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The scaling of wireless bandwidth is one of the under appreciated technological miracles of the 21st Century. I wonder: Would even the most ambitious of teleco
by twoodfin 6y ago
The scaling of wireless bandwidth is one of the under appreciated technological miracles of the 21st Century.
I wonder: Would even the most ambitious of telecommunications researchers in 1990 have thought it likely that in 2020 we’d be rolling out gigabit wireless speeds to handheld devices over nation-spanning networks?
The scaling of Moore’s Law was clear by then, and certainly fiber optics represented a practical path to near-unlimited wired bandwidth. What were the radio folks thinking at the time?
- vvanders 6y agoProbably? There is a fair bit of overlap between cable/fiber and radio in that both are mostly QAM, multichannel based. Radio tends to have a worse SNR and a couple other tricky problems tacked on top.
- aoki 6y agoAmbitious wireless folks were already pitching MIMO mobile networks to investors. For example, ArrayComm was started in 1992.
- tinus_hn 6y agoSo the patents expired in 2011!
- AnthonyMouse 6y agoI still don't really get the point of 5G. It requires so many towers that you're basically building a wired network, but then it requires billions of dollars worth of wireless spectrum in order to get from what amounts to the street in front of your house to inside, even though there are already phone lines and coax going there that could be used. Even for wireless devices, that would get you close enough to use unlicensed spectrum (WiFi) and save billions of dollars worth of licensed spectrum. The main benefit of cellular is when you're away from WiFi. But unless you're constantly traveling to places without WiFi, you get that from a $20/month plan and the existing cellular network.
- sudosysgen 6y agoThe benefit is mostly realized in places where you can expect to see the cost savings trickle down and have very high amounts of data for 25$/month. Which, to be honest, is not North America right now, but that certainly will become a reality in some places.
- AnthonyMouse 6y agoHow do you charge $25/month when you have to maintain a huge fiber network to the 5G towers on every street?
- cinquemb 6y agoLarge cheap loans from the federal reserve only they have access to and you don't. Also helps when FRBNY in conjunction with the Tresury dept via state street and blackrock is buying their HY bonds (TMUS US87264AAT25 [Ba3], S US85207UAK16 [B1], CTL US156700BC99 [Ba3], LVLT US527298BF96 [Ba3], VOD US92857WBQ24 [Ba1] for just a few examples, all trading way over par) on you, the taxpayers behalf, on leverage, in the secondary market and thus helping to lower their ongoing borrowing costs.
- djannzjkzxn 6y agoConsumers can get a mortgage with 3% interest rate.
- cinquemb 6y agoYeah, with the house as collateral (assuming one even wants a house) and a knock on their credit rating if they miss a payment they have to pay for 10-30 years… comparable to multi billion $ unsecured debt these folks can get at similar rates at current yields to maturity values for 5-10 years… lol
- scarface74 6y ago