3 ms·

5G isn’t just about phones. It’s about IoT and all sorts of mobile (and non mobile) devices. Having the ability to transmit more bandwidth albeit at a smaller d

5G isn’t just about phones. It’s about IoT and all sorts of mobile (and non mobile) devices. Having the ability to transmit more bandwidth albeit at a smaller distance is a big deal. Edge computing helps on the latency front which is also a big deal, information needs to travel less of a distance than being routed over the internet (the laws of physics, particularly the speed of light is the constraint here). In the communication world I’m not sure what could be more important than bandwidth and latency.

Animats 4y ago
"5G isn’t just about phones. It’s about IoT..." That line shows up in press releases: "Imagine a world where car accidents are a thing of the past; where chronic health conditions like diabetes are managed 24-7 without blood sugar highs and lows; where smart homes unlock doors with a face scan, and then automatically adjust lighting and temperature and even order groceries for delivery before you run out of milk." None of which require 5G. Those are all low-bandwidth applications, or even ones that run locally.
- ac29 4y ago
  4G was heavily hyped for IoT as well, and even has specific standards: LTE-M and NB-IoT. IMO the ongoing push to make IoT happen is less about the technology and more about trying to get the next 10B devices online and paying network access fees, software license fees, etc. As you mention, a lot of the proposed use cases are very low data (maybe a few MB/day on the higher end).
ec109685 4y ago
The latency to a Cloudflare or Cloudfront POP is going to be very close to a Verizon 5G data center.
topranks 4y ago
The question is really what applications require such low latency? AR? Gaming? Perhaps. But most applications are fine with 10-50ms RTT. I think edge compute will happen but it won’t be as ubiquitous as the telcos would like.

3 ms·

5G isn’t just about phones. It’s about IoT and all sorts of mobile (and non mobile) devices. Having the ability to transmit more bandwidth albeit at a smaller d

by extheat 4y ago

Animats 4y ago
"5G isn’t just about phones. It’s about IoT..." That line shows up in press releases: "Imagine a world where car accidents are a thing of the past; where chronic health conditions like diabetes are managed 24-7 without blood sugar highs and lows; where smart homes unlock doors with a face scan, and then automatically adjust lighting and temperature and even order groceries for delivery before you run out of milk." None of which require 5G. Those are all low-bandwidth applications, or even ones that run locally.
- ac29 4y ago
  4G was heavily hyped for IoT as well, and even has specific standards: LTE-M and NB-IoT. IMO the ongoing push to make IoT happen is less about the technology and more about trying to get the next 10B devices online and paying network access fees, software license fees, etc. As you mention, a lot of the proposed use cases are very low data (maybe a few MB/day on the higher end).
ec109685 4y ago
The latency to a Cloudflare or Cloudfront POP is going to be very close to a Verizon 5G data center.
topranks 4y ago
The question is really what applications require such low latency? AR? Gaming? Perhaps. But most applications are fine with 10-50ms RTT. I think edge compute will happen but it won’t be as ubiquitous as the telcos would like.