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5G baffles me. I hear about it from politicians. I hear about it from telecom companies. I hear about it from my tech-illiterate dad, who asked me "Does it h

5G baffles me. I hear about it from politicians. I hear about it from telecom companies. I hear about it from my tech-illiterate dad, who asked me "Does it have 5G?" when I told him I got a new smartphone. But... what is it? Higher bandwidth? Lower latency? Is it the IoT dream, my smart microwave connects to a cell tower instead of my private subnet? Does it replace my wired home internet connection? And, bonus question - what's the theoretical bandwidth limit per person for, say, a football stadium full of people? Does this limit improve on 5G vs older specs? At what point does physics prevent us from having better standardized wireless networks?

fnord77 6y ago
I think it is more oriented towards saving money and stuffing more subscribers onto the infrastructure. So, it's about money.
umvi 6y ago
It's simple. 5G is a marketing term to get you to buy stuff. It's 4G + 1, therefore it's better. There may be marginal technological improvements too. See: Veritasium's latest video about planned obsolescence
- saltminer 6y ago
  Given how US carriers tend to rebrand stuff (see: Verizon's "4G LTE" in my hometown is/was HSPA+, a 3G technology), this is my view on it. "5G" will likely be real 4G outside larger cities.
  - takeda 6y ago
    Regarding 4G and HSPA+ my understanding was that some providers (I believe AT&T was one, called HSPA+ a 4G). That's why providers that had the true 4G started using "4G LTE". 5G seems like it's just improvement over 4G. It can use the same frequencies, but uses them more efficiently. The millimeter communication that made most wear a tinfoil hat probably won't be used much. I think maybe it will be useful in open places where there a lot of people like stadiums. I think most of improvement on 5G won't really be noticeable to average user.
AndrewDucker 6y ago
It added a whole bunch of different things. More efficient communication at existing frequencies and high speed communication at much higher frequencies are the main two. The Wikipedia page is pretty good.
DaftDank 6y ago
From what I understand, it's one of the things that will be key to enabling large numbers of self-driving cars on the roads.
- CyberDildonics 6y ago
  What is the specific technical reason that would be true?
  - DaftDank 6y ago
    Good question, I have no clue as I have nothing to do with 5G. From what I recall, it was something about how quickly the cars would be able to communicate with each other. Maybe this is just a very common misconception that is shared widely, but I know I've read it before in numerous places online. EDIT: Link to Verizon talking about it. It could all just be hype to make people want 5G and to get governments to invest in it, I don't know. "Today, internet-connected cars rely on 4G LTE technology to stream music and engage other connected services, but 5G will usher in a step change not only for in-car connectivity, but for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication. The implication is clear: Cars will not only “talk” with one another in near-real time, but also with sensors installed in streets and traffic lights, sharing information on roadways and weather conditions, and alerting drivers on the same stretch of highway to potential hazards. Connected vehicles will be able to crowdsource near-real-time routing information to avoid backups and streamline traffic flow. Next-generation networks should also lead to improvements in driver safety by helping mitigate the unknown—a truck, for example, sensing that its driver is about to run a red light and alerting other vehicles approaching the intersection of the hazard. The National Highway Safety Administration has concluded that the introduction of systems to prevent collisions at intersections alone could save 1,300 lives a year." https://www.verizon.com/about/news/how-5g-ultra-wideband-can-help-fast-track-self-driving-cars https://www.verizon.com/about/news/how-5g-ultra-wideband-can...
XCSme 6y ago
5G is just capitalist marketing bs to give you a reason to buy new devices.
- minitoar 6y ago
  It’s not just that, but certainly some firms have sort of turned it into that.
  - XCSme 6y ago
    Is there currently any real world use-case where 5G is being used by end-users for solutions that were not possible with 4G? As far as I know, for the average consumer that gets targeted by 5G ads, the benefits are marginal or non-existent.
- gassius 6y ago
  That's why capitalism has given humanity it's biggest leap in technology advances in under 200 years, marketing bs Edit: typo
  - XCSme 6y ago
    I am not sure what you are replying to. My point was that 5G is not that huge of a technological improvement as 3G was over 2G or 4G over 3G. The 4G speeds nowdays are fast enough that they are usually not the limiting factor in day-to-day usage of mobile internet. The advantages of 5G are not that big for the average mobile user, there are more drawbacks than advantages for using 5G, at least in the upcoming 5-10 years. I said that it's capitalism marketing bs, because that's what it is: hyping the technology to more than it is for the sole purpose of increasing profits for telecom and hardware manufacturers.
    - ng55QPSK 6y ago
      Actually 5G is a big improvement on the system architecture. More and more of (dedicated) HW is moved to SW entities and virtualized computing (cloud stuff). This should bring down the investments for large deployments and coverage everywhere.
xaduha 6y ago
I don't know about you, but occasionally some location services on my or my family phones say that we are in another city. I think that happens based on IP and that IP probably is in another city, latency comes from providers tunneling all that traffic to their centers first, probably for many legitimate reasons, not just on a whim. 5G is supposed to solve that, at least that's my understanding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPRS_Tunnelling_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPRS_Tunnelling_Protocol https://techmonitor.ai/techonology/cybersecurity/gtp-protocol https://techmonitor.ai/techonology/cybersecurity/gtp-protoco...
bjt2n3904 6y ago
My theory is that 5G will be like IPv6. Nobody wanted it, nobody understands it, it makes everything more difficult, and it will take ages to become the standard.
- est31 6y ago
  IPv6 makes a great deal of things more easy. It allows smaller routing tables for example. No more NAT makes p2p communication much easier. Yes, addresses are way harder to type now, and that's obviously annoying. But ip addresses weren't made to be typed manually, that's what DNS is for.
  - colordrops 6y ago
    The OP is probably talking about implementation rather than design, which to this day is very fragile and prone to breakage and misconfiguration, at least on consumer grade networks.
    - bjt2n3904 6y ago
      Implementation, design, and adoption. All in all, for the wonderful claims it's supporters make, adoption is the elephant in the room.
    - philjohn 6y ago
      And with certain ISP's being done with DS-Lite which is the worst possible solution at the moment. Sure, your core network is now IPV6, but everyone is going through CGNAT for the parts of the internet that are IPV4 only. It's one of the reasons I moved from Virgin Media (Cable in the UK) to Zen (FTTP) ... proper dual stack so I have native IPV4 AND IPV6.
      - p1mrx 6y ago
        > DS-Lite which is the worst possible solution at the moment No, CGNAT-only is the worst solution. > everyone is going through CGNAT for the parts of the internet that are IPV4 only. What choice do they have? There are more humans than IPv4 addresses, so if every ISP were dual-stack, the price would go to infinity. It would be more productive to complain about CGNAT-only ISPs, than those who are actually trying to fix the problem.
tannhaeuser 6y ago
5G is for integrating very low-cost ICs into every "smart" device, TV, car, etc. to track you without you noticing.
- skeeks 6y ago
  No, that's what 5G enables but 5G itself is something else.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
lukec11 6y ago
5G can be many things, but it isn't gigabit wireless speeds, or low latency, or smart microwaves. It can enable those technologies, but what it really is is a telecommunications standard, telling companies how to build out networks. 5G uses the same radio waves that 4G has, in many cases - T-Mobile US, for example, uses 600MHz and 2.5GHZ frequencies for 5G (and 4G). Sprint has been using 2.5GHz for 4G since 2008. The biggest change that 5G could bring today honestly is capacity - if you've ever tried to use LTE in a busy train station, you can tell the impact that congestion has on that network's subscribers. Thousands of people connected to a few cells leads to significant slowdown. Generally, higher frequencies lead to shorter range and higher throughput, so in specific circumstances like Airports[0] with multiple antennas, 5G can allow for much higher throughput to many devices at once, alleviating congestion. 5G can also more efficiently make use of spectrum, which means 5G networks can reach further than 4G networks built on the same frequency. There's a lot more to this, and I'd recommend reading into the Wikipedia page[1] on 5G for an in-depth look if you have time - but the basics are, 5G is a standard, not any one set of devices or antennas or expectations. [0] https://news.tampaairport.com/tpa-welcomes-5g-and-enhanced-4g-service-in-advance-of-super-bowl-lv/ https://news.tampaairport.com/tpa-welcomes-5g-and-enhanced-4... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G
- reaperducer 6y ago
  5G can also more efficiently make use of spectrum, which means 5G networks can reach further than 4G networks built on the same frequency. This part I don't understand. I spend a lot of time on business and pleasure in places where cellular coverage is unavailable or unreliable. I thought that 5G signals don't go as far as 4G, so how can they reach "further" into towns and places that don't have cellular service? (FWIW, there are a number of places in my regular [pre-pandemic] travels where the 3G signal is better and even faster than 4G signals.)
  - toast0 6y ago
    5G is several parts. The high frequency, hugh bandwidth stuff doesn't go far. The same as existing mobile frequency stuff has about the same penetration as existing service, but because its more efficient, it allows towers to increase power to expand their coverage area. Generally towers will modulate their output power to reduce coverage when congested, hoping devices will attach to other towers; works well when there's enough towers with overlapping coverage, but not as well when towers are sparse. It doesn't have to be purely power either, antenna angle makes a big difference, and phased antennas mean you can change effective angle without mechanically changing the angle.
brightball 6y ago
My understanding of 5G has always been that it’s just more short range nodes which should provide better service in densely populated areas. That’s pretty much it. Some telecoms seem to be positioning this as an opportunity to provide home internet access running through 5G infrastructure which would cut down on last mile costs, but at the same time it seems like it would saturate the spectrum pretty quickly. During all the 5G hype I’ve been buying up stocks of companies based on how much backbone fiber they own, because as far as I can tell that’s where the real staying power is anyway.
Black101 6y ago
5G wasn't designed for the consumer... only the marketing was.
david-cako 6y ago
5G allows for more granular management of network capacity, so you could think of a stadium deployment as somewhere between existing LTE and a WiFi mesh network. The carriers can look at dashboards and maps, and figure out where people are getting slowdowns so they can put up some more 5G nodes. This granularity can mean more precise location data/telemetry and some interesting opportunities for edge caching and edge compute. Existing GPS, in my experience, is far from perfect for geocoding more dense areas, so the idea that 5G can reliably put you out in front of a restaurant, or even in a particular floor and room of a building is promising (and a bit scary). What if your games were streamed from a local edge node, and you only played with people on the same node at near-zero latency? Or maybe you're at a stadium, and your phone is streaming replays of the game directly from the stadium without going over the internet. And your phone knows exactly where the nearest vending machine is, and the vending machine is used as an edge device to give you live stock data and process the transaction. I think it's a good supplement to LTE. People are going crazy because it's not an in-your-face speed improvement, but the reality is that it can mature to keep dense urban areas connected in a way that LTE wasn't really designed for. In terms of it replacing WiFi/fixed line, I think one good reason it might is that it's simple. Down the line, some people might look at the process of "getting internet installed" and setting up a modem/access point as archaic, when you can just buy a device and have it connect. I kind of like having a separate fixed internet line though, because if one goes down for some reason, I still have the other.
- rocqua 6y ago
  Fixed line internet has the massive advantage of not contending for the physical medium against all your neighbors.
laurowyn 6y ago
5G is the next generation of mobile connectivity. I can't list all of the detailed changes off the top of my head, but some of the biggest changes I'm aware of are; The use of a different radio band, therefore less contention in the existing mobile bands - less congestion results in better speeds overall. Reducing the range of base stations. shorter range means less clients, less congestion and therefore better speeds, whilst also deploying them more densely to cope with wider areas and higher bandwidth densities. Also, shorter range reduces the power requirements, meaning mobile devices will have longer battery life (nothing magical, probably not even noticeable to the average user), or it can be built into smaller/low power devices such as IoT. Utimately, 5G is irrelevant to end users until it's actually deployed widely. Just like 3G and 4G, the end user has no impact on the deployment of the network other than the demand for it. So, all the hype around 5G is almost entirely marketing, politics etc. It only really matters once 5G is deployed across the areas you visit daily, and until then the previous generations of mobile connectivity will continue to serve just fine. Your suggestion about a football stadium is an interesting test case. Ideally, an area that size would be served by up to a dozen base stations, spread throughout the stadium. Compare this with a single 3G base station that would cover the stadium, plus a large portion of the local area, and you can see the pros/cons fairly easily. But how many people are surfing the web whilst watching a game? or taking calls, answering texts etc. Very few during active play time, but there'll be large bursts of traffic in any breaks in play which will stress the older mobile generations to breaking point whereas 5G is designed to deal with that scenario fairly well.
- secondcoming 6y ago
  All I know is that I get double the bandwidth when connected to a 5G network than their 4G one
  - charrondev 6y ago
    So now you can blow through your data cap twice as fast? To me the whole angle of this seems wrong. Who out there has a solid LTE signal and is going “oh if only this were faster”. On the other hand when I have 1 bar I might has well have nothing at all. Shortening the range of the base stations doesn’t seem like it would help this.
Spooky23 6y ago
It’s three things. It helps push out legacy 3G tech that reduces throughput, it enables cellular carriers to displace cable companies without running fiber with mmWave, and it is enabling stuff like smart roads that made it a national security issue. Telematics in cars will be mandated shortly and enable stuff like road vs fuel taxation and congestion pricing. That enabled regulatory changes that basically eliminated most local autonomy over cellular tower placement. Basically, the FCC is “yimby” for anything 5G, and used national security regulations to limit permitting, taxation, etc.
- topranks 6y ago
  That’s the bit that doesn’t make sense. They can’t really avoid running fibre with mmWave cos they have to backhaul it. Sure there is point to point radio, but in the main they’ll need to get fibre almost as close to you as with a fixed line direct to you. But instead it’ll be fibre to base stations on top of every building? It’s almost the same cost in terms of fibre infra.
  - Spooky23 6y ago
    For Verizon at least, they sub out the 5G local towers to a third party and avoid paying CWA unionized guys. They would set mounds of dollar bills in fire to spite the union. I think they use wireless backhaul too.
splithalf 6y ago
Cost savings for carriers and more precise tracking of users for marketing and other purposes.
Shelnutt2 6y ago
My previous job was working for $major_telco in the US, I was in network (not RF engineering). I left right as the "5G" train was starting, however I did get training and have pretty decent familiarity with the implementation plan and 3GPP release 15, the first release with the official New Radio (NR) spec. I also have a large understanding of LTE (3GPP release 10-14), so I'm happy to dive as deep as anyone would like. For the details below I'm going to not use the term "5G", 5G like 4G is marketing. The technical specifications that more or less make up "5G" are the 3GPP standards releases[1]. The 3GPP is the standards body that ratifies the wireless network standards that nearly the entire world uses. For this discussion I'll ignore alternatives since "5G" effectively means the 3GPP standard. The standard of 3GPP Release 15 (and newer) are improvements and build off the existing standards of LTE (releases 8-14). Its an evolution of the standard, much like 3GPP Release 8 (first LTE release) was an evolution on Release 5-7 (HSDPA-HSDPA+). While release 15+ are evolutionary, they are not revolutionary in that there is no magically discovered new physics behind it. The improvements largely lie with increased support for higher modulation levels (256 QAM was introduced with Release 14 LTE-Advanced), increased spectrum efficiency (variable sized framing allowed across difference devices and upload/download), mixing upload/download division types (i.e. using TDD[2] for download and FDD[2] for upload), improved MIMO (up to 64x64 in massive MIMO), improved beam-forming and additional frequencies. Some of these improvements in Release 15+ were available in Release 14 or unofficially rolled out in release 14 + NR draft. I know one carrier that was pushing 64x64 MIMO for TDD LTE. The new frequencies, many in the "millimeter wave" range, will help with with congestion in the "football stadium". There are two main limitations in high capacity events, the first is backhaul. Have to connect the stadium back to the core, and this is _always_ a bottleneck. The second limitation is available spectrum. No matter how many antennas you have in the DAS, there is a physical limitation to the amount of data that can be sent over the frequencies. The new millimeter wave help here, because while its very short range, its large width allows for a significantly higher number of concurrent connections. The new frequencies, along with increased efficiency in existing frequencies, plus core changes are the main driver for the "latency" and "bandwidth" improvements. The "connected cars" and "connected IoT to cell network" are just marketing/sales departments pushing for new customers. The main "advantage" "5G" brings here is an increased capacity in the network to handle this. A few other notes, unlike "3G"->LTE, the upgrade to Release 15+ for carriers will be a lot smoother. First, everyone is now on LTE, aka the precursor so there is no CDMA/EVDO networks that are incompatible that need rip and replace + compatibility modes (ehrpd). Second "NR" is designed to be compatible and multiplexable with existing LTE/LTE-Advanced enodebs, this means in one area you can have NR and LTE towers, and the NR towers can broadcast LTE for devices that are LTE only. This was not the case with the original eNodeBs, which could not handle backwards compatibility without physically separate BTS/nodeBs. Third, the new core for release 15 is designed with backwards compatibility with existing enodeb's. Unlike the previous transition which required a new core that was largely incompatible due to major design changes. So with "NR" RAN elements and existing LTE enodeb's the core can be seamlessly upgraded without having to run two complete networks for multiple years like in the LTE transition. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP#Standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP#Standards [2] TDD-> Time Division Duplex, FDD -> Frequency division duplex. Most LTE networks are FDD, a few (i.e. Sprint, Softbank, China mobile..) have certain spectrum they use as TDD. The difference is with TDD, you use the same exact frequencies for upload and download but you divide the by time. So basically t0->t2 is for download, t3->t4 is upload, etc. With FDD the frequency or "band" is divided into to two parts, one for upload and one for download. There is no time division for FDD but you lose of the size of the channel.
reaperducer 6y ago
I hear about it from politicians. I hear about it from telecom companies. I hear about it from my tech-illiterate dad, who asked me "Does it have 5G?" when I told him I got a new smartphone. Reminds me of when Bill Gates was on breakfast television flogging Intel's Pentium processor. My mom was suddenly of the opinion that all of my computer equipment was obsolete and that this one chip was going to solve all of the world's problems.
elil17 6y ago
“5G” is a marketing umbrella term. It refers both to the next generation of LTE (Long Term Evolution, the incremental improvements that have been added to 4G) and also New Radio, a new cellular protocol which uses new portions of the radio spectrum. The features of 5G are higher bandwidth (especially in situations with high interference/poor reception), a higher density of users supported (up to 100k users/per square kilometer iirc), and better performance at high speeds (e.g. on bullet trains).
Tempest1981 6y ago
5G is quickly getting a reputation for reduced battery life. Are there any technical mitigations coming? Or just heavier phones with bigger batteries?
- zaptrem 6y ago
  LTE had that same reputation for a few years. They improved it then and I don’t see why they wouldn’t improve it now.
  - ng55QPSK 6y ago
    5G is the improved LTE.
  - kiwijamo 6y ago
    Same as UMTS before LTE. I still remember my first UMTS phone would go through battery like water through a sieve.
CyberDildonics 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G
rocqua 6y ago
Generally there is said to be 3 parts to 5G. The first is eMBB: Enhanced Mobile Broadband. In other words faster mobile internet. This is where most operators start. The second is URLLC: Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications. This is mainly aimed at using 5G for things like self-driving cars. But also things like long distance remote control. This is where people see potential for innovation without being clear what the exact innovation will be. The third is mMTC: Massive Machine Type Communications. This is meant for IOT but also for factory control. The IOT thing is mostly allowing extra low battery useage, low speed, cheap connnectivity. The factory control thing is about getting the advantages of 5G (and e.g. URLLC) and allowing a factory to quickly set up their own private 5G network. This is on the consumer facing side. On the operator facing side, infrastructure is moving more towards virtualization and decoupling. Trying to make it easier to use multiple vendors, and stop requiring custom made hardware. And in general, moving towards commodity hardware and something closer to 'infrastructure as code'. This also helps roaming and virtual operators (for e.g. the factory control). It also helps a bit with the ultra low latency part by decentralizing the routing part and moving it closer to the devices. So "what is 5G gonna do for me" is mostly the 'faster internet'. But the idea is that it will enable widespread innovation that you can later use. With some luck (governments are thinking) being ahead in deploying 5G might also help boost your economy by boosting innovation.
- hatchershoes 6y ago
  I don't believe that governments promote massive multi-billion dollar infrastructure-upending projects on optimism and "luck". Your 3-part explanation notably leaves out any effect that 5G might have on mass surveillance, i.e., the annihilation of privacy and private communications. But maybe that's simply implied when we say "IoT".
- kortilla 6y ago
  > and allowing a factory to quickly set up their own private 5G network. Where does their own WiFi network fail here?
pabs3 6y ago
I found these posts from rhizomatica about 5G quite interesting: https://www.rhizomatica.org/talkin-bout-my-5th-generation/ https://www.rhizomatica.org/talkin-bout-my-5th-generation/ https://www.rhizomatica.org/the-right-to-the-network-on-capitalism-and-next-generation-networks/ https://www.rhizomatica.org/the-right-to-the-network-on-capi... https://www.rhizomatica.org/the-manifest-destiny-of-telecommunications-networks/ https://www.rhizomatica.org/the-manifest-destiny-of-telecomm...
jokoon 6y ago
It seems the world is driving towards some kind of "unique conscious collective intelligence". I guess the idea is that machine learning and AI are hungry for data, and as long as there is money, it's obvious that privacy won't matter, but data will. It's important to understand the positive aspects of the consequences of data collection. Of course information is power and it short circuits democracy. But on the other hand, computers give the extraordinary possibility to gain an insight through actual statistics. It's a loss for a gain. Maybe that's how democracy will evolve, and maybe it will help voters, in the end? It's murphy's law.

fnord77 6y ago

I think it is more oriented towards saving money and stuffing more subscribers onto the infrastructure. So, it's about money.

umvi 6y ago

It's simple. 5G is a marketing term to get you to buy stuff. It's 4G + 1, therefore it's better. There may be marginal technological improvements too. See: Veritasium's latest video about planned obsolescence

saltminer 6y ago
Given how US carriers tend to rebrand stuff (see: Verizon's "4G LTE" in my hometown is/was HSPA+, a 3G technology), this is my view on it. "5G" will likely be real 4G outside larger cities.
- takeda 6y ago
  Regarding 4G and HSPA+ my understanding was that some providers (I believe AT&T was one, called HSPA+ a 4G). That's why providers that had the true 4G started using "4G LTE". 5G seems like it's just improvement over 4G. It can use the same frequencies, but uses them more efficiently. The millimeter communication that made most wear a tinfoil hat probably won't be used much. I think maybe it will be useful in open places where there a lot of people like stadiums. I think most of improvement on 5G won't really be noticeable to average user.

AndrewDucker 6y ago

It added a whole bunch of different things. More efficient communication at existing frequencies and high speed communication at much higher frequencies are the main two. The Wikipedia page is pretty good.

DaftDank 6y ago

From what I understand, it's one of the things that will be key to enabling large numbers of self-driving cars on the roads.

CyberDildonics 6y ago
What is the specific technical reason that would be true?
- DaftDank 6y ago
  Good question, I have no clue as I have nothing to do with 5G. From what I recall, it was something about how quickly the cars would be able to communicate with each other. Maybe this is just a very common misconception that is shared widely, but I know I've read it before in numerous places online. EDIT: Link to Verizon talking about it. It could all just be hype to make people want 5G and to get governments to invest in it, I don't know. "Today, internet-connected cars rely on 4G LTE technology to stream music and engage other connected services, but 5G will usher in a step change not only for in-car connectivity, but for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication. The implication is clear: Cars will not only “talk” with one another in near-real time, but also with sensors installed in streets and traffic lights, sharing information on roadways and weather conditions, and alerting drivers on the same stretch of highway to potential hazards. Connected vehicles will be able to crowdsource near-real-time routing information to avoid backups and streamline traffic flow. Next-generation networks should also lead to improvements in driver safety by helping mitigate the unknown—a truck, for example, sensing that its driver is about to run a red light and alerting other vehicles approaching the intersection of the hazard. The National Highway Safety Administration has concluded that the introduction of systems to prevent collisions at intersections alone could save 1,300 lives a year." https://www.verizon.com/about/news/how-5g-ultra-wideband-can-help-fast-track-self-driving-cars https://www.verizon.com/about/news/how-5g-ultra-wideband-can...

XCSme 6y ago

5G is just capitalist marketing bs to give you a reason to buy new devices.

minitoar 6y ago
It’s not just that, but certainly some firms have sort of turned it into that.
- XCSme 6y ago
  Is there currently any real world use-case where 5G is being used by end-users for solutions that were not possible with 4G? As far as I know, for the average consumer that gets targeted by 5G ads, the benefits are marginal or non-existent.
gassius 6y ago
That's why capitalism has given humanity it's biggest leap in technology advances in under 200 years, marketing bs Edit: typo
- XCSme 6y ago
  I am not sure what you are replying to. My point was that 5G is not that huge of a technological improvement as 3G was over 2G or 4G over 3G. The 4G speeds nowdays are fast enough that they are usually not the limiting factor in day-to-day usage of mobile internet. The advantages of 5G are not that big for the average mobile user, there are more drawbacks than advantages for using 5G, at least in the upcoming 5-10 years. I said that it's capitalism marketing bs, because that's what it is: hyping the technology to more than it is for the sole purpose of increasing profits for telecom and hardware manufacturers.
  - ng55QPSK 6y ago
    Actually 5G is a big improvement on the system architecture. More and more of (dedicated) HW is moved to SW entities and virtualized computing (cloud stuff). This should bring down the investments for large deployments and coverage everywhere.

xaduha 6y ago

I don't know about you, but occasionally some location services on my or my family phones say that we are in another city. I think that happens based on IP and that IP probably is in another city, latency comes from providers tunneling all that traffic to their centers first, probably for many legitimate reasons, not just on a whim. 5G is supposed to solve that, at least that's my understanding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPRS_Tunnelling_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPRS_Tunnelling_Protocol https://techmonitor.ai/techonology/cybersecurity/gtp-protocol https://techmonitor.ai/techonology/cybersecurity/gtp-protoco...

bjt2n3904 6y ago

My theory is that 5G will be like IPv6. Nobody wanted it, nobody understands it, it makes everything more difficult, and it will take ages to become the standard.

est31 6y ago
IPv6 makes a great deal of things more easy. It allows smaller routing tables for example. No more NAT makes p2p communication much easier. Yes, addresses are way harder to type now, and that's obviously annoying. But ip addresses weren't made to be typed manually, that's what DNS is for.
- colordrops 6y ago
  The OP is probably talking about implementation rather than design, which to this day is very fragile and prone to breakage and misconfiguration, at least on consumer grade networks.
  - bjt2n3904 6y ago
    Implementation, design, and adoption. All in all, for the wonderful claims it's supporters make, adoption is the elephant in the room.
  - philjohn 6y ago
    And with certain ISP's being done with DS-Lite which is the worst possible solution at the moment. Sure, your core network is now IPV6, but everyone is going through CGNAT for the parts of the internet that are IPV4 only. It's one of the reasons I moved from Virgin Media (Cable in the UK) to Zen (FTTP) ... proper dual stack so I have native IPV4 AND IPV6.
    - p1mrx 6y ago
      > DS-Lite which is the worst possible solution at the moment No, CGNAT-only is the worst solution. > everyone is going through CGNAT for the parts of the internet that are IPV4 only. What choice do they have? There are more humans than IPv4 addresses, so if every ISP were dual-stack, the price would go to infinity. It would be more productive to complain about CGNAT-only ISPs, than those who are actually trying to fix the problem.

tannhaeuser 6y ago

5G is for integrating very low-cost ICs into every "smart" device, TV, car, etc. to track you without you noticing.

skeeks 6y ago
No, that's what 5G enables but 5G itself is something else.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

lukec11 6y ago

5G can be many things, but it isn't gigabit wireless speeds, or low latency, or smart microwaves. It can enable those technologies, but what it really is is a telecommunications standard, telling companies how to build out networks. 5G uses the same radio waves that 4G has, in many cases - T-Mobile US, for example, uses 600MHz and 2.5GHZ frequencies for 5G (and 4G). Sprint has been using 2.5GHz for 4G since 2008. The biggest change that 5G could bring today honestly is capacity - if you've ever tried to use LTE in a busy train station, you can tell the impact that congestion has on that network's subscribers. Thousands of people connected to a few cells leads to significant slowdown. Generally, higher frequencies lead to shorter range and higher throughput, so in specific circumstances like Airports[0] with multiple antennas, 5G can allow for much higher throughput to many devices at once, alleviating congestion. 5G can also more efficiently make use of spectrum, which means 5G networks can reach further than 4G networks built on the same frequency. There's a lot more to this, and I'd recommend reading into the Wikipedia page[1] on 5G for an in-depth look if you have time - but the basics are, 5G is a standard, not any one set of devices or antennas or expectations. [0] https://news.tampaairport.com/tpa-welcomes-5g-and-enhanced-4g-service-in-advance-of-super-bowl-lv/ https://news.tampaairport.com/tpa-welcomes-5g-and-enhanced-4... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G

reaperducer 6y ago
5G can also more efficiently make use of spectrum, which means 5G networks can reach further than 4G networks built on the same frequency. This part I don't understand. I spend a lot of time on business and pleasure in places where cellular coverage is unavailable or unreliable. I thought that 5G signals don't go as far as 4G, so how can they reach "further" into towns and places that don't have cellular service? (FWIW, there are a number of places in my regular [pre-pandemic] travels where the 3G signal is better and even faster than 4G signals.)
- toast0 6y ago
  5G is several parts. The high frequency, hugh bandwidth stuff doesn't go far. The same as existing mobile frequency stuff has about the same penetration as existing service, but because its more efficient, it allows towers to increase power to expand their coverage area. Generally towers will modulate their output power to reduce coverage when congested, hoping devices will attach to other towers; works well when there's enough towers with overlapping coverage, but not as well when towers are sparse. It doesn't have to be purely power either, antenna angle makes a big difference, and phased antennas mean you can change effective angle without mechanically changing the angle.

brightball 6y ago

My understanding of 5G has always been that it’s just more short range nodes which should provide better service in densely populated areas. That’s pretty much it. Some telecoms seem to be positioning this as an opportunity to provide home internet access running through 5G infrastructure which would cut down on last mile costs, but at the same time it seems like it would saturate the spectrum pretty quickly. During all the 5G hype I’ve been buying up stocks of companies based on how much backbone fiber they own, because as far as I can tell that’s where the real staying power is anyway.

Black101 6y ago

5G wasn't designed for the consumer... only the marketing was.

david-cako 6y ago

5G allows for more granular management of network capacity, so you could think of a stadium deployment as somewhere between existing LTE and a WiFi mesh network. The carriers can look at dashboards and maps, and figure out where people are getting slowdowns so they can put up some more 5G nodes. This granularity can mean more precise location data/telemetry and some interesting opportunities for edge caching and edge compute. Existing GPS, in my experience, is far from perfect for geocoding more dense areas, so the idea that 5G can reliably put you out in front of a restaurant, or even in a particular floor and room of a building is promising (and a bit scary). What if your games were streamed from a local edge node, and you only played with people on the same node at near-zero latency? Or maybe you're at a stadium, and your phone is streaming replays of the game directly from the stadium without going over the internet. And your phone knows exactly where the nearest vending machine is, and the vending machine is used as an edge device to give you live stock data and process the transaction. I think it's a good supplement to LTE. People are going crazy because it's not an in-your-face speed improvement, but the reality is that it can mature to keep dense urban areas connected in a way that LTE wasn't really designed for. In terms of it replacing WiFi/fixed line, I think one good reason it might is that it's simple. Down the line, some people might look at the process of "getting internet installed" and setting up a modem/access point as archaic, when you can just buy a device and have it connect. I kind of like having a separate fixed internet line though, because if one goes down for some reason, I still have the other.

rocqua 6y ago
Fixed line internet has the massive advantage of not contending for the physical medium against all your neighbors.

laurowyn 6y ago

5G is the next generation of mobile connectivity. I can't list all of the detailed changes off the top of my head, but some of the biggest changes I'm aware of are; The use of a different radio band, therefore less contention in the existing mobile bands - less congestion results in better speeds overall. Reducing the range of base stations. shorter range means less clients, less congestion and therefore better speeds, whilst also deploying them more densely to cope with wider areas and higher bandwidth densities. Also, shorter range reduces the power requirements, meaning mobile devices will have longer battery life (nothing magical, probably not even noticeable to the average user), or it can be built into smaller/low power devices such as IoT. Utimately, 5G is irrelevant to end users until it's actually deployed widely. Just like 3G and 4G, the end user has no impact on the deployment of the network other than the demand for it. So, all the hype around 5G is almost entirely marketing, politics etc. It only really matters once 5G is deployed across the areas you visit daily, and until then the previous generations of mobile connectivity will continue to serve just fine. Your suggestion about a football stadium is an interesting test case. Ideally, an area that size would be served by up to a dozen base stations, spread throughout the stadium. Compare this with a single 3G base station that would cover the stadium, plus a large portion of the local area, and you can see the pros/cons fairly easily. But how many people are surfing the web whilst watching a game? or taking calls, answering texts etc. Very few during active play time, but there'll be large bursts of traffic in any breaks in play which will stress the older mobile generations to breaking point whereas 5G is designed to deal with that scenario fairly well.

secondcoming 6y ago
All I know is that I get double the bandwidth when connected to a 5G network than their 4G one
- charrondev 6y ago
  So now you can blow through your data cap twice as fast? To me the whole angle of this seems wrong. Who out there has a solid LTE signal and is going “oh if only this were faster”. On the other hand when I have 1 bar I might has well have nothing at all. Shortening the range of the base stations doesn’t seem like it would help this.

Spooky23 6y ago

It’s three things. It helps push out legacy 3G tech that reduces throughput, it enables cellular carriers to displace cable companies without running fiber with mmWave, and it is enabling stuff like smart roads that made it a national security issue. Telematics in cars will be mandated shortly and enable stuff like road vs fuel taxation and congestion pricing. That enabled regulatory changes that basically eliminated most local autonomy over cellular tower placement. Basically, the FCC is “yimby” for anything 5G, and used national security regulations to limit permitting, taxation, etc.

topranks 6y ago
That’s the bit that doesn’t make sense. They can’t really avoid running fibre with mmWave cos they have to backhaul it. Sure there is point to point radio, but in the main they’ll need to get fibre almost as close to you as with a fixed line direct to you. But instead it’ll be fibre to base stations on top of every building? It’s almost the same cost in terms of fibre infra.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  For Verizon at least, they sub out the 5G local towers to a third party and avoid paying CWA unionized guys. They would set mounds of dollar bills in fire to spite the union. I think they use wireless backhaul too.

splithalf 6y ago

Cost savings for carriers and more precise tracking of users for marketing and other purposes.

Shelnutt2 6y ago

My previous job was working for $major_telco in the US, I was in network (not RF engineering). I left right as the "5G" train was starting, however I did get training and have pretty decent familiarity with the implementation plan and 3GPP release 15, the first release with the official New Radio (NR) spec. I also have a large understanding of LTE (3GPP release 10-14), so I'm happy to dive as deep as anyone would like. For the details below I'm going to not use the term "5G", 5G like 4G is marketing. The technical specifications that more or less make up "5G" are the 3GPP standards releases[1]. The 3GPP is the standards body that ratifies the wireless network standards that nearly the entire world uses. For this discussion I'll ignore alternatives since "5G" effectively means the 3GPP standard. The standard of 3GPP Release 15 (and newer) are improvements and build off the existing standards of LTE (releases 8-14). Its an evolution of the standard, much like 3GPP Release 8 (first LTE release) was an evolution on Release 5-7 (HSDPA-HSDPA+). While release 15+ are evolutionary, they are not revolutionary in that there is no magically discovered new physics behind it. The improvements largely lie with increased support for higher modulation levels (256 QAM was introduced with Release 14 LTE-Advanced), increased spectrum efficiency (variable sized framing allowed across difference devices and upload/download), mixing upload/download division types (i.e. using TDD[2] for download and FDD[2] for upload), improved MIMO (up to 64x64 in massive MIMO), improved beam-forming and additional frequencies. Some of these improvements in Release 15+ were available in Release 14 or unofficially rolled out in release 14 + NR draft. I know one carrier that was pushing 64x64 MIMO for TDD LTE. The new frequencies, many in the "millimeter wave" range, will help with with congestion in the "football stadium". There are two main limitations in high capacity events, the first is backhaul. Have to connect the stadium back to the core, and this is _always_ a bottleneck. The second limitation is available spectrum. No matter how many antennas you have in the DAS, there is a physical limitation to the amount of data that can be sent over the frequencies. The new millimeter wave help here, because while its very short range, its large width allows for a significantly higher number of concurrent connections. The new frequencies, along with increased efficiency in existing frequencies, plus core changes are the main driver for the "latency" and "bandwidth" improvements. The "connected cars" and "connected IoT to cell network" are just marketing/sales departments pushing for new customers. The main "advantage" "5G" brings here is an increased capacity in the network to handle this. A few other notes, unlike "3G"->LTE, the upgrade to Release 15+ for carriers will be a lot smoother. First, everyone is now on LTE, aka the precursor so there is no CDMA/EVDO networks that are incompatible that need rip and replace + compatibility modes (ehrpd). Second "NR" is designed to be compatible and multiplexable with existing LTE/LTE-Advanced enodebs, this means in one area you can have NR and LTE towers, and the NR towers can broadcast LTE for devices that are LTE only. This was not the case with the original eNodeBs, which could not handle backwards compatibility without physically separate BTS/nodeBs. Third, the new core for release 15 is designed with backwards compatibility with existing enodeb's. Unlike the previous transition which required a new core that was largely incompatible due to major design changes. So with "NR" RAN elements and existing LTE enodeb's the core can be seamlessly upgraded without having to run two complete networks for multiple years like in the LTE transition. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP#Standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP#Standards [2] TDD-> Time Division Duplex, FDD -> Frequency division duplex. Most LTE networks are FDD, a few (i.e. Sprint, Softbank, China mobile..) have certain spectrum they use as TDD. The difference is with TDD, you use the same exact frequencies for upload and download but you divide the by time. So basically t0->t2 is for download, t3->t4 is upload, etc. With FDD the frequency or "band" is divided into to two parts, one for upload and one for download. There is no time division for FDD but you lose of the size of the channel.

reaperducer 6y ago

I hear about it from politicians. I hear about it from telecom companies. I hear about it from my tech-illiterate dad, who asked me "Does it have 5G?" when I told him I got a new smartphone. Reminds me of when Bill Gates was on breakfast television flogging Intel's Pentium processor. My mom was suddenly of the opinion that all of my computer equipment was obsolete and that this one chip was going to solve all of the world's problems.

elil17 6y ago

“5G” is a marketing umbrella term. It refers both to the next generation of LTE (Long Term Evolution, the incremental improvements that have been added to 4G) and also New Radio, a new cellular protocol which uses new portions of the radio spectrum. The features of 5G are higher bandwidth (especially in situations with high interference/poor reception), a higher density of users supported (up to 100k users/per square kilometer iirc), and better performance at high speeds (e.g. on bullet trains).

Tempest1981 6y ago

5G is quickly getting a reputation for reduced battery life. Are there any technical mitigations coming? Or just heavier phones with bigger batteries?

zaptrem 6y ago
LTE had that same reputation for a few years. They improved it then and I don’t see why they wouldn’t improve it now.
- ng55QPSK 6y ago
  5G is the improved LTE.
- kiwijamo 6y ago
  Same as UMTS before LTE. I still remember my first UMTS phone would go through battery like water through a sieve.

CyberDildonics 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G

rocqua 6y ago

Generally there is said to be 3 parts to 5G. The first is eMBB: Enhanced Mobile Broadband. In other words faster mobile internet. This is where most operators start. The second is URLLC: Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications. This is mainly aimed at using 5G for things like self-driving cars. But also things like long distance remote control. This is where people see potential for innovation without being clear what the exact innovation will be. The third is mMTC: Massive Machine Type Communications. This is meant for IOT but also for factory control. The IOT thing is mostly allowing extra low battery useage, low speed, cheap connnectivity. The factory control thing is about getting the advantages of 5G (and e.g. URLLC) and allowing a factory to quickly set up their own private 5G network. This is on the consumer facing side. On the operator facing side, infrastructure is moving more towards virtualization and decoupling. Trying to make it easier to use multiple vendors, and stop requiring custom made hardware. And in general, moving towards commodity hardware and something closer to 'infrastructure as code'. This also helps roaming and virtual operators (for e.g. the factory control). It also helps a bit with the ultra low latency part by decentralizing the routing part and moving it closer to the devices. So "what is 5G gonna do for me" is mostly the 'faster internet'. But the idea is that it will enable widespread innovation that you can later use. With some luck (governments are thinking) being ahead in deploying 5G might also help boost your economy by boosting innovation.

hatchershoes 6y ago
I don't believe that governments promote massive multi-billion dollar infrastructure-upending projects on optimism and "luck". Your 3-part explanation notably leaves out any effect that 5G might have on mass surveillance, i.e., the annihilation of privacy and private communications. But maybe that's simply implied when we say "IoT".
kortilla 6y ago
> and allowing a factory to quickly set up their own private 5G network. Where does their own WiFi network fail here?

pabs3 6y ago

I found these posts from rhizomatica about 5G quite interesting: https://www.rhizomatica.org/talkin-bout-my-5th-generation/ https://www.rhizomatica.org/talkin-bout-my-5th-generation/ https://www.rhizomatica.org/the-right-to-the-network-on-capitalism-and-next-generation-networks/ https://www.rhizomatica.org/the-right-to-the-network-on-capi... https://www.rhizomatica.org/the-manifest-destiny-of-telecommunications-networks/ https://www.rhizomatica.org/the-manifest-destiny-of-telecomm...

jokoon 6y ago

It seems the world is driving towards some kind of "unique conscious collective intelligence". I guess the idea is that machine learning and AI are hungry for data, and as long as there is money, it's obvious that privacy won't matter, but data will. It's important to understand the positive aspects of the consequences of data collection. Of course information is power and it short circuits democracy. But on the other hand, computers give the extraordinary possibility to gain an insight through actual statistics. It's a loss for a gain. Maybe that's how democracy will evolve, and maybe it will help voters, in the end? It's murphy's law.