5 ms·

I think 5G will be the death of the independent WISPs that don't adapt. I have the T-Mobile 5G gateway as my sole home internet connection. I get a rock solid

I think 5G will be the death of the independent WISPs that don't adapt. I have the T-Mobile 5G gateway as my sole home internet connection. I get a rock solid 300/100 with 30ms latency for $50/month. That approaches DOCSIS 3.1 performance, let alone WISP performance. Not sure how they will be able to compete.

topspin 4y ago
> I have the T-Mobile 5G gateway What, if any, are the caps on that service? A quick look at the T-Mobile site doesn't say one way or the other.
- giobox 4y ago
  It appears to be entirely at T-Mobile's discretion; they reserve the typical mobile carrier rights to shape any traffic they find unfavorable. I expect you will see the usual mobile industry reductions in throughput once you pass an arbitrary line each month. While I love the theoretical performance, until that performance is documented and guaranteed I am out. "You can use your Home Internet for all the homework, streaming, and video conferencing you need! But to ensure that our network is available for all customers, there are some restrictions on activities that can damage or disproportionately congest the network. For example, Home Internet is not intended for unattended use, automatic data feeds, automated machine-to-machine connections, or uses that automatically consume unreasonable amounts of available network capacity." I think its fair to assume my definition and T-Mobile's definition of "unreasonable" will not be in alignment. https://www.t-mobile.com/home-internet/faq https://www.t-mobile.com/home-internet/faq
- ramesh31 4y ago
  >What, if any, are the caps on that service? Anecdotally, I have been using multiple TBs/month of transfer with zero issue or throttling. I'm in HD Zoom calls 4-5hrs a day and do heavy gaming, torrenting, and streaming.
  - topspin 4y ago
    Thank you.
  - giobox 4y ago
    So much of what you receive is going to fall down to classic contention to backhaul ratios too (how many people connected to your tower, sharing a fixed amount of bandwidth etc). Just the presence of the "5G" signal tells you not much about how it will actually perform in your own neighborhood vs somewhere else. I would still take a substantially slower but reliable copper connection over this service, but thats a matter of personal preference. FWIW, you don't need to search too hard to find evidence of throttling on T-Mobile's cellular network. I still think the concept is great and the idea has merit though, it's just early days in the "unlimited" wireless home internet market.
ftth_finland 4y ago
4G killed all WISPs and all wired competition that wasn’t CATV or fiber in markets where you had access to unlimited flat-rate 4G. 5G is just the nail in the coffin.
- BenjiWiebe 4y ago
  There's still (rural US) markets where 4G isn't reliable. WISPs can do great in those areas yet.
  - uni_rule 4y ago
    I always thought the use case for WISPs was for places that have at best the fiber line built for "a cell tower" but are otherwise cut off from more solid ISPs who want home internet or for places that are best have shitty ADSL. That of course means people in distant nowhere. I never thought of WISPs existing elsewhere as it doesn't make nearly as much sense if you have access to "real" broadband. I suppose this niche was wider at one point?
    - cestith 4y ago
      20 years ago, wireless was the only affordable way for us to serve residential customers faster than ISDN or in some cases dialup in a lot of small towns. We could get FR or ATM to a business, but we couldn't make it affordable for most homes.
  - Arrath 4y ago
    Yes, this. There are areas where 4g isn't great, let alone 5g.
  - vlan0 4y ago
    For sure! I drive right through the mountains in the ADK often. Unless you're in a well populated village, there is no cell service at all. Break down on the road and you're walking 10+ miles.
    - 4y ago
superkuh 4y ago
This may be true for the majority of people and random web tasks. But performance is more than just thoroughput. The random round trip time and lack of ipv4 from mobile telcos means if you want to participate in the internet as a peer rather than just a consumer you need a physical transmission line.
- ftth_finland 4y ago
  As noted, 4G is enough for the majority. Around there this is why they are decommissioning all copper lines. There isn’t a market left for it. So now you either have 4G/5G or fiber. Sucks if you don’t have fiber.
- joecool1029 4y ago
  >The random round trip time and lack of ipv4 from mobile telcos means if you want to participate in the internet as a peer rather than just a consumer you need a physical transmission line. I run a weather station on T-Mobile. Yes it's ipv6-only inbound but a Cloudflare free plan is enough to provide legacy (ipv4) access to the station. While I agree that running a media server wouldn't be possible from this location, I disagree that it wouldn't work closer to a tower. Upload speeds there are over double what I can buy on Comcast business's most expensive plan.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Something 99.99% of users don’t care about. If you want to host something. Rent a VPS for a few dollars a month.
  - superkuh 4y ago
    You're right. 99.99% of users don't use the internet. They're just web consumers. As for hosting for people that actually use the internet, when you use a third party you have no expectation of privacy. Hosting from your own machines from your own home is always the best, easiest, cheapest, option. That said, hosting from home and syndicating to a VPS is a great idea.
CircleSpokes 4y ago
How consistent is the latency? My friend has used T-Mobile 5g for a few months and while it is much better than the other options it still has some issues (massive random ping spikes often 1000+ms). He is hoping the issue gets better in the future.
- joecool1029 4y ago
  It goes to hell if you max out upstream. At cell edge it's easy to do. Modem type in use greatly affects how it'll perform real-world. N71 (600mhz) standalone 5G without carrier aggregation tends to be shit as just like Band 12 (700mhz) LTE. It's their low frequency coverage band for 5G and congests since the towers are spaced far apart and it uses less spectrum. Newer phones can aggregate multiple N71 and N41 carriers and get very low latency high performance connections, but it's still location dependent.
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  1. ICMP ping shouldn't be used as a measure of the channel quality 2. It's a wireless tech, so you would be affected if the guy 30m from you decided to download all Internets.
PaulHoule 4y ago
I think the trouble is availability. All high-bandwidth wireless technologies are limited to line of site or near line of site. In the U.S. from the Southern Tier of NY down to Georgia and Alabama many people live in a landscape which is basically a plateau which is dissected by valleys. There are no "commanding heights" in these areas, rather a tower on a ridge between two valleys may be able to see into those valleys and maybe the next two over. Sometimes the top of the ridge is roadless so putting in wireless infrastructure is a matter of building a new road, a new power line, running fiber optic along the power line, etc. It boggles the mind to think that this can possibly cost less than running fiber along existing roads and power lines (either for FTTH or FTTN) but that's what the anti-fiber lobby wants people to believe. If you're in some place where 5G is available it is probably a relatively high-density place that already has cable, in which case 5G internet service is usually trying to undercut cable on price. If you're in a place where WISP is a substantial option you're either in an unusually favorable urban location (the webpass model) which is vulnerable to millimeter-wave 5G or in a a rural location where the WISP is already a desperate measure and 5G won't be profitable. A partial counter is that AT&T and T-Mobile have added a lot of low band spectrum in recent years that have some potential in Appalachian environments and served it with either 4G or 5G radios but the spectrum does not add up to a lot of bandwidth, particularly if radio conditions are unfavorable.
- spockz 4y ago
  Wouldn’t starlink be an excellent choice in those areas? You need to be above trees though.
- coryrc 4y ago
  Why would you need a road? The equipment isn't that big, a few men, maybe a donkey, could put a base station up in a few days. The cable can be strung along trees to it.
  - wtallis 4y ago
    Maybe for a base station that's just sitting on the ground. But to actually be useful, wouldn't it need an antenna mast that's taller than the surrounding trees?
bjornsing 4y ago
It’s worth remembering though that new generations of mobile networks typically have great performance in the beginning, when few people are using them. But performance quickly deteriorates when more and more subscribers are onboarded and the competition for spectrum access begins.

topspin 4y ago

> I have the T-Mobile 5G gateway What, if any, are the caps on that service? A quick look at the T-Mobile site doesn't say one way or the other.

giobox 4y ago
It appears to be entirely at T-Mobile's discretion; they reserve the typical mobile carrier rights to shape any traffic they find unfavorable. I expect you will see the usual mobile industry reductions in throughput once you pass an arbitrary line each month. While I love the theoretical performance, until that performance is documented and guaranteed I am out. "You can use your Home Internet for all the homework, streaming, and video conferencing you need! But to ensure that our network is available for all customers, there are some restrictions on activities that can damage or disproportionately congest the network. For example, Home Internet is not intended for unattended use, automatic data feeds, automated machine-to-machine connections, or uses that automatically consume unreasonable amounts of available network capacity." I think its fair to assume my definition and T-Mobile's definition of "unreasonable" will not be in alignment. https://www.t-mobile.com/home-internet/faq https://www.t-mobile.com/home-internet/faq
ramesh31 4y ago
>What, if any, are the caps on that service? Anecdotally, I have been using multiple TBs/month of transfer with zero issue or throttling. I'm in HD Zoom calls 4-5hrs a day and do heavy gaming, torrenting, and streaming.
- topspin 4y ago
  Thank you.
- giobox 4y ago
  So much of what you receive is going to fall down to classic contention to backhaul ratios too (how many people connected to your tower, sharing a fixed amount of bandwidth etc). Just the presence of the "5G" signal tells you not much about how it will actually perform in your own neighborhood vs somewhere else. I would still take a substantially slower but reliable copper connection over this service, but thats a matter of personal preference. FWIW, you don't need to search too hard to find evidence of throttling on T-Mobile's cellular network. I still think the concept is great and the idea has merit though, it's just early days in the "unlimited" wireless home internet market.

ftth_finland 4y ago

4G killed all WISPs and all wired competition that wasn’t CATV or fiber in markets where you had access to unlimited flat-rate 4G. 5G is just the nail in the coffin.

BenjiWiebe 4y ago
There's still (rural US) markets where 4G isn't reliable. WISPs can do great in those areas yet.
- uni_rule 4y ago
  I always thought the use case for WISPs was for places that have at best the fiber line built for "a cell tower" but are otherwise cut off from more solid ISPs who want home internet or for places that are best have shitty ADSL. That of course means people in distant nowhere. I never thought of WISPs existing elsewhere as it doesn't make nearly as much sense if you have access to "real" broadband. I suppose this niche was wider at one point?
  - cestith 4y ago
    20 years ago, wireless was the only affordable way for us to serve residential customers faster than ISDN or in some cases dialup in a lot of small towns. We could get FR or ATM to a business, but we couldn't make it affordable for most homes.
- Arrath 4y ago
  Yes, this. There are areas where 4g isn't great, let alone 5g.
- vlan0 4y ago
  For sure! I drive right through the mountains in the ADK often. Unless you're in a well populated village, there is no cell service at all. Break down on the road and you're walking 10+ miles.
  - 4y ago

superkuh 4y ago

This may be true for the majority of people and random web tasks. But performance is more than just thoroughput. The random round trip time and lack of ipv4 from mobile telcos means if you want to participate in the internet as a peer rather than just a consumer you need a physical transmission line.

ftth_finland 4y ago
As noted, 4G is enough for the majority. Around there this is why they are decommissioning all copper lines. There isn’t a market left for it. So now you either have 4G/5G or fiber. Sucks if you don’t have fiber.
joecool1029 4y ago
>The random round trip time and lack of ipv4 from mobile telcos means if you want to participate in the internet as a peer rather than just a consumer you need a physical transmission line. I run a weather station on T-Mobile. Yes it's ipv6-only inbound but a Cloudflare free plan is enough to provide legacy (ipv4) access to the station. While I agree that running a media server wouldn't be possible from this location, I disagree that it wouldn't work closer to a tower. Upload speeds there are over double what I can buy on Comcast business's most expensive plan.
Gigachad 4y ago
Something 99.99% of users don’t care about. If you want to host something. Rent a VPS for a few dollars a month.
- superkuh 4y ago
  You're right. 99.99% of users don't use the internet. They're just web consumers. As for hosting for people that actually use the internet, when you use a third party you have no expectation of privacy. Hosting from your own machines from your own home is always the best, easiest, cheapest, option. That said, hosting from home and syndicating to a VPS is a great idea.

CircleSpokes 4y ago

How consistent is the latency? My friend has used T-Mobile 5g for a few months and while it is much better than the other options it still has some issues (massive random ping spikes often 1000+ms). He is hoping the issue gets better in the future.

joecool1029 4y ago
It goes to hell if you max out upstream. At cell edge it's easy to do. Modem type in use greatly affects how it'll perform real-world. N71 (600mhz) standalone 5G without carrier aggregation tends to be shit as just like Band 12 (700mhz) LTE. It's their low frequency coverage band for 5G and congests since the towers are spaced far apart and it uses less spectrum. Newer phones can aggregate multiple N71 and N41 carriers and get very low latency high performance connections, but it's still location dependent.
justsomehnguy 4y ago
1. ICMP ping shouldn't be used as a measure of the channel quality 2. It's a wireless tech, so you would be affected if the guy 30m from you decided to download all Internets.

PaulHoule 4y ago

I think the trouble is availability. All high-bandwidth wireless technologies are limited to line of site or near line of site. In the U.S. from the Southern Tier of NY down to Georgia and Alabama many people live in a landscape which is basically a plateau which is dissected by valleys. There are no "commanding heights" in these areas, rather a tower on a ridge between two valleys may be able to see into those valleys and maybe the next two over. Sometimes the top of the ridge is roadless so putting in wireless infrastructure is a matter of building a new road, a new power line, running fiber optic along the power line, etc. It boggles the mind to think that this can possibly cost less than running fiber along existing roads and power lines (either for FTTH or FTTN) but that's what the anti-fiber lobby wants people to believe. If you're in some place where 5G is available it is probably a relatively high-density place that already has cable, in which case 5G internet service is usually trying to undercut cable on price. If you're in a place where WISP is a substantial option you're either in an unusually favorable urban location (the webpass model) which is vulnerable to millimeter-wave 5G or in a a rural location where the WISP is already a desperate measure and 5G won't be profitable. A partial counter is that AT&T and T-Mobile have added a lot of low band spectrum in recent years that have some potential in Appalachian environments and served it with either 4G or 5G radios but the spectrum does not add up to a lot of bandwidth, particularly if radio conditions are unfavorable.

spockz 4y ago
Wouldn’t starlink be an excellent choice in those areas? You need to be above trees though.
coryrc 4y ago
Why would you need a road? The equipment isn't that big, a few men, maybe a donkey, could put a base station up in a few days. The cable can be strung along trees to it.
- wtallis 4y ago
  Maybe for a base station that's just sitting on the ground. But to actually be useful, wouldn't it need an antenna mast that's taller than the surrounding trees?

bjornsing 4y ago

It’s worth remembering though that new generations of mobile networks typically have great performance in the beginning, when few people are using them. But performance quickly deteriorates when more and more subscribers are onboarded and the competition for spectrum access begins.