6 ms·

Can't we just buy Chinese stuff... and copy it? I'm only half joking. History teaches us that any technological shortfall can be remedied fairly quickly if you

Can't we just buy Chinese stuff... and copy it? I'm only half joking. History teaches us that any technological shortfall can be remedied fairly quickly if you have a clear priority and the audacity to steal. 5G doesn't require imploding plutonium.

johnchristopher 7y ago
> 5G doesn't require imploding plutonium. Reading HN, I was under the impression that we didn't need 5G anyway (except for people streaming videos in stadium, which I haven't really understood why yet).
- pmlnr 7y ago
  This. Especially because 4G is far, from being deployed everywhere.
- carlmr 7y ago
  I can stream Netflix on my 25mbit/s. For personal use I absolutely don't care about 5G. For professional use it might give me better picture quality when I remote into work, but I think my work's VPN server is more of a bottleneck currently.
  - Reason077 7y ago
    > ”I can stream Netflix on my 25mbit/s. For personal use I absolutely don't care about 5G.” I can stream at 25 Mbps just fine on 4G+/LTE too. At off-peak times. I’ve even seen it hit 70, 80, 90 Mbps occasionally. The problem happens at peak times, usually starting around 6pm, when the network slows to a crawl and I can’t stream things reliably despite having 5/5 signal strength, because my carrier (Three UK) has sold too many cheap unlimited data plans and their 4G network is highly congested. 5G is needed because it greatly improves the data carrying capacity of given blocks of spectrum, meaning more users and higher speeds in areas that currently suffer capacity constraints. And honestly, 5G’s 200 Mbit+ speeds would just be nice to have to speed up things like downloading multi-GB OS updates and the like.
    - oarsinsync 7y ago
      That might be less to do with your carrier's cellular edge capacity (are you in a densely populated area with lots of people on the same cell station as you?) and more to do with your carrier's intenet edge capacity (3 has lots of customers using a lot of internet) If it's the former, 5G helps you. If it's the latter, 5G makes zero difference to you.
      - Reason077 7y ago
        Yes, I can’t say for sure but I assume it’s the former. It’s certainly a dense area (Central London) and there are certainly many people around here with 3 unlimited data plans. If I monitor my router’s status page I can see it start to bounce between several different Cell IDs when the congestion hits, and the SINR drops to low single digits (from 16-20dB when it’s fastest). In any case, as I understand it, backhaul upgrades will be a part of 3’s 5G rollout anyway.
  - baybal2 7y ago
    I tried 5G in Shenzhen on a demo phone, still only 10 mb/s to Hongkong, but you can have 300mb/s to the nearest NX. Unless your server sits right beside the cell tower, you will never see that promised 1gb/s
    - kalleboo 7y ago
      Is that much of an improvement on 4G? I often see 250 mbps on LTE during off-peak hours
- rewq4321 7y ago
  Your internet speed and latency may be fast enough for the current media/mediums on the internet, but I think it would be naive to assume (without strong evidence/reasoning) that "there's nothing left to be invented" which might consume more bandwidth, or require lower latencies in the near future.
  - johnchristopher 7y ago
    Reading some of the comments I see that I don't have the same use case (data cap, so never streaming video ; and rarely need to vpn or do remote work with only a mobile connection available). I am excluding future usage though (biggest I could see is "That smartphone is your only mean of connection to the net, either via the device or when acting as a modem.").
- scandox 7y ago
  Well if it made VOIP a great experience instead of an so-patchy-you-have-to-survey-users-after-every-call experience then it might be a big deal.
- smolder 7y ago
  5G's very high bandwidth and other features help to solve the following issue: when you get a huge population close together all communicating, (as in stadiums, conventions or during emergencies in very dense population centers) the airwaves become too congested to get more than a few KB/s with older tech.
  - Reason077 7y ago
    Or even just in dense cities. I see 4G speeds as high as 90 Mbps at (eg) 6AM, but at 9PM on a weeknight it can slow to 2 Mbps or less due to congestion. Too slow to stream video with decent quality or to download anything, and it’s very frustrating!
javajosh 7y ago
This requires a supply chain that the US no longer has, AFAIK. I mean, do know of any electronics still made in the USA? Shenzen is the world's 3D printer, and its non-trivial to clone it.
- pmlnr 7y ago
  Arduino was originally Italian, made in EU. There are modern power tools, car electronics, and coffee machines made in Hungary - I'm only listing the ones I know for sure. The components however - IC, resistor, capacitor, etc - are nearly all from China.
  - detaro 7y ago
    Semiconductor fabs, especially for high-tech stuff, still are somewhat spread around the world at least (even though the later chain isn't, i.e. you might see a fab in Germany, and the cut wafers then being flown to Vietnam to put them in the plastic IC cases because that's cheaper). For simpler components (resistors, capacitors) special types still have some manufacturers in the west (e.g. high-precision, especially robust variations, ...). Cheap mass-production not so much. I remember trying to find out if you can get EU-made LEDs, and the result was that maybe some high-power ones by OSRAM would fit the bill, but it wasn't clear what was made where.
    - pmlnr 7y ago
      Japan still has components if I'm not mistaken, LEDs especially.
    - Kliment 7y ago
      You can get LEDs from Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan. You just don't get the same level of quality that you get from top-end Chinese manufacturers that way. Similarly passives are often made in Mexico (to bypass US tariffs), Vietnam, Malaysia again, Thailand. But the most consistent quality product at large quantities still comes from China.
      - 7y ago
roywiggins 7y ago
My understanding is that the Huawei's hardware is just way cheaper.
- rusk 7y ago
  It is. Ludicrously cheap. Not just in capital expenditure terms but also in terms of operating costs, as they’ll run it all for you, if you want. There are lots of possible reasons ranging from business pragmatics, to work practices through to the tin foil hatted. As far fetched as any of these might seem, none are as far fetched as that they’re giving you a great deal out of pure kindess.
  - pinkfoot 7y ago
    Take note that the ludicrously cheap prices only apply if its end-to-end Hauwei: i.e. If you plug pne piece of Hauwei kit into another. If you add non-Hauwei kit, you not only have to buy the more expensive gear but you also have to buy a more expensive licence for the protocol on the Huawei kit. Source: adding SMSCs, GMLCs, SMLCs, etc to HW networks.
    - rusk 7y ago
      Yes I work in this space too, and as a 3P vendor their monolothic architecture concerns me greatly. Note that this approach goes directly against the spirit of the GSM “culture” (for want of a better term) of modularity to date.
Nokinside 7y ago
Nokia is currently extremely cheap. P/S 0.85 and it includes Bell Labs, and Lucent and Motorola wireless networks assets in the US. It's really not about owning.
niyikiza 7y ago
It's more like they bought it from us. ARM used to be owned by Westerners. https://www.wsj.com/articles/softbanks-arm-holdings-to-sell-majority-stake-in-china-business-1528204432 https://www.wsj.com/articles/softbanks-arm-holdings-to-sell-...

johnchristopher 7y ago

> 5G doesn't require imploding plutonium. Reading HN, I was under the impression that we didn't need 5G anyway (except for people streaming videos in stadium, which I haven't really understood why yet).

pmlnr 7y ago
This. Especially because 4G is far, from being deployed everywhere.
carlmr 7y ago
I can stream Netflix on my 25mbit/s. For personal use I absolutely don't care about 5G. For professional use it might give me better picture quality when I remote into work, but I think my work's VPN server is more of a bottleneck currently.
- Reason077 7y ago
  > ”I can stream Netflix on my 25mbit/s. For personal use I absolutely don't care about 5G.” I can stream at 25 Mbps just fine on 4G+/LTE too. At off-peak times. I’ve even seen it hit 70, 80, 90 Mbps occasionally. The problem happens at peak times, usually starting around 6pm, when the network slows to a crawl and I can’t stream things reliably despite having 5/5 signal strength, because my carrier (Three UK) has sold too many cheap unlimited data plans and their 4G network is highly congested. 5G is needed because it greatly improves the data carrying capacity of given blocks of spectrum, meaning more users and higher speeds in areas that currently suffer capacity constraints. And honestly, 5G’s 200 Mbit+ speeds would just be nice to have to speed up things like downloading multi-GB OS updates and the like.
  - oarsinsync 7y ago
    That might be less to do with your carrier's cellular edge capacity (are you in a densely populated area with lots of people on the same cell station as you?) and more to do with your carrier's intenet edge capacity (3 has lots of customers using a lot of internet) If it's the former, 5G helps you. If it's the latter, 5G makes zero difference to you.
    - Reason077 7y ago
      Yes, I can’t say for sure but I assume it’s the former. It’s certainly a dense area (Central London) and there are certainly many people around here with 3 unlimited data plans. If I monitor my router’s status page I can see it start to bounce between several different Cell IDs when the congestion hits, and the SINR drops to low single digits (from 16-20dB when it’s fastest). In any case, as I understand it, backhaul upgrades will be a part of 3’s 5G rollout anyway.
- baybal2 7y ago
  I tried 5G in Shenzhen on a demo phone, still only 10 mb/s to Hongkong, but you can have 300mb/s to the nearest NX. Unless your server sits right beside the cell tower, you will never see that promised 1gb/s
  - kalleboo 7y ago
    Is that much of an improvement on 4G? I often see 250 mbps on LTE during off-peak hours
rewq4321 7y ago
Your internet speed and latency may be fast enough for the current media/mediums on the internet, but I think it would be naive to assume (without strong evidence/reasoning) that "there's nothing left to be invented" which might consume more bandwidth, or require lower latencies in the near future.
- johnchristopher 7y ago
  Reading some of the comments I see that I don't have the same use case (data cap, so never streaming video ; and rarely need to vpn or do remote work with only a mobile connection available). I am excluding future usage though (biggest I could see is "That smartphone is your only mean of connection to the net, either via the device or when acting as a modem.").
scandox 7y ago
Well if it made VOIP a great experience instead of an so-patchy-you-have-to-survey-users-after-every-call experience then it might be a big deal.
smolder 7y ago
5G's very high bandwidth and other features help to solve the following issue: when you get a huge population close together all communicating, (as in stadiums, conventions or during emergencies in very dense population centers) the airwaves become too congested to get more than a few KB/s with older tech.
- Reason077 7y ago
  Or even just in dense cities. I see 4G speeds as high as 90 Mbps at (eg) 6AM, but at 9PM on a weeknight it can slow to 2 Mbps or less due to congestion. Too slow to stream video with decent quality or to download anything, and it’s very frustrating!

javajosh 7y ago

This requires a supply chain that the US no longer has, AFAIK. I mean, do know of any electronics still made in the USA? Shenzen is the world's 3D printer, and its non-trivial to clone it.

pmlnr 7y ago
Arduino was originally Italian, made in EU. There are modern power tools, car electronics, and coffee machines made in Hungary - I'm only listing the ones I know for sure. The components however - IC, resistor, capacitor, etc - are nearly all from China.
- detaro 7y ago
  Semiconductor fabs, especially for high-tech stuff, still are somewhat spread around the world at least (even though the later chain isn't, i.e. you might see a fab in Germany, and the cut wafers then being flown to Vietnam to put them in the plastic IC cases because that's cheaper). For simpler components (resistors, capacitors) special types still have some manufacturers in the west (e.g. high-precision, especially robust variations, ...). Cheap mass-production not so much. I remember trying to find out if you can get EU-made LEDs, and the result was that maybe some high-power ones by OSRAM would fit the bill, but it wasn't clear what was made where.
  - pmlnr 7y ago
    Japan still has components if I'm not mistaken, LEDs especially.
  - Kliment 7y ago
    You can get LEDs from Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan. You just don't get the same level of quality that you get from top-end Chinese manufacturers that way. Similarly passives are often made in Mexico (to bypass US tariffs), Vietnam, Malaysia again, Thailand. But the most consistent quality product at large quantities still comes from China.
    - 7y ago

roywiggins 7y ago

My understanding is that the Huawei's hardware is just way cheaper.

rusk 7y ago
It is. Ludicrously cheap. Not just in capital expenditure terms but also in terms of operating costs, as they’ll run it all for you, if you want. There are lots of possible reasons ranging from business pragmatics, to work practices through to the tin foil hatted. As far fetched as any of these might seem, none are as far fetched as that they’re giving you a great deal out of pure kindess.
- pinkfoot 7y ago
  Take note that the ludicrously cheap prices only apply if its end-to-end Hauwei: i.e. If you plug pne piece of Hauwei kit into another. If you add non-Hauwei kit, you not only have to buy the more expensive gear but you also have to buy a more expensive licence for the protocol on the Huawei kit. Source: adding SMSCs, GMLCs, SMLCs, etc to HW networks.
  - rusk 7y ago
    Yes I work in this space too, and as a 3P vendor their monolothic architecture concerns me greatly. Note that this approach goes directly against the spirit of the GSM “culture” (for want of a better term) of modularity to date.

Nokinside 7y ago

Nokia is currently extremely cheap. P/S 0.85 and it includes Bell Labs, and Lucent and Motorola wireless networks assets in the US. It's really not about owning.

niyikiza 7y ago

It's more like they bought it from us. ARM used to be owned by Westerners. https://www.wsj.com/articles/softbanks-arm-holdings-to-sell-majority-stake-in-china-business-1528204432 https://www.wsj.com/articles/softbanks-arm-holdings-to-sell-...