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Are end-users even going to have a "5G experience"? The average user isn't going to really notice faster downloads or lower latency relative to good LTE. If an

Are end-users even going to have a "5G experience"? The average user isn't going to really notice faster downloads or lower latency relative to good LTE. If anything it seems like Apple is doing the wireless carriers a favor by carrying the marketing water for 5G

ogre_codes 6y ago
> If anything it seems like Apple is doing the wireless carriers a favor by carrying the marketing water for 5G The iPhone has been on a very incremental upgrade cycle for years now and people have been hanging on to their phones longer and longer. So the new iPhone's biggest competitor is the iPhone people have in their pocket. This is one of the few years where Apple gets to point to a big-obvious difference between the model years. So the 5G dog-and-pony show serves Apple as much as it does the carriers.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
I think netflix users might notice. If they can push ‘download local’ and it takes 1 second to do so, that might be an interesting thing :) Also, 1 GB games that take 1 second to update will be nice.
- vineyardmike 6y ago
  But you will realistically only get those speeds so close to the cellular antenna that you can feel it melting your brain. /s but actually you do need to be within a few hundred feed of the antenna to get "impressive" 5G speeds. I heard reports that during the build out at NFL stadiums, the antenna coverage didn't even reach the field when placed at the top of the seating.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    I would imagine that NFL stadiums are particularly bad RF environments because of interference due to reflection. OTOH, lots of dense urban environments have similar issues.
- notimetorelax 6y ago
  With symmetric 1Gbit internet at home, I noticed that other parts of the system become a bottleneck. E.g. my laptop built in SSD simply cannot handle these speeds, something to do with the drivers. I assume phone users may see similar issues.
  - itchyouch 6y ago
    1Gb is 125MB/s... most SSDs benchmark at around 500MB/s... even with small files, it should be possible? Likely your wifi, nic, or switching infra and even cables would be where I’d look other than your SSD.
    - zaptrem 6y ago
      At least when it comes to downloading/updating large games, they can get CPU bound when decompression and updates happen.
      - noizejoy 6y ago
        ... and potentially anti-virus software also slows things down on the way to a file becoming fully usable
    - notimetorelax 6y ago
      That’s what my SSD says on the tin, but in practice my PC completely freezes during multi GB downloads, and looking at the charts SSD or it’s drivers appear to be the bottleneck here
  - pvg 6y ago
    What speeds are you seeing? 1Gbit internet is sort of like having LAN speeds for internet access and most machines deal with that fine. 100ish megabytes/sec is something most old SATA SSD's can typically do. But that aside, if phones are fine on LANs, it seems they ought to be just fine on WANs running at LAN speeds.
    - notimetorelax 6y ago
- strictnein 6y ago
  1 GB = 80 Gb. No one will be getting 80Gbps 5G speeds.
  - easde 6y ago
    1 GB = 8 Gb, not 80 Gb
    - strictnein 6y ago
      Ahh, dang it. You're correct of course. How in the world did I mess that up?
ksec 6y ago
>The average user isn't going to really notice faster downloads or lower latency relative to good LTE. I can assure you user will notice the lower latency even if 4G and 5G had the same download speed.

ogre_codes 6y ago

> If anything it seems like Apple is doing the wireless carriers a favor by carrying the marketing water for 5G The iPhone has been on a very incremental upgrade cycle for years now and people have been hanging on to their phones longer and longer. So the new iPhone's biggest competitor is the iPhone people have in their pocket. This is one of the few years where Apple gets to point to a big-obvious difference between the model years. So the 5G dog-and-pony show serves Apple as much as it does the carriers.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

I think netflix users might notice. If they can push ‘download local’ and it takes 1 second to do so, that might be an interesting thing :) Also, 1 GB games that take 1 second to update will be nice.

vineyardmike 6y ago
But you will realistically only get those speeds so close to the cellular antenna that you can feel it melting your brain. /s but actually you do need to be within a few hundred feed of the antenna to get "impressive" 5G speeds. I heard reports that during the build out at NFL stadiums, the antenna coverage didn't even reach the field when placed at the top of the seating.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  I would imagine that NFL stadiums are particularly bad RF environments because of interference due to reflection. OTOH, lots of dense urban environments have similar issues.
notimetorelax 6y ago
With symmetric 1Gbit internet at home, I noticed that other parts of the system become a bottleneck. E.g. my laptop built in SSD simply cannot handle these speeds, something to do with the drivers. I assume phone users may see similar issues.
- itchyouch 6y ago
  1Gb is 125MB/s... most SSDs benchmark at around 500MB/s... even with small files, it should be possible? Likely your wifi, nic, or switching infra and even cables would be where I’d look other than your SSD.
  - zaptrem 6y ago
    At least when it comes to downloading/updating large games, they can get CPU bound when decompression and updates happen.
    - noizejoy 6y ago
      ... and potentially anti-virus software also slows things down on the way to a file becoming fully usable
  - notimetorelax 6y ago
    That’s what my SSD says on the tin, but in practice my PC completely freezes during multi GB downloads, and looking at the charts SSD or it’s drivers appear to be the bottleneck here
- pvg 6y ago
  What speeds are you seeing? 1Gbit internet is sort of like having LAN speeds for internet access and most machines deal with that fine. 100ish megabytes/sec is something most old SATA SSD's can typically do. But that aside, if phones are fine on LANs, it seems they ought to be just fine on WANs running at LAN speeds.
  - notimetorelax 6y ago
strictnein 6y ago
1 GB = 80 Gb. No one will be getting 80Gbps 5G speeds.
- easde 6y ago
  1 GB = 8 Gb, not 80 Gb
  - strictnein 6y ago
    Ahh, dang it. You're correct of course. How in the world did I mess that up?

ksec 6y ago

>The average user isn't going to really notice faster downloads or lower latency relative to good LTE. I can assure you user will notice the lower latency even if 4G and 5G had the same download speed.