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When 3G first came out it was a disaster for most carriers. The phones were buggy and hard to come by. More importantly there was no compelling reason to use da

When 3G first came out it was a disaster for most carriers. The phones were buggy and hard to come by. More importantly there was no compelling reason to use data from your phone till the iPhone and then Android appeared. The previous generation of “smartphones” (like Symbian and NTT Docomo imode) tried to dumb and water down the Internet. 5G will present similar problems in the early stages. There are not enough compelling applications for the increase in bandwidth now, but there sure will be later on. So I don’t see a race to it now. It’s the next evolution in the cycle of faster speed.

JohnFen 7y ago
> I don’t see a race to it now I think it would actually be better to slow-walk 5G and let other nations work through all of the inevitable problems the initial deployments will have. This "race" to 5G has never made any sense to me at all. What is the advantage to being the first to roll this stuff out?
- llukas 7y ago
  Selling very detailed location data.
- im3w1l 7y ago
  Whoever gets it first will build apps for it first and have a head start.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    I don't understand this argument. First 5G is just a comms channel. What "apps" would be built for it? The only things I can think of that might be special are things that would require a large amount of bandwidth (that most people won't be getting anyway). You can easily write such apps without actually having 5G at your disposal. Second, even if the first point is off the mark, why does it matter who builds it first? Everyone else can still write apps for that system, and those apps would then immediately work on the others as they come online.
    - sigstoat 7y ago
      > The only things I can think of that might be special are things that would require a large amount of bandwidth (that most people won't be getting anyway). You can easily write such apps without actually having 5G at your disposal. one could even imagine prototyping these things on existing high bandwidth networks. or porting all the great apps and such that demand high bandwidth over to the new environment. or maybe there'd be some papers or demos or conceptual whatevers about what these magical applications would be.
PaulHoule 7y ago
3G was particularly bad in dense urban areas such as Los Angeles and NYC. It wasn't so bad if you were in some heartland city like Rochester, NY. 4G increased the ability to handle high density to the point where NYC quit making excuses about how their infrastructure was wiped out by the flood.
_bxg1 7y ago
> but there sure will be later on Like what? I remember having a 3G iPhone and actively looking forward to 4G because bandwidth actually limited certain tasks. Since 4G has become widespread, I've never felt that way. The only time I notice my phone's finite bandwidth is when buildings are blocking my signal, which will only be more prevalent with 5G because millimeter waves can't penetrate materials. There is literally no media that my device makes use of that it can't download in a comfortable amount of time. With modern compression technology, even streaming HD video is basically seamless over cell towers. Years ago I was able to play online games by tethering my Xbox to my phone. I just don't have a use for more bandwidth.
- unapologetic 7y ago
  I would honestly much rather have consistent 4g speeds than try to jump to something faster. In the middle of Seattle there are still holes in coverage where I data speeds slow to a complete crawl.
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    Exactly. And of course the situation is much worse anywhere outside of a major city. Pushing a newer, faster, shorter-range technology is the opposite of what needs to be worked on.
  - jandrese 7y ago
    Isn't this exactly what 5G offers? The mmWave stuff is largely a sideshow, but the big win was supposed to be allowing more people to share LTE frequencies without interfering with each other as much I thought?
    - catalogia 7y ago
      Since these towers have shorter range and less penetration, worse coverage is next to certain.
  - PaulHoule 7y ago
    Coverage holes are the real problem in American wireless. It's awful in rural areas, and often still pretty bad around big cities. When carriers claim they have coverage of 300 M pops, I wonder if it is more like 220 M pops. All the time I go to places that the carrier maps say have coverage and there is no signal. Efforts to parcel out money to improve rural cell service fell through because there are no useful coverage maps.
rospaya 7y ago
It sucked battery life out of phones, carriers had to pay huge licensing fees for the spectrum and build the new infrastructure and the only promise that it kept was lower latencies and more bandwidth for people using 3G PCMCIA modems for laptops. Most of the killer features only developed after UMTS with HSDPA.
godelski 7y ago
> there was no compelling reason to use data from your phone till the iPhone and then Android appeared. > So I don’t see a race to it now. I'm confused at your argument. The first part of your comment is "build it and they will come". That no one was able to take advantage of 3G until someone found new things to do with that data. Then your argument is "ehhhh... not that important because we don't have enough compelling applications." You're saying that no one will be able to take advantage of the new badwidth because current apps aren't designed to use more bandwidth than the system they are running on can provide.

JohnFen 7y ago

> I don’t see a race to it now I think it would actually be better to slow-walk 5G and let other nations work through all of the inevitable problems the initial deployments will have. This "race" to 5G has never made any sense to me at all. What is the advantage to being the first to roll this stuff out?

llukas 7y ago
Selling very detailed location data.
im3w1l 7y ago
Whoever gets it first will build apps for it first and have a head start.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  I don't understand this argument. First 5G is just a comms channel. What "apps" would be built for it? The only things I can think of that might be special are things that would require a large amount of bandwidth (that most people won't be getting anyway). You can easily write such apps without actually having 5G at your disposal. Second, even if the first point is off the mark, why does it matter who builds it first? Everyone else can still write apps for that system, and those apps would then immediately work on the others as they come online.
  - sigstoat 7y ago
    > The only things I can think of that might be special are things that would require a large amount of bandwidth (that most people won't be getting anyway). You can easily write such apps without actually having 5G at your disposal. one could even imagine prototyping these things on existing high bandwidth networks. or porting all the great apps and such that demand high bandwidth over to the new environment. or maybe there'd be some papers or demos or conceptual whatevers about what these magical applications would be.

PaulHoule 7y ago

3G was particularly bad in dense urban areas such as Los Angeles and NYC. It wasn't so bad if you were in some heartland city like Rochester, NY. 4G increased the ability to handle high density to the point where NYC quit making excuses about how their infrastructure was wiped out by the flood.

_bxg1 7y ago

> but there sure will be later on Like what? I remember having a 3G iPhone and actively looking forward to 4G because bandwidth actually limited certain tasks. Since 4G has become widespread, I've never felt that way. The only time I notice my phone's finite bandwidth is when buildings are blocking my signal, which will only be more prevalent with 5G because millimeter waves can't penetrate materials. There is literally no media that my device makes use of that it can't download in a comfortable amount of time. With modern compression technology, even streaming HD video is basically seamless over cell towers. Years ago I was able to play online games by tethering my Xbox to my phone. I just don't have a use for more bandwidth.

unapologetic 7y ago
I would honestly much rather have consistent 4g speeds than try to jump to something faster. In the middle of Seattle there are still holes in coverage where I data speeds slow to a complete crawl.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  Exactly. And of course the situation is much worse anywhere outside of a major city. Pushing a newer, faster, shorter-range technology is the opposite of what needs to be worked on.
- jandrese 7y ago
  Isn't this exactly what 5G offers? The mmWave stuff is largely a sideshow, but the big win was supposed to be allowing more people to share LTE frequencies without interfering with each other as much I thought?
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Since these towers have shorter range and less penetration, worse coverage is next to certain.
- PaulHoule 7y ago
  Coverage holes are the real problem in American wireless. It's awful in rural areas, and often still pretty bad around big cities. When carriers claim they have coverage of 300 M pops, I wonder if it is more like 220 M pops. All the time I go to places that the carrier maps say have coverage and there is no signal. Efforts to parcel out money to improve rural cell service fell through because there are no useful coverage maps.

rospaya 7y ago

It sucked battery life out of phones, carriers had to pay huge licensing fees for the spectrum and build the new infrastructure and the only promise that it kept was lower latencies and more bandwidth for people using 3G PCMCIA modems for laptops. Most of the killer features only developed after UMTS with HSDPA.

godelski 7y ago

> there was no compelling reason to use data from your phone till the iPhone and then Android appeared. > So I don’t see a race to it now. I'm confused at your argument. The first part of your comment is "build it and they will come". That no one was able to take advantage of 3G until someone found new things to do with that data. Then your argument is "ehhhh... not that important because we don't have enough compelling applications." You're saying that no one will be able to take advantage of the new badwidth because current apps aren't designed to use more bandwidth than the system they are running on can provide.