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My colleagues call me Luddite and laugh at me when I don’t show enthusiasm about 5G. Apparently, there are somewhere some very smart people, that see great bene

by lnsru 7y ago

My colleagues call me Luddite and laugh at me when I don’t show enthusiasm about 5G. Apparently, there are somewhere some very smart people, that see great benefit of 5G. Maybe it’s just another important reason to force people buy more phones. Maybe a am not right buyer persona using same phone for as long as it works (5+ years). Germany cannot get good 4G coverage, why think about 5G!? It was a nightmare to drive and to talk to clients on the phone while driving in a field role. 30 miles outside of any city I had connection problems.

Nursie 7y ago
Lower latency, lower protocol overheads, makes it much more likely to be able to start replacing wired infrastructure for home use. I'm not that massively excited about it either, it's not like the jump from 2G->3G where phone handset use is concerned, but I think it will have a bigger impact on non- (or not-just-) phone use.
Jonnax 7y ago
Because 5G is more efficient. Here's a graph of predictions of data usage over the next few years: https://www.statista.com/statistics/271405/global-mobile-data-traffic-forecast/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/271405/global-mobile-dat... People use their phones for data and the data consumption is increasing. You might not but people live stream sports, games, TV to their mobiles. Frequency bands are like radio stations. Better algorithms/etc to transfer more data at an instant means that more people can have a better experience using the airwaves. Like in busy train stations people will often have full signal but unusable internet connectivity. Faster speeds means that people are not using the airwaves for as long. Also mmWave is a way to get an extra density of data pushed as higher frequency means more throughput look at 2.4Ghz WiFi Vs 5Ghz WiFi. Of course the issue is that it gets blocked very easily. It's a progression. 3G masts have been switched to 4G and it'll start in a few years for 5G. But honestly it's a long multi year process. And it's not like 4G is going anywhere. Other things that 5G does is latency is lower so it could open up use cases such as data for autonomous cars, AR and VR (I'm a bit dubious on that tbh). Reason being that the break out to the internet can be at multiple points rather than a single point as it often is with LTE. But yeah, honestly from a user perspective there's not really going to be much of a difference. I don't think many operators are going to try selling 5G plans like they did for 4G
- catalogia 7y ago
  > Because 5G is more efficient. Not in the towers/coverage metric. I don't see how 5G could help in places that already have poor coverage (e.g. outside cities.)
  - JibJabDab 7y ago
    Those areas would probably still be relying on 4g/LTE much like how you can still get 3G signals out in the countryside. You're right though. it probably won't help (and may not be cost beneficial in the near-term)

by lnsru 7y ago

Nursie 7y ago

Lower latency, lower protocol overheads, makes it much more likely to be able to start replacing wired infrastructure for home use. I'm not that massively excited about it either, it's not like the jump from 2G->3G where phone handset use is concerned, but I think it will have a bigger impact on non- (or not-just-) phone use.

Jonnax 7y ago

Because 5G is more efficient. Here's a graph of predictions of data usage over the next few years: https://www.statista.com/statistics/271405/global-mobile-data-traffic-forecast/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/271405/global-mobile-dat... People use their phones for data and the data consumption is increasing. You might not but people live stream sports, games, TV to their mobiles. Frequency bands are like radio stations. Better algorithms/etc to transfer more data at an instant means that more people can have a better experience using the airwaves. Like in busy train stations people will often have full signal but unusable internet connectivity. Faster speeds means that people are not using the airwaves for as long. Also mmWave is a way to get an extra density of data pushed as higher frequency means more throughput look at 2.4Ghz WiFi Vs 5Ghz WiFi. Of course the issue is that it gets blocked very easily. It's a progression. 3G masts have been switched to 4G and it'll start in a few years for 5G. But honestly it's a long multi year process. And it's not like 4G is going anywhere. Other things that 5G does is latency is lower so it could open up use cases such as data for autonomous cars, AR and VR (I'm a bit dubious on that tbh). Reason being that the break out to the internet can be at multiple points rather than a single point as it often is with LTE. But yeah, honestly from a user perspective there's not really going to be much of a difference. I don't think many operators are going to try selling 5G plans like they did for 4G

catalogia 7y ago
> Because 5G is more efficient. Not in the towers/coverage metric. I don't see how 5G could help in places that already have poor coverage (e.g. outside cities.)
- JibJabDab 7y ago
  Those areas would probably still be relying on 4g/LTE much like how you can still get 3G signals out in the countryside. You're right though. it probably won't help (and may not be cost beneficial in the near-term)