5 ms·

Which is why, when people tell me how "awesome" 5G will be, I have to remind them of the massive infrastructure cost. DC power in Europe also has a similar issu

Which is why, when people tell me how "awesome" 5G will be, I have to remind them of the massive infrastructure cost. DC power in Europe also has a similar issue. It's a "short haul" technology. 5G repeaters may be possible, but I'd want to understand the roadmap for what comes next... could they be reusable for whatever "6G" might be? Otherwise we're going to spend a TON of money littering up the landscape for a short term gain.

OJFord 6y ago
What are you referring to by 'DC power'?
- xnyan 6y ago
  Differences between AC and DC power distribution and why you might chose one over the other. TLDR, AC is the most common choice for good reason, but there are also conditions where DC would be the better choice: You may have heard something like "AC is better for power distribution than DC." I would not go so far as to call this a lie, AC is in fact "better" than DC in lots of common cases, probably the big two being that at some (but not all) voltages, AC transmission is more efficient than DC and the second being that AC can be stepped up and down in voltage very efficiently without electronics or anything else more complicated than several loops of varnished copper wire. Of course this is not true in 100% of cases. For example, at very high voltages (think 100s of thousands of volts) something called the skin effect can become so pronounced that DC becomes more efficient than AC. There's a high voltage DC power transfer backbone in Europe for this very reason. When you're dealing with multiple countries and potentially different standards for AC power distribution, this has the nice side effect of eliminating the need convert between frequencies and phases of AC. The other, and probably the biggest reason you would choose a DC power distribution system is because your power source is DC. Pretty much all power is generated the same way, from fossil fuels to hydroelectric and even nuclear power - you use energy to spin a turbine, and that circular motion is used to induce an alternating current. There's really only one way to get efficient DC power and that's solar panels. Depending on the use case, the losses of converting DC to AC (and often, rectified back to DC again for the end-use application) may not be worth it.
  - cardiffspaceman 6y ago
    Pacific Intertie is borderline-famous application of DC in the US (with Swedish tech) and the Wikipedia article [1] looks like a good description. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie
  - eternalban 6y ago
    Recommend the film “The Current War” for those interested in an entertaining look at the history of AC vs DC and the characters involved. I found it balanced, and not really picking sides between Edison and Tesla, in terms of hagiographic treatment. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2140507/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2140507/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
ksec 6y ago
>massive infrastructure cost........It's a "short haul" technology. Again, only in US, and only mmWave. It seems US is the only part of the world where they use mmWave and 5G interchangeably. ( I guess I could blame the Media for it. ) Most part of the world aren't even thinking of implementing mmWave.
darksaints 6y ago
5g already is awesome, and the vast majority of it uses the same exact spectrum bands as 4g. mmWave, which is a portion not shared with 4g which has high infrastructure costs, only tends to get deployed in super high density places that need the extra bandwidth. You can buy a 5g phone today and get the advantages of 5g without ever connecting to a cell site that your 4g phone couldn't connect to. Also, you aren't spending that money, some cartel telco is spending that money. You don't have any reason to be concerned about the amount of money they're spending. Those costs they're incurring has almost no relationship to the price you are paying...this is cartel economics 101.
- themaninthedark 6y ago
  When you say cartel telco, are you talking about the telco's the cartels have set up? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-telecoms-cartels-specialreport-idUSKCN24G1DN https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-telecoms-cartels-s... Or just AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile? Is there anything that shows they have been working to limit access to the market?
drewzero1 6y ago
Are people trying to bring back DC for distribution? I love the idea but the short range and larger conductors seem to be barriers. I've been working on a 24VDC network for my workshop, but even across the room I'm accounting for voltage drop.
ummonk 6y ago
The whole point of the high frequency portion of 5G is providing more bandwidth in dense urban areas with a lot of devices.

OJFord 6y ago

What are you referring to by 'DC power'?

xnyan 6y ago
Differences between AC and DC power distribution and why you might chose one over the other. TLDR, AC is the most common choice for good reason, but there are also conditions where DC would be the better choice: You may have heard something like "AC is better for power distribution than DC." I would not go so far as to call this a lie, AC is in fact "better" than DC in lots of common cases, probably the big two being that at some (but not all) voltages, AC transmission is more efficient than DC and the second being that AC can be stepped up and down in voltage very efficiently without electronics or anything else more complicated than several loops of varnished copper wire. Of course this is not true in 100% of cases. For example, at very high voltages (think 100s of thousands of volts) something called the skin effect can become so pronounced that DC becomes more efficient than AC. There's a high voltage DC power transfer backbone in Europe for this very reason. When you're dealing with multiple countries and potentially different standards for AC power distribution, this has the nice side effect of eliminating the need convert between frequencies and phases of AC. The other, and probably the biggest reason you would choose a DC power distribution system is because your power source is DC. Pretty much all power is generated the same way, from fossil fuels to hydroelectric and even nuclear power - you use energy to spin a turbine, and that circular motion is used to induce an alternating current. There's really only one way to get efficient DC power and that's solar panels. Depending on the use case, the losses of converting DC to AC (and often, rectified back to DC again for the end-use application) may not be worth it.
- cardiffspaceman 6y ago
  Pacific Intertie is borderline-famous application of DC in the US (with Swedish tech) and the Wikipedia article [1] looks like a good description. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie
- eternalban 6y ago
  Recommend the film “The Current War” for those interested in an entertaining look at the history of AC vs DC and the characters involved. I found it balanced, and not really picking sides between Edison and Tesla, in terms of hagiographic treatment. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2140507/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2140507/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

ksec 6y ago

>massive infrastructure cost........It's a "short haul" technology. Again, only in US, and only mmWave. It seems US is the only part of the world where they use mmWave and 5G interchangeably. ( I guess I could blame the Media for it. ) Most part of the world aren't even thinking of implementing mmWave.

darksaints 6y ago

5g already is awesome, and the vast majority of it uses the same exact spectrum bands as 4g. mmWave, which is a portion not shared with 4g which has high infrastructure costs, only tends to get deployed in super high density places that need the extra bandwidth. You can buy a 5g phone today and get the advantages of 5g without ever connecting to a cell site that your 4g phone couldn't connect to. Also, you aren't spending that money, some cartel telco is spending that money. You don't have any reason to be concerned about the amount of money they're spending. Those costs they're incurring has almost no relationship to the price you are paying...this is cartel economics 101.

themaninthedark 6y ago
When you say cartel telco, are you talking about the telco's the cartels have set up? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-telecoms-cartels-specialreport-idUSKCN24G1DN https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-telecoms-cartels-s... Or just AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile? Is there anything that shows they have been working to limit access to the market?

drewzero1 6y ago

Are people trying to bring back DC for distribution? I love the idea but the short range and larger conductors seem to be barriers. I've been working on a 24VDC network for my workshop, but even across the room I'm accounting for voltage drop.

ummonk 6y ago

The whole point of the high frequency portion of 5G is providing more bandwidth in dense urban areas with a lot of devices.