5 ms·

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 on

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.

ng55QPSK 6y ago
But keep in mind, that data caps exist to limit the impact of single users to the overall capacity. With 5G capacity everywhere, the will look different (way higher).
- reaperducer 6y ago
  That's what they said about 4G, and 3G. We've seen this movie before.
  - ng55QPSK 6y ago
    And your 4G cap is what you had with 3G?
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      When 4G came online, yes it was.
- serf 6y ago
  >With 5G capacity everywhere, the will look different (way higher). In the US I went from unlimited data 3G to 10gb during the 4G LTE days, down to eventually 5gb (Verizon). There are many I know with the same personal experience. I have no doubt that big data plans will one day be ubiquitous -- but I have much more doubt that mobile providers are actually trying to provide me with a better experience and more freedom to do what I want. They care about profit, and that's about it. They gave away big data plans when few people cared about actually using them, and now that the phones and the userbase has caught up to those numbers the providers pull the rug from under them in order to secure further profits -- god forbid the user demand forces upgrades, that'd ruin the profits even further.
- kalleboo 6y ago
  You can see this where I live - all the main carrier 5G data plans are unlimited data, whereas they never offered any unlimited LTE plans (the last time there was an unlimited plan was on the original WiMAX)
secondcoming 6y ago
My SIM only contract has no data limit, for £37pm. I have replaced fibre broadband with a 5G router. I've been using this set up since September and have hardly had any connectivity issues (vpn, ssh, video conferencing, netflix etc). Pings are a bit higher for gaming though.
sneak 6y ago
Me. I frequently have LTE in places I use the internet, and miss the gigabit connection I have at home. 10Gbps would, of course, be even better, at home and mobile.
- cj 6y ago
  In what scenario can you tell the difference between 40 Mbps and 1000 Mbps on a mobile phone? 20-40 Mbps is more than enough for streaming. So I suppose you’re regularly downloading very large files or something? Genuinely curious what use cases you notice a difference. Or maybe it’s the better latency of your gigabit that you notice more so than the throughput?
  - sneak 6y ago
    Oh, I don't use LTE on a mobile phone. All of my devices (phones included) connect to a router with LTE uplink that runs VPN 24/7; the mobile carriers can't be trusted with any unencrypted data any longer, as T-Mobile is happily publicizing. None of my phones get sim cards. I was referring to a laptop in my original statement. I usually plug it into the LTE router directly with a gigabit cable, or use Wi-Fi which generally exceeds the uplink capacity. 5G fixes that, for a wireless LAN. As for why you'd need higher bandwidth on a mobile device, it is simple: to live-stream the 2160p@60fps captured from the device's sensors. Another good reason is app updates: doing app updates on a mobile device frequently includes a few gigabytes of downloads. Same with laptops, of course, which are increasingly connected via mobile data. Many AAA games have updates in the 20-200GB range. A lot of this kind of stuff assumes that someone is on mobile temporarily until they get back to a "real" wifi connection (iOS didn't let you download any apps over 2GB on mobile data for a long while). For some of us, or all of us at some times, there isn't a "real" connection to go back to.
    - ska 6y ago
      > For some of us I suspect it's a small enough minority nobody is too worried about it from a policy point of view.
lucian1900 6y ago
Data caps are a rarity in many countries.

ng55QPSK 6y ago

But keep in mind, that data caps exist to limit the impact of single users to the overall capacity. With 5G capacity everywhere, the will look different (way higher).

reaperducer 6y ago
That's what they said about 4G, and 3G. We've seen this movie before.
- ng55QPSK 6y ago
  And your 4G cap is what you had with 3G?
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    When 4G came online, yes it was.
serf 6y ago
>With 5G capacity everywhere, the will look different (way higher). In the US I went from unlimited data 3G to 10gb during the 4G LTE days, down to eventually 5gb (Verizon). There are many I know with the same personal experience. I have no doubt that big data plans will one day be ubiquitous -- but I have much more doubt that mobile providers are actually trying to provide me with a better experience and more freedom to do what I want. They care about profit, and that's about it. They gave away big data plans when few people cared about actually using them, and now that the phones and the userbase has caught up to those numbers the providers pull the rug from under them in order to secure further profits -- god forbid the user demand forces upgrades, that'd ruin the profits even further.
kalleboo 6y ago
You can see this where I live - all the main carrier 5G data plans are unlimited data, whereas they never offered any unlimited LTE plans (the last time there was an unlimited plan was on the original WiMAX)

secondcoming 6y ago

My SIM only contract has no data limit, for £37pm. I have replaced fibre broadband with a 5G router. I've been using this set up since September and have hardly had any connectivity issues (vpn, ssh, video conferencing, netflix etc). Pings are a bit higher for gaming though.

sneak 6y ago

Me. I frequently have LTE in places I use the internet, and miss the gigabit connection I have at home. 10Gbps would, of course, be even better, at home and mobile.

cj 6y ago
In what scenario can you tell the difference between 40 Mbps and 1000 Mbps on a mobile phone? 20-40 Mbps is more than enough for streaming. So I suppose you’re regularly downloading very large files or something? Genuinely curious what use cases you notice a difference. Or maybe it’s the better latency of your gigabit that you notice more so than the throughput?
- sneak 6y ago
  Oh, I don't use LTE on a mobile phone. All of my devices (phones included) connect to a router with LTE uplink that runs VPN 24/7; the mobile carriers can't be trusted with any unencrypted data any longer, as T-Mobile is happily publicizing. None of my phones get sim cards. I was referring to a laptop in my original statement. I usually plug it into the LTE router directly with a gigabit cable, or use Wi-Fi which generally exceeds the uplink capacity. 5G fixes that, for a wireless LAN. As for why you'd need higher bandwidth on a mobile device, it is simple: to live-stream the 2160p@60fps captured from the device's sensors. Another good reason is app updates: doing app updates on a mobile device frequently includes a few gigabytes of downloads. Same with laptops, of course, which are increasingly connected via mobile data. Many AAA games have updates in the 20-200GB range. A lot of this kind of stuff assumes that someone is on mobile temporarily until they get back to a "real" wifi connection (iOS didn't let you download any apps over 2GB on mobile data for a long while). For some of us, or all of us at some times, there isn't a "real" connection to go back to.
  - ska 6y ago
    > For some of us I suspect it's a small enough minority nobody is too worried about it from a policy point of view.

lucian1900 6y ago

Data caps are a rarity in many countries.