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Ericsson sees global 5G subscriptions hitting 580 mln this year

3 points by shivbhatt 5y ago

raxxorrax 5y ago
Fascinating really. I don't even know if I have 3g or 4g on my device/contract because I really hate doing anything online with phones. I wonder for which application you even need the bandwidth. Some say it should really revolutionize IOT and ubiquitously connected devices. I highly doubt that to be honest. The higher frequency means that connections are less stable and you need more radio masts. That is the opposite of what IOT devices need in my opinion. Imaging might be an exception, but most solutions would just use local wireless connections here as well. The only instance I need some bandwidth is for tethering when my land connection fails for some reason. What would you do with such bandwidth? Is it really needed? I believe people buying into it are victims of advertising to be honest.
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  5G operates on a number of frequency bands. The lower ones are similar to 4G, the higher ones are indeed quite high, which means not so great penetration through walls. 5G is designed to be flexible in that it can accommodate very high throughput , very high capacity, very low latency, very high reliability, depending on the use case. Really, very high throughput on mobile devices is not key in 5G. It's more about capacity, latency, reliability in order to cater for IOT, self-driving vehicles, remote operation, for instance. For IOT, you probably would use the lower bands because you probably need lower throughput but high capacity and potentially high reliability: The problem is not to stream 4K videos to sensors or energy meters but to be able to support 10x or 100x more devices connected at the same time (which 4G cannot do).
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    Makes sense. As and end user and embedded dev the topic really didn't really phase me that much yet, so I don't really get the race to it. It might be nice, but I am still not fully convinced of a revolution.

3 points by shivbhatt 5y ago

Fascinating really. I don't even know if I have 3g or 4g on my device/contract because I really hate doing anything online with phones. I wonder for which application you even need the bandwidth. Some say it should really revolutionize IOT and ubiquitously connected devices. I highly doubt that to be honest. The higher frequency means that connections are less stable and you need more radio masts. That is the opposite of what IOT devices need in my opinion. Imaging might be an exception, but most solutions would just use local wireless connections here as well. The only instance I need some bandwidth is for tethering when my land connection fails for some reason. What would you do with such bandwidth? Is it really needed? I believe people buying into it are victims of advertising to be honest.

mytailorisrich 5y ago
5G operates on a number of frequency bands. The lower ones are similar to 4G, the higher ones are indeed quite high, which means not so great penetration through walls. 5G is designed to be flexible in that it can accommodate very high throughput , very high capacity, very low latency, very high reliability, depending on the use case. Really, very high throughput on mobile devices is not key in 5G. It's more about capacity, latency, reliability in order to cater for IOT, self-driving vehicles, remote operation, for instance. For IOT, you probably would use the lower bands because you probably need lower throughput but high capacity and potentially high reliability: The problem is not to stream 4K videos to sensors or energy meters but to be able to support 10x or 100x more devices connected at the same time (which 4G cannot do).
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Makes sense. As and end user and embedded dev the topic really didn't really phase me that much yet, so I don't really get the race to it. It might be nice, but I am still not fully convinced of a revolution.