6 ms·

5G is for sensing, not communication [pdf]

tyingq 5y ago
>"not communication" Don't know about that part of the submitted title here. There's plenty in the linked pdf about sensing, but I didn't read anything about it not being for communication. We've been using this rough part of the spectrum for both communications with microwave radios and for sensing with radar, for a long time.
djrogers 5y ago
Title is misleading at best.
trompetenaccoun 5y ago
5G is great for sensing but does a relatively poor job at what it's purported to do. The extremely high frequency means there are issues with range, obstacles like walls and even the weather. A cellular connection that get affected by rain isn't a smart idea. The advertised and theoretically high speeds aren't reached in the real world, unless... >5G wavelengths have a range of about 1,000 feet, not even 2% of 4G's range. So to ensure a reliable 5G signal, there needs to be a lot of 5G cell towers and antennas everywhere. We're talking on every lamppost, traffic light, etc. because even trees can block 5G signals. >Antonio Villas-Boas: 5G isn't gonna be cheap. You know, each node, or mini cell tower, needs some kind of connection to it, and that means laying down fiber optic cables, and, you know, it's still an undertaking, and it's definitely not in the millions. It's definitely in the billions, possibly hundreds of billions. >Michelle: Not only will this cost billions of dollars, but there's also pushback from many local communities. >Antonio: One of the biggest problems they face is actually local governments, local communities, who don't want these carriers to build towers or antennas all over the place. Or maybe they're afraid of the health risks, which is another big concern. https://www.businessinsider.com/5g-high-speed-internet-cellular-network-issues-switch-2019-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/5g-high-speed-internet-cellu...
- nabla9 5y ago
  5G spectrum is not limited to high frequencies. 5G spectrum goes from high-bands 24-40 Ghz, mid-bands 1-6Ghz, and low bands < 1 Ghz
  - luckyscs 5y ago
    But aren't those hz bands limited in their throughput to about where 4g is?
    - smegsicle 5y ago
      increased synchronization between stations should allow for better beamforming to go along with the positional information, increasing throughput somewhat in the face of interference/attenuation
      - foobarian 5y ago
        IIRC there is also a lot of improvement in channel multiplexing both at raw physical layer and link layers to allow e.g. numerous IoT type devices to have a low-rate cell connection without a plan.
        trothamel 5y ago
        This also allows packets to start at more times, which means that latency can decrease. (aka, lower ping times.)
      - luckyscs 5y ago
        Ah so a more robust and reliable, multi station system is formed? What's this beam forming and positional information stuff? Are they tailoring signals to individaul devices? That's so cool! This stuff is starting to feel like electro magnetic magic, haha.
        smegsicle 5y ago
grapescheesee 5y ago
I am sensing the title was not communicated well.
blurbleblurble 5y ago
I submitted this article with the title: "5G is for sensing, not communication" It'll surely be changed at some point. I didn't think this would go to #1 within 20 minutes of my posting it. I chose the title out of frustration, to be frank, as a tongue in cheek protest of the stifled, polarized, repressed, sad state of public understanding of what RF technologies are capable of and our collective inability to have substantive conversations about these capabilities, let alone organize around issues of accountability and transparency in their deployment. It's a reference to the article submitted a few days ago about a future Wi-Fi sensing standard [1]. I just saw that article, went to the comments and didn't see one single comment mentioning 5G. Look at the last sentence of the abstract: > Our results in realistic settings with five subjects suggest that accurate recognition of activities and environmental situations can be a reliable implicit service of future 5G installations. My "academic speak" brain looks at this as a researcher essentially raising a huge flag, saying to us "hey, in case you weren't paying attention, we're making a collective decision to allow passive sensing technology everywhere". I'd like to think we could have that kind of conversation before mm-wave beamforming antenna arrays were installed on every other street corner in the country, backed by proprietary hardware and software. But at the rate things are going, we're on track to have the conversation after the fact. When all of our devices are hooked in, when we're dependent on the standards, when the consequences are immediately in front of us and our institutions are lined up to exploit the emerging applications. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29901587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29901587
- phendrenad2 5y ago
  Last few days on HN have been slow, bad luck! As for 5G being used as a surveillance grid, I guess... But that only works in densely populated areas, where a few facial recognition cameras on every block would also do the trick (and that already exists, at least in the UK).
  - 34679 5y ago
    Think about any neighborhood dense enough for modern cell coverage. Then imagine a database that records all point to point EM anomalies. One could use such a database to determine when all persons leave their homes and where they went throughout the day, even without any person carrying a connected device.
pitaj 5y ago
mmWave 5G is usable for sensing, but will not penetrate your home walls. I don't really see the issue.
thewarrior 5y ago
TL;DR - 5G enables the kind of thing shown in the climax of The Dark Knight where every cell phone in the city is turned into an all seeing radar.
niahmiah 5y ago
Lol, guy worries cell phone tech might be used for tracking… That ship has sailed. They already know when you leave your house.
- blurbleblurble 5y ago
  Perceptive mobile network applications don't require people to have phones on them to be tracked, identified and monitored. Many passive sensing applications are being researched. Some require additional hardware, others only data analysis. But all of them rely on the relatively high densities of mm-wave RF being rolled out with 5G deployments (not to mention the THz frequencies being proposed for "6G"). Here are some of the applications listed in the paper "Enabling Joint Communication and Radar Sensing in Mobile Networks - A Survey" (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.07559.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.07559.pdf) - (Through-the-wall) localization and tracking; - Human behavior recognition and fall detection; - Monitoring of biomedical signals such as respiration patterns; - Human presence detection and radio fence - Extensive on-street and open space surveillance for security and safety
blurbleblurble 5y ago
This post has disappeared from the first 15 pages, in spite having 75 points and being only 4 hours old. The title was not changed and it hasn't been flagged. edit: I checked and it still appears under "new". It's weird that it's gone from the front page. edit 2: I found it on page 27 :D
- detaro 5y ago
  flagging isn't binary, and affects ranking before an explicit marker gets shown.
  - blurbleblurble 5y ago
    What used to seem so simple on the surface is inevitably more complex than I'd assumed. It makes sense though. I'm guessing this something that frequent HN posters come to understand sooner or later, and now I understand too.

>"not communication" Don't know about that part of the submitted title here. There's plenty in the linked pdf about sensing, but I didn't read anything about it not being for communication. We've been using this rough part of the spectrum for both communications with microwave radios and for sensing with radar, for a long time.

djrogers 5y ago

Title is misleading at best.

trompetenaccoun 5y ago

5G is great for sensing but does a relatively poor job at what it's purported to do. The extremely high frequency means there are issues with range, obstacles like walls and even the weather. A cellular connection that get affected by rain isn't a smart idea. The advertised and theoretically high speeds aren't reached in the real world, unless... >5G wavelengths have a range of about 1,000 feet, not even 2% of 4G's range. So to ensure a reliable 5G signal, there needs to be a lot of 5G cell towers and antennas everywhere. We're talking on every lamppost, traffic light, etc. because even trees can block 5G signals. >Antonio Villas-Boas: 5G isn't gonna be cheap. You know, each node, or mini cell tower, needs some kind of connection to it, and that means laying down fiber optic cables, and, you know, it's still an undertaking, and it's definitely not in the millions. It's definitely in the billions, possibly hundreds of billions. >Michelle: Not only will this cost billions of dollars, but there's also pushback from many local communities. >Antonio: One of the biggest problems they face is actually local governments, local communities, who don't want these carriers to build towers or antennas all over the place. Or maybe they're afraid of the health risks, which is another big concern. https://www.businessinsider.com/5g-high-speed-internet-cellular-network-issues-switch-2019-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/5g-high-speed-internet-cellu...

nabla9 5y ago
5G spectrum is not limited to high frequencies. 5G spectrum goes from high-bands 24-40 Ghz, mid-bands 1-6Ghz, and low bands < 1 Ghz
- luckyscs 5y ago
  But aren't those hz bands limited in their throughput to about where 4g is?
  - smegsicle 5y ago
    increased synchronization between stations should allow for better beamforming to go along with the positional information, increasing throughput somewhat in the face of interference/attenuation
    - foobarian 5y ago
      IIRC there is also a lot of improvement in channel multiplexing both at raw physical layer and link layers to allow e.g. numerous IoT type devices to have a low-rate cell connection without a plan.
      - trothamel 5y ago
        This also allows packets to start at more times, which means that latency can decrease. (aka, lower ping times.)
    - luckyscs 5y ago
      Ah so a more robust and reliable, multi station system is formed? What's this beam forming and positional information stuff? Are they tailoring signals to individaul devices? That's so cool! This stuff is starting to feel like electro magnetic magic, haha.
      - smegsicle 5y ago

grapescheesee 5y ago

I am sensing the title was not communicated well.

blurbleblurble 5y ago

I submitted this article with the title: "5G is for sensing, not communication" It'll surely be changed at some point. I didn't think this would go to #1 within 20 minutes of my posting it. I chose the title out of frustration, to be frank, as a tongue in cheek protest of the stifled, polarized, repressed, sad state of public understanding of what RF technologies are capable of and our collective inability to have substantive conversations about these capabilities, let alone organize around issues of accountability and transparency in their deployment. It's a reference to the article submitted a few days ago about a future Wi-Fi sensing standard [1]. I just saw that article, went to the comments and didn't see one single comment mentioning 5G. Look at the last sentence of the abstract: > Our results in realistic settings with five subjects suggest that accurate recognition of activities and environmental situations can be a reliable implicit service of future 5G installations. My "academic speak" brain looks at this as a researcher essentially raising a huge flag, saying to us "hey, in case you weren't paying attention, we're making a collective decision to allow passive sensing technology everywhere". I'd like to think we could have that kind of conversation before mm-wave beamforming antenna arrays were installed on every other street corner in the country, backed by proprietary hardware and software. But at the rate things are going, we're on track to have the conversation after the fact. When all of our devices are hooked in, when we're dependent on the standards, when the consequences are immediately in front of us and our institutions are lined up to exploit the emerging applications. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29901587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29901587

phendrenad2 5y ago
Last few days on HN have been slow, bad luck! As for 5G being used as a surveillance grid, I guess... But that only works in densely populated areas, where a few facial recognition cameras on every block would also do the trick (and that already exists, at least in the UK).
- 34679 5y ago
  Think about any neighborhood dense enough for modern cell coverage. Then imagine a database that records all point to point EM anomalies. One could use such a database to determine when all persons leave their homes and where they went throughout the day, even without any person carrying a connected device.

pitaj 5y ago

mmWave 5G is usable for sensing, but will not penetrate your home walls. I don't really see the issue.

thewarrior 5y ago

TL;DR - 5G enables the kind of thing shown in the climax of The Dark Knight where every cell phone in the city is turned into an all seeing radar.

niahmiah 5y ago

Lol, guy worries cell phone tech might be used for tracking… That ship has sailed. They already know when you leave your house.

blurbleblurble 5y ago
Perceptive mobile network applications don't require people to have phones on them to be tracked, identified and monitored. Many passive sensing applications are being researched. Some require additional hardware, others only data analysis. But all of them rely on the relatively high densities of mm-wave RF being rolled out with 5G deployments (not to mention the THz frequencies being proposed for "6G"). Here are some of the applications listed in the paper "Enabling Joint Communication and Radar Sensing in Mobile Networks - A Survey" (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.07559.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.07559.pdf) - (Through-the-wall) localization and tracking; - Human behavior recognition and fall detection; - Monitoring of biomedical signals such as respiration patterns; - Human presence detection and radio fence - Extensive on-street and open space surveillance for security and safety

blurbleblurble 5y ago

This post has disappeared from the first 15 pages, in spite having 75 points and being only 4 hours old. The title was not changed and it hasn't been flagged. edit: I checked and it still appears under "new". It's weird that it's gone from the front page. edit 2: I found it on page 27 :D

detaro 5y ago
flagging isn't binary, and affects ranking before an explicit marker gets shown.
- blurbleblurble 5y ago
  What used to seem so simple on the surface is inevitably more complex than I'd assumed. It makes sense though. I'm guessing this something that frequent HN posters come to understand sooner or later, and now I understand too.