough to totally block a 5G signal, good luck getting it.

jkilpatr 7y ago

5G (at least the high speed kind) has really really bad penetration, T-mobiles 1.9Ghz has trouble working indoors 5G's 30, 40, and 70Ghz frequencies are much worse. You will need direct line of sight to a tower optimistically a mile away. Otherwise you'll fall back to '5G' on traditional 4G spectrum and you won't get any faster speeds.

josh2600 7y ago
We need like 1000x more cell sites working in coordination. Think slightly bigger than picocells. There are a bunch of proposals on how to do this (I think Artemis networks is one if I remember the name). The problem is that existing roof rights don’t map well to a bunch of microcells.
mrep 7y ago
So put the base node somewhere high like a water tower, hill, or really tall pole and then put your home modem on the telephone pole or your chimney to establish line of site. They can even use beam forming to bounce their signals against other objects to get to their destination. Homes and base stations don't move so they actually seem like a good use case for 5g over phones which are consistently inside and moving which breaks the line of site.
- snowwrestler 7y ago
  You don't need "5G" to do this; low-cost line-of-sight wireless networking technologies have existed for well over a decade now. There is a reason line-of-sight WISPs have not replaced, or in most cases even effectively competed against, wireline providers. That reason is: it's far more difficult to provide reliable service this way than it seems at first.
  - mrep 7y ago
    What other low cost options are there and do they work with cell phones so that they get dual usage and thus the costs are amortized over more devices? The verizon 5g home looks pretty good [0] if your current options are only dsl or cable which they are for a bunch of americans. It's even got a 4g backup connection. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/verizon/comments/9lqp6n/i_got_5g_home_internet_installed_this_week_and_it/ https://www.reddit.com/r/verizon/comments/9lqp6n/i_got_5g_ho...