5 ms·

From dial-up to 5G: logging on to the internet

28 points by c89X 7y ago

milankragujevic 7y ago
Is LTE in US really just 25Mbps?
- bottled_poe 7y ago
  I think they mean MB/s
  - jedberg 7y ago
    Sadly no, they mean Mbps.
  - milankragujevic 7y ago
    I don't think so, due to the fact that in the linked article: https://www.lifewire.com/how-fast-is-4g-wireless-service-577566 https://www.lifewire.com/how-fast-is-4g-wireless-service-577... Explicitly states "The 4G speeds are expressed in megabits per second (Mbps)." In any case, LTE does way more than those speeds, and if you include LTE-Advanced and LTE-Advanced Pro under "LTE" (you shouldn't), then it goes up to 1.3 Gbps in real life tests (done by Croatian Telecom). Though it's all usesless because of tiny data caps. As far as I've heard, data caps of <10 GB per month are extremely common in the US, for very expensive plans (not counting the phone). -- Follows report about broadband and cellular in my home country -- Serbian incumbent majority-government-owned carrier mts used to offer 1 TB of data before you're throttled (called "Unlimited Falcon"), 100 GB before you're throttled was the previous plan that was extremely cheap (~10€/mo without a phone), and in the end they cancelled that plan, cancelled the Falcon plan, and instead offer Falcon at 100 GB before throttled, but it costs twice as much ("original" was €40/mo, "new" is 80€/mo without a phone with 10x less data). Vip mobile (owned by A1 Telekom Austria) offers up to 200 GB data for ~€15/mo, and Telenor (owned by Dutch PPF N.V. but the offer was the same a year ago when they were owned by Telenor ASA Norway) offers 150 GB fo 18€/mo. Speeds are best on Telenor, in cities reaching >280 Mb/s on LTE-A, worst on Vip mobile, with country-wide average being 45 Mb/s and in big cities it's not uncommon to see below-3G speeds (2-3 Mb/s), mts has the best coverage -- because they government paid for it -- but has average speeds of ~60-70 Mb/s country-wide, usually >100 Mb/s but in large cities reaching >300 Mb/s. It is quite sad that they (mts, Telekom Srbija) don't invest nearly as much into fixed broadband access development, where most of the country has ADSL2+ at 10/1 Mb/s, a small percentage VDSL2 (most at 20/4 Mb/s, some 50/8 Mb/s and an insignificant amount at 100/10 Mb/s), and an even tinier percentage of GPON FTTH (1000/200 Mbps). "Alternative" ISPs like SBB (owned by United Group B.V. from Netherlands) and Orion Telekom (owned by Orion Telekom Holdings B.V. also in Netherlands) have much better developed networks, offering up to 300 Mb/s in case of SBB over HFC in most places Telekom Srbija offers up to 10/1 Mb/s on ADSL, and Orion offers up to 1/1 Gbps in an extremely large amount of tiny tiny villages (<2000 people) at extreme prices (~15€ for Gigabit, no installation fee)...
- jedberg 7y ago
  Yes, by default. But in some cities they have "enhanced" LTE, whatever that is, that can go up to 70ish Mbps.
  - milankragujevic 7y ago
    That's sad, though. Nothing prevents a carrier in the world's most technologically and economically developed country to put more cell towers with more sector antennas targeting different, segregated areas, and use quality equipment from Ericsson, use 20+20+20 MHz 3-Carrier Aggregation, and achieve >1000 Mb/s on LTE-A. Which is what is being done in Croatia. Info about Croatia: https://www.telecompaper.com/news/a1-hrvatska-increases-mobile-internet-speeds-to-135-gbps--1294284 https://www.telecompaper.com/news/a1-hrvatska-increases-mobi... (it's Paywalled though, and Outline doesn't help. -- here is the article in Croatian: https://mreza.bug.hr/a1-hrvatska-omogucila-mobilno-surfanje-do-1-35-gbit-s https://mreza.bug.hr/a1-hrvatska-omogucila-mobilno-surfanje-... ) edit: Could the downvoter explain themselves, since I know every word of the HN guidelines, and downvoting for disagreeing is discouraged. Also, I don't even live in Croatia, I live in another neighbouring country.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- repsak 7y ago
  Although the theoretical limit is higher I think 25 mbps ± a few is what you can expect in most of the world. Here are some speed tests by country https://www.opensignal.com/reports/2018/02/state-of-lte https://www.opensignal.com/reports/2018/02/state-of-lte
  - milankragujevic 7y ago
    Erm, the average results are off for Serbia. Our regulatory body for electronic communications does mandatory speed and quality testing for 4G networks of all 3 cell providers, and the results: http://benchmark.ratel.rs/public/lp2018/src/measurement-scope/fig-18-fdtt-http-dl-throughputs.png http://benchmark.ratel.rs/public/lp2018/src/measurement-scop... Show that the maximum speed is 90 Mb/s and minimum speed is ~40-50 Mb/s. This is a chart for big cities, however, here are real-life some results: https://imgur.com/a/LUyJlME https://imgur.com/a/LUyJlME
  - daurnimator 7y ago
    I can easily get >100Mbps here in Melbourne, Australia. That said, my plan has a limit of 2GB a month (which is rather low; most people have around 7-10GB), so I can use a month of usage in less than three minutes.
tempestn 7y ago
> According to a recent consumer report (pdf) commissioned by networking hardware company Ericsson, the average smartphone owner in the US currently uses around 8GB of data each month. Whaaaat? I figured that must include Wifi so I looked at the PDF, and no—apparently that's the actual mobile data usage. It's a self-reported survey, but still. Up here in Canada I have a 10GB plan which is more than anyone else I know, and is way, way more than I generally use. The only time I've ever come close is when I've been on vacation and done a bunch of tethering. I'm not surprised that some people use 8GB per month, but I find it very hard to believe that's anywhere close to a national average, unless usage in the US is dramatically different than in Canada. (I know our cell plans are more expensive so it's probably somewhat different, but that much?)
- adventured 7y ago
  Everybody I know in the US - mostly non tech people - uses a lot of mobile data now, largely consisting of stray video streaming. 8gb of monthly usage seems very low compared to what I'm seeing normal people use now. At a Thanksgiving thing on Sunday a family member was streaming an NFL game on his phone. He has an unlimited data plan with AT&T, but regardless you can imagine the data usage for that HD stream over an hour. That's typical usage now in my observation.
  - tempestn 7y ago
    Huh, interesting. I'd never even heard of an "unlimited" mobile data plan. Just did some research and it appears a few of our carriers just released nominally unlimited plans for the first time this year. However, they still have a data cap (10-50GB usually, depending on the plan), after which it's capped at 512kbps. So not really unlimited. These plans also start at $75/month (or like 55 USD). I don't envy your politics, but I envy your mobile data plans.
    - adventured 7y ago
      Yeah naturally it's not unlimited, there's no such thing, it's always a marketing gimmick with fine print when a service provider uses that. You're going to hit a limit one way or another. T-Mobile as an example, has a four line plan at $35 per line avg, with "unlimited" data, with this note: "During congestion, the small fraction of customers using >50GB/mo. may notice reduced speeds." I've never used T-Mobile, so I don't know what kind of wall you realistically hit with them at that point. What I've seen in the US over the last few years is that people seem to have shifted heavily away from the old expensive cable & DirecTV plans and moved some of that expenditure over to streaming services (cheaper) and more expensive higher limit mobile data plans. Which makes sense given what consumers are most often using these days.
Albertchrist 7y ago
5G is going to bring huge paradigm shift. This will be deadly if it combines with AI
gandalfian 7y ago
In the UK unlimited data Sims (1000GB fup) for £20 a month are starting to be used for home broadband. 30-100mbs speeds are typical on 4g. The landline network is just starting to hollow out. It's unsettling.
- gorgoiler 7y ago
  What do you mean when you say you find it unsettling?
  - gandalfian 7y ago
    Change I guess. If enough people give up their landlines the economics of it will alter and the rest of us will be forced to follow whether our choice or not. Perhaps 5g won't have enough bandwidth for everyone at once. Still perhaps it will be better, certainly different.
ubittibu 7y ago
I have already read about it in other 5g presentations, and I still don’t get why should 5g bring more “virtual presence”. Wouldn’t a fiber optic connection be always faster since it has one less medium to pass? Also, reliability, if I’d need a surgical operation, or to make an important business conference, I would prefer it to be made on a fixed line connection, than over the air. Why do they always insist on this thing about 5g?

28 points by c89X 7y ago

milankragujevic 7y ago

Is LTE in US really just 25Mbps?

bottled_poe 7y ago
I think they mean MB/s
- jedberg 7y ago
  Sadly no, they mean Mbps.
- milankragujevic 7y ago
  I don't think so, due to the fact that in the linked article: https://www.lifewire.com/how-fast-is-4g-wireless-service-577566 https://www.lifewire.com/how-fast-is-4g-wireless-service-577... Explicitly states "The 4G speeds are expressed in megabits per second (Mbps)." In any case, LTE does way more than those speeds, and if you include LTE-Advanced and LTE-Advanced Pro under "LTE" (you shouldn't), then it goes up to 1.3 Gbps in real life tests (done by Croatian Telecom). Though it's all usesless because of tiny data caps. As far as I've heard, data caps of <10 GB per month are extremely common in the US, for very expensive plans (not counting the phone). -- Follows report about broadband and cellular in my home country -- Serbian incumbent majority-government-owned carrier mts used to offer 1 TB of data before you're throttled (called "Unlimited Falcon"), 100 GB before you're throttled was the previous plan that was extremely cheap (~10€/mo without a phone), and in the end they cancelled that plan, cancelled the Falcon plan, and instead offer Falcon at 100 GB before throttled, but it costs twice as much ("original" was €40/mo, "new" is 80€/mo without a phone with 10x less data). Vip mobile (owned by A1 Telekom Austria) offers up to 200 GB data for ~€15/mo, and Telenor (owned by Dutch PPF N.V. but the offer was the same a year ago when they were owned by Telenor ASA Norway) offers 150 GB fo 18€/mo. Speeds are best on Telenor, in cities reaching >280 Mb/s on LTE-A, worst on Vip mobile, with country-wide average being 45 Mb/s and in big cities it's not uncommon to see below-3G speeds (2-3 Mb/s), mts has the best coverage -- because they government paid for it -- but has average speeds of ~60-70 Mb/s country-wide, usually >100 Mb/s but in large cities reaching >300 Mb/s. It is quite sad that they (mts, Telekom Srbija) don't invest nearly as much into fixed broadband access development, where most of the country has ADSL2+ at 10/1 Mb/s, a small percentage VDSL2 (most at 20/4 Mb/s, some 50/8 Mb/s and an insignificant amount at 100/10 Mb/s), and an even tinier percentage of GPON FTTH (1000/200 Mbps). "Alternative" ISPs like SBB (owned by United Group B.V. from Netherlands) and Orion Telekom (owned by Orion Telekom Holdings B.V. also in Netherlands) have much better developed networks, offering up to 300 Mb/s in case of SBB over HFC in most places Telekom Srbija offers up to 10/1 Mb/s on ADSL, and Orion offers up to 1/1 Gbps in an extremely large amount of tiny tiny villages (<2000 people) at extreme prices (~15€ for Gigabit, no installation fee)...
jedberg 7y ago
Yes, by default. But in some cities they have "enhanced" LTE, whatever that is, that can go up to 70ish Mbps.
- milankragujevic 7y ago
  That's sad, though. Nothing prevents a carrier in the world's most technologically and economically developed country to put more cell towers with more sector antennas targeting different, segregated areas, and use quality equipment from Ericsson, use 20+20+20 MHz 3-Carrier Aggregation, and achieve >1000 Mb/s on LTE-A. Which is what is being done in Croatia. Info about Croatia: https://www.telecompaper.com/news/a1-hrvatska-increases-mobile-internet-speeds-to-135-gbps--1294284 https://www.telecompaper.com/news/a1-hrvatska-increases-mobi... (it's Paywalled though, and Outline doesn't help. -- here is the article in Croatian: https://mreza.bug.hr/a1-hrvatska-omogucila-mobilno-surfanje-do-1-35-gbit-s https://mreza.bug.hr/a1-hrvatska-omogucila-mobilno-surfanje-... ) edit: Could the downvoter explain themselves, since I know every word of the HN guidelines, and downvoting for disagreeing is discouraged. Also, I don't even live in Croatia, I live in another neighbouring country.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
repsak 7y ago
Although the theoretical limit is higher I think 25 mbps ± a few is what you can expect in most of the world. Here are some speed tests by country https://www.opensignal.com/reports/2018/02/state-of-lte https://www.opensignal.com/reports/2018/02/state-of-lte
- milankragujevic 7y ago
  Erm, the average results are off for Serbia. Our regulatory body for electronic communications does mandatory speed and quality testing for 4G networks of all 3 cell providers, and the results: http://benchmark.ratel.rs/public/lp2018/src/measurement-scope/fig-18-fdtt-http-dl-throughputs.png http://benchmark.ratel.rs/public/lp2018/src/measurement-scop... Show that the maximum speed is 90 Mb/s and minimum speed is ~40-50 Mb/s. This is a chart for big cities, however, here are real-life some results: https://imgur.com/a/LUyJlME https://imgur.com/a/LUyJlME
- daurnimator 7y ago
  I can easily get >100Mbps here in Melbourne, Australia. That said, my plan has a limit of 2GB a month (which is rather low; most people have around 7-10GB), so I can use a month of usage in less than three minutes.

tempestn 7y ago

> According to a recent consumer report (pdf) commissioned by networking hardware company Ericsson, the average smartphone owner in the US currently uses around 8GB of data each month. Whaaaat? I figured that must include Wifi so I looked at the PDF, and no—apparently that's the actual mobile data usage. It's a self-reported survey, but still. Up here in Canada I have a 10GB plan which is more than anyone else I know, and is way, way more than I generally use. The only time I've ever come close is when I've been on vacation and done a bunch of tethering. I'm not surprised that some people use 8GB per month, but I find it very hard to believe that's anywhere close to a national average, unless usage in the US is dramatically different than in Canada. (I know our cell plans are more expensive so it's probably somewhat different, but that much?)

adventured 7y ago
Everybody I know in the US - mostly non tech people - uses a lot of mobile data now, largely consisting of stray video streaming. 8gb of monthly usage seems very low compared to what I'm seeing normal people use now. At a Thanksgiving thing on Sunday a family member was streaming an NFL game on his phone. He has an unlimited data plan with AT&T, but regardless you can imagine the data usage for that HD stream over an hour. That's typical usage now in my observation.
- tempestn 7y ago
  Huh, interesting. I'd never even heard of an "unlimited" mobile data plan. Just did some research and it appears a few of our carriers just released nominally unlimited plans for the first time this year. However, they still have a data cap (10-50GB usually, depending on the plan), after which it's capped at 512kbps. So not really unlimited. These plans also start at $75/month (or like 55 USD). I don't envy your politics, but I envy your mobile data plans.
  - adventured 7y ago
    Yeah naturally it's not unlimited, there's no such thing, it's always a marketing gimmick with fine print when a service provider uses that. You're going to hit a limit one way or another. T-Mobile as an example, has a four line plan at $35 per line avg, with "unlimited" data, with this note: "During congestion, the small fraction of customers using >50GB/mo. may notice reduced speeds." I've never used T-Mobile, so I don't know what kind of wall you realistically hit with them at that point. What I've seen in the US over the last few years is that people seem to have shifted heavily away from the old expensive cable & DirecTV plans and moved some of that expenditure over to streaming services (cheaper) and more expensive higher limit mobile data plans. Which makes sense given what consumers are most often using these days.

Albertchrist 7y ago

5G is going to bring huge paradigm shift. This will be deadly if it combines with AI

gandalfian 7y ago

In the UK unlimited data Sims (1000GB fup) for £20 a month are starting to be used for home broadband. 30-100mbs speeds are typical on 4g. The landline network is just starting to hollow out. It's unsettling.

gorgoiler 7y ago
What do you mean when you say you find it unsettling?
- gandalfian 7y ago
  Change I guess. If enough people give up their landlines the economics of it will alter and the rest of us will be forced to follow whether our choice or not. Perhaps 5g won't have enough bandwidth for everyone at once. Still perhaps it will be better, certainly different.

ubittibu 7y ago

I have already read about it in other 5g presentations, and I still don’t get why should 5g bring more “virtual presence”. Wouldn’t a fiber optic connection be always faster since it has one less medium to pass? Also, reliability, if I’d need a surgical operation, or to make an important business conference, I would prefer it to be made on a fixed line connection, than over the air. Why do they always insist on this thing about 5g?