20 ms·

I really believe that for commercial cellular in urban areas, 5G is more of a benefit for the carriers than the consumers. While low band spectrum (850MHz) has

by kayson 6y ago

I really believe that for commercial cellular in urban areas, 5G is more of a benefit for the carriers than the consumers. While low band spectrum (850MHz) has decent penetrating power, the majority of 5G is deployed at ~5GHz and mm-Wave frequencies, where you won't get much of any signal through a wall, or even on the other side of the building. This is why so many 5G base stations have to be deployed; the coverage just isn't as good. But the improvements in base station handoffs and spectral efficiency will increase a carrier's total capacity, even if the end user doesn't see a massive benefit. There are scenarios where you might see massive speeds, though. 5G heavily leverages Carrier Aggregation, where a client can connect to multiple channels at once, increasing bandwidth, and beam-forming, where the "shape" of the signal is modified to steer maximum power to the physical location of a client. If you happen to be near a base station with good Signal to Noise Ratio while downloading something large, the base station can allocate multiple channels and use beamforming to finish your download at Gbps speeds and get you off the network faster, freeing up spectrum time for more users at lower SNR's and bandwidths. There is potential for much more impactful deployment of 5G cellular in rural areas where there aren't many buildings or walls blocking high frequency signal. The same goes for point-to-point links such as inter-building WAN or low latency self driving car to self driving car communication.

sroussey 6y ago
The majority is at mm wave? Citation? I think only Verizon in the US went this path.
- joecool1029 6y ago
  T-Mobile has been doing mmwave on 2 different bands for over a year now in various cities, airports, venues[1][2]. The difference between T-Mobile and Verizon was the launch strategy. T-Mobile played it right by not hyping technologies most of the country can't use like LAA (5GHZ) and mmwave. Verizon arguably had the best LTE launch strategy years ago, but yeah... I guess they could afford to botch this. Come to think of it, pre-merger Sprint probably had the best launch strategy which was to launch 5G on mid-band where they had enough spectrum to service both LTE and 5G NR users. Masayoshi Son was too busy flushing his money down other toilets like WeWork and Uber to cut the checks Sprint needed to get it completed nationwide. Sprint also suffered from having 5 or 6 different equipment vendors across the country... where T-Mobile had two. They have been ripping out the NSN 5G equipment from NYC post-merger, because this is a T-Mobile Ericsson market and they don't want to deal with it. AT&T meanwhile got a $100 billion 25yr contract from the post-9/11 telecom pork project, FirstNet[2]. So they've been throwing up tons of new sites with that money over the past year or two. I don't think anyone was thinking about 5G or spectrum planning over there, just focusing on acquiring consumers through acquisitions (Directtv, some crappy Mexican carriers) and getting government contracts. Gov M2M stuff moves slower than Apple at acquiring new modem technologies for their devices, so there's not a huge rush to ramp up 5G. https://www.t-mobile.com/support/coverage/t-mobile-network#tech https://www.t-mobile.com/support/coverage/t-mobile-network#t... < [1] tmo band listing https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/t-mobile-revs-up-5g-6-cities-using-mmwave-spectrum https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/t-mobile-revs-up-5g-... < [2] News coverage of tmo bandwidth deployment over a year ago. https://washingtontechnology.com/blogs/editors-notebook/2017/03/att-firstnet-award.aspx https://washingtontechnology.com/blogs/editors-notebook/2017... [3] Firstnet contract
nabla9 6y ago
In the Untied States that might be true. In markets where there are functioning markets, the benefits go to consumers. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/europe-not-america-home-free-market/600859/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/europe-not... The Great Reversal https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674237544 https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674237544
sandworm101 6y ago
>> use beamforming to finish your download at Gbps speeds and get you off the network faster Ya, "Faster speeds mean people will spend less time clogging the connection" ... it never happens that way. Increased speeds mean people use more internet, not less. Consumers start doing new things with the faster speeds (streaming video etc) increasing demand and overall usage. The only real answer is massive and constantly increasing speeds and bandwidth capacities. It is a race that cannot be won but must be run nevertheless.
- foota 6y ago
  This really isn't the case since mobile networks have relatively low usage limits.
  - abstractbarista 6y ago
    No, it is definitely true that volume of data consumed over cellular data connections has vastly increased over the years.
  - jakear 6y ago
    The limits will rise. They always do.
    - bleepblorp 6y ago
      This certainly hasn't been the case in hardwired broadband, which has gone from no caps, to caps, to caps with malicious quality of service rules. Limits go down when providers have limited competition.
      - rayiner 6y ago
        Yeah, it's not like peoples' traffic profiles didn't completely change during that period. (Going from bursty web surfing and downloads to everyone pulling down 25 mbps 4K streams continuously at the same time.)
      - 6y ago
erikerikson 6y ago
> so many 5G base stations have to be deployed When using MM wave, inexpensive repeaters can be used to extend the reach of base stations around corners and into buildings efficiently. On the flip side, the reduction of cell size facilitated by lower interference allows greater reuse of spectrum. Marketing but worthwhile background reading material: https://pivotalcommware.com/technology/ https://pivotalcommware.com/technology/
spicybright 6y ago
5G sounds terrible when you put it that way lol. Is there any upside besides (potentially) better speeds?
- jakear 6y ago
  More mystery as to future weather conditions! (not sarcastic, I dislike the idea that we should know the future of weather, though I grant that this is potentially a downside for managing responses to life threatening weather events like hurricanes) https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/11/will-5g-wreck-out-weather-forecasts/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/11/will-5g-w...
  - msds 6y ago
    > I dislike the idea that we should know the future of weather Whaaaaaat? Is this some aesthetic preference, or a "humans weren't meant to share this knowledge of the divine", or are you trying to sell more weather resistant clothing? And if you wish to practice weather agnosticism, why is your preference so strong that you view the overall human lack of weather-knowledge positively? What do you think of meteorologists? I have so many questions...
- HideousKojima 6y ago
  Supposedly it will be better able to support large amounts of users in the same location (like sports stadiums), so that's a slight advantage if you go to football games or concerts a lot I guess?
- fourthark 6y ago
  Should improve reliability, but carriers don't want to talk about that because they would have to admit reliability is not already good.
- 1123581321 6y ago
  Anything that improves carrier capacity is ultimately good for consumers because it means some improvement in reliability, price or speed.
Spooky23 6y ago
5G is a racket designed to replace last mile infrastructure and get the telcos away from State Utility Commission regulation in favor of more pliable federal regulatory regimes.
- Reason077 6y ago
  More competition is good for consumers. 5G competing with fixed broadband means lower prices for everyone.
  - Bedon292 6y ago
    Its more a way for the same companies to not have to actually physically install wires / fiber to a residence. It just means people will end up with a single carrier of 5G instead of a single fixed broadband provider. With no additional competition.
  - Spooky23 6y ago
    It won’t remain competitive. Wireless is exempt from the restrictions that wired services are forced to accept. Wireless carriers can terminate apps that they consider disruptive and have fewer neutrality and limit restrictions. You’re not going to have meaningful competition, and the national security nonsense attributed to 5G allows for things like siting infrastructure dramatically cheaper than incumbents. The regulation is much easier for carriers to control at the federal level, especially with the courts in the state they are in.
    - eru 6y ago
      > Wireless is exempt from the restrictions that wired services are forced to accept. The comment you replying to talked about market competition bringing prices down. Not about regulation bringing prices down.
      - Spooky23 6y ago
        Regulation is a key part of the cost of goods sold. Regulation makes markets. For example, 5G antennas have been declared critical defense infrastructure, cable TV has not. That means that your cable company needs to follow local ordinances, get permits, rent existing pole space, etc. The 5G people can drop an antenna wherever they want with 30 days notice — on my block, a 5G millimeter wave pole was dropped three feet away from an existing telephone pole, in the middle of a sidewalk. Wireless also operates under rules that allow it to do more revenue generation for things like prioritization, etc.
ABeeSea 6y ago
Walking around a big city leaves a lot to be desired with 4G. There are constant dead zones, bad hand-offs, poorly configured repeaters, and endless cement/concrete. I am very much looking forward to 5G foxing this.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Boy have I got some bad news for you: https://www.networkcomputing.com/networking/5g-will-hit-wall-literally-2019 https://www.networkcomputing.com/networking/5g-will-hit-wall...
  - ABeeSea 6y ago
    I’m not worried about in-building coverage. Most buildings have WiFi. I’m talking about walking block to block. If many more blocks have antennas, then my problem is solved.
    - r00fus 6y ago
      You must live in a different reality than me. There are many times when my LTE is better than any WiFi and that includes at work (pre-COVID) and home.
      - AdmiralGinge 6y ago
        Yeah, my 4G is fairly consistent and reliable whereas I just don't bother with WiFi if I can possibly avoid it. It's a hugely frustrating technology I think.
Reason077 6y ago
> "I really believe that for commercial cellular in urban areas, 5G is more of a benefit for the carriers than the consumers." 3.6Ghz 5G has been a big benefit for me in London, where I consistently get 200-300 Mbps and low pings. 4G tops out in the 50-70 Mbps range. Whether this will still be the case once there's a ton of new 5G iPhones added to the network, I'm not sure!
- coin 6y ago
  What is it that you can do with 200Mbps that you can’t do with 50?
  - Reason077 6y ago
    Stadia is probably the main one for me. It'd work at 50 Mbps, but 4G speeds can vary (not consistently 50 Mbps at peak times), so it wouldn't always be smooth and lag-free at 1080p. But in general, it's just nice to have faster downloads. Nice not to have to wait as long for those multi-GB OS updates, game updates, app updates, etc. Don't you agree?
  - eru 6y ago
    Same reason 640K RAM wasn't enough for everybody.
mcot2 6y ago
Except for T-Mobile which is using both 600MHz and 2.5GHz spectrum for 5G. The 2.5 spectrum aquired when they bought Sprint has just the right balance of bandwidth (300Mbps avg) and ability to penetrate walls and travel large distances. They do have to spend a lot of Capex to increase backhaul to the cell sites to make it happen though.

by kayson 6y ago

sroussey 6y ago

The majority is at mm wave? Citation? I think only Verizon in the US went this path.

joecool1029 6y ago
T-Mobile has been doing mmwave on 2 different bands for over a year now in various cities, airports, venues[1][2]. The difference between T-Mobile and Verizon was the launch strategy. T-Mobile played it right by not hyping technologies most of the country can't use like LAA (5GHZ) and mmwave. Verizon arguably had the best LTE launch strategy years ago, but yeah... I guess they could afford to botch this. Come to think of it, pre-merger Sprint probably had the best launch strategy which was to launch 5G on mid-band where they had enough spectrum to service both LTE and 5G NR users. Masayoshi Son was too busy flushing his money down other toilets like WeWork and Uber to cut the checks Sprint needed to get it completed nationwide. Sprint also suffered from having 5 or 6 different equipment vendors across the country... where T-Mobile had two. They have been ripping out the NSN 5G equipment from NYC post-merger, because this is a T-Mobile Ericsson market and they don't want to deal with it. AT&T meanwhile got a $100 billion 25yr contract from the post-9/11 telecom pork project, FirstNet[2]. So they've been throwing up tons of new sites with that money over the past year or two. I don't think anyone was thinking about 5G or spectrum planning over there, just focusing on acquiring consumers through acquisitions (Directtv, some crappy Mexican carriers) and getting government contracts. Gov M2M stuff moves slower than Apple at acquiring new modem technologies for their devices, so there's not a huge rush to ramp up 5G. https://www.t-mobile.com/support/coverage/t-mobile-network#tech https://www.t-mobile.com/support/coverage/t-mobile-network#t... < [1] tmo band listing https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/t-mobile-revs-up-5g-6-cities-using-mmwave-spectrum https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/t-mobile-revs-up-5g-... < [2] News coverage of tmo bandwidth deployment over a year ago. https://washingtontechnology.com/blogs/editors-notebook/2017/03/att-firstnet-award.aspx https://washingtontechnology.com/blogs/editors-notebook/2017... [3] Firstnet contract

nabla9 6y ago

In the Untied States that might be true. In markets where there are functioning markets, the benefits go to consumers. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/europe-not-america-home-free-market/600859/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/europe-not... The Great Reversal https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674237544 https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674237544

sandworm101 6y ago

>> use beamforming to finish your download at Gbps speeds and get you off the network faster Ya, "Faster speeds mean people will spend less time clogging the connection" ... it never happens that way. Increased speeds mean people use more internet, not less. Consumers start doing new things with the faster speeds (streaming video etc) increasing demand and overall usage. The only real answer is massive and constantly increasing speeds and bandwidth capacities. It is a race that cannot be won but must be run nevertheless.

foota 6y ago
This really isn't the case since mobile networks have relatively low usage limits.
- abstractbarista 6y ago
  No, it is definitely true that volume of data consumed over cellular data connections has vastly increased over the years.
- jakear 6y ago
  The limits will rise. They always do.
  - bleepblorp 6y ago
    This certainly hasn't been the case in hardwired broadband, which has gone from no caps, to caps, to caps with malicious quality of service rules. Limits go down when providers have limited competition.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      Yeah, it's not like peoples' traffic profiles didn't completely change during that period. (Going from bursty web surfing and downloads to everyone pulling down 25 mbps 4K streams continuously at the same time.)
    - 6y ago

erikerikson 6y ago

> so many 5G base stations have to be deployed When using MM wave, inexpensive repeaters can be used to extend the reach of base stations around corners and into buildings efficiently. On the flip side, the reduction of cell size facilitated by lower interference allows greater reuse of spectrum. Marketing but worthwhile background reading material: https://pivotalcommware.com/technology/ https://pivotalcommware.com/technology/

spicybright 6y ago

5G sounds terrible when you put it that way lol. Is there any upside besides (potentially) better speeds?

jakear 6y ago
More mystery as to future weather conditions! (not sarcastic, I dislike the idea that we should know the future of weather, though I grant that this is potentially a downside for managing responses to life threatening weather events like hurricanes) https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/11/will-5g-wreck-out-weather-forecasts/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/11/will-5g-w...
- msds 6y ago
  > I dislike the idea that we should know the future of weather Whaaaaaat? Is this some aesthetic preference, or a "humans weren't meant to share this knowledge of the divine", or are you trying to sell more weather resistant clothing? And if you wish to practice weather agnosticism, why is your preference so strong that you view the overall human lack of weather-knowledge positively? What do you think of meteorologists? I have so many questions...
HideousKojima 6y ago
Supposedly it will be better able to support large amounts of users in the same location (like sports stadiums), so that's a slight advantage if you go to football games or concerts a lot I guess?
fourthark 6y ago
Should improve reliability, but carriers don't want to talk about that because they would have to admit reliability is not already good.
1123581321 6y ago
Anything that improves carrier capacity is ultimately good for consumers because it means some improvement in reliability, price or speed.

Spooky23 6y ago

5G is a racket designed to replace last mile infrastructure and get the telcos away from State Utility Commission regulation in favor of more pliable federal regulatory regimes.

Reason077 6y ago
More competition is good for consumers. 5G competing with fixed broadband means lower prices for everyone.
- Bedon292 6y ago
  Its more a way for the same companies to not have to actually physically install wires / fiber to a residence. It just means people will end up with a single carrier of 5G instead of a single fixed broadband provider. With no additional competition.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  It won’t remain competitive. Wireless is exempt from the restrictions that wired services are forced to accept. Wireless carriers can terminate apps that they consider disruptive and have fewer neutrality and limit restrictions. You’re not going to have meaningful competition, and the national security nonsense attributed to 5G allows for things like siting infrastructure dramatically cheaper than incumbents. The regulation is much easier for carriers to control at the federal level, especially with the courts in the state they are in.
  - eru 6y ago
    > Wireless is exempt from the restrictions that wired services are forced to accept. The comment you replying to talked about market competition bringing prices down. Not about regulation bringing prices down.
    - Spooky23 6y ago
      Regulation is a key part of the cost of goods sold. Regulation makes markets. For example, 5G antennas have been declared critical defense infrastructure, cable TV has not. That means that your cable company needs to follow local ordinances, get permits, rent existing pole space, etc. The 5G people can drop an antenna wherever they want with 30 days notice — on my block, a 5G millimeter wave pole was dropped three feet away from an existing telephone pole, in the middle of a sidewalk. Wireless also operates under rules that allow it to do more revenue generation for things like prioritization, etc.

ABeeSea 6y ago

Walking around a big city leaves a lot to be desired with 4G. There are constant dead zones, bad hand-offs, poorly configured repeaters, and endless cement/concrete. I am very much looking forward to 5G foxing this.

ineedasername 6y ago
Boy have I got some bad news for you: https://www.networkcomputing.com/networking/5g-will-hit-wall-literally-2019 https://www.networkcomputing.com/networking/5g-will-hit-wall...
- ABeeSea 6y ago
  I’m not worried about in-building coverage. Most buildings have WiFi. I’m talking about walking block to block. If many more blocks have antennas, then my problem is solved.
  - r00fus 6y ago
    You must live in a different reality than me. There are many times when my LTE is better than any WiFi and that includes at work (pre-COVID) and home.
    - AdmiralGinge 6y ago
      Yeah, my 4G is fairly consistent and reliable whereas I just don't bother with WiFi if I can possibly avoid it. It's a hugely frustrating technology I think.

Reason077 6y ago

> "I really believe that for commercial cellular in urban areas, 5G is more of a benefit for the carriers than the consumers." 3.6Ghz 5G has been a big benefit for me in London, where I consistently get 200-300 Mbps and low pings. 4G tops out in the 50-70 Mbps range. Whether this will still be the case once there's a ton of new 5G iPhones added to the network, I'm not sure!

coin 6y ago
What is it that you can do with 200Mbps that you can’t do with 50?
- Reason077 6y ago
  Stadia is probably the main one for me. It'd work at 50 Mbps, but 4G speeds can vary (not consistently 50 Mbps at peak times), so it wouldn't always be smooth and lag-free at 1080p. But in general, it's just nice to have faster downloads. Nice not to have to wait as long for those multi-GB OS updates, game updates, app updates, etc. Don't you agree?
- eru 6y ago
  Same reason 640K RAM wasn't enough for everybody.

mcot2 6y ago

Except for T-Mobile which is using both 600MHz and 2.5GHz spectrum for 5G. The 2.5 spectrum aquired when they bought Sprint has just the right balance of bandwidth (300Mbps avg) and ability to penetrate walls and travel large distances. They do have to spend a lot of Capex to increase backhaul to the cell sites to make it happen though.