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What did people think was going to happen? A 5G tower only has a 500 meter range. It was never going to be about blanketing America in Wi-Fi. The most importan

What did people think was going to happen? A 5G tower only has a 500 meter range. It was never going to be about blanketing America in Wi-Fi. The most important use case was to add additional capacity in dense urban areas. Or like, Stadiums where 100k phones can all sap the network at once.

SigmundA 4y ago
5G towers dont just have a 500 meter range, low band is the same as 4G and C mid band is more than 500 meters. 5G doesn't just mean millimeter wave.
wil421 4y ago
Are you talking about Low Band, High Band, or mmWave High Band 5g? There are a few flavors but I’m assuming you meant mmWave. The telco I work for has only deployed mmWave 5g in Stadiums in my city and similar large cities. We have deployed Low Band 5g “nationwide” and it’s only 20% faster than LTE. Mid Band 5g has only been deployed in select cities in 2022. *disclaimer: I’m not a RAN engineer. I googled all of the info above.
- j16sdiz 4y ago
  These are not they told us though. They promised for the highest bandwidth bands, and gave us the lowest tier.
- lesuorac 4y ago
  20% faster than what speed LTE? 4G (what the Long Term Evolution was supposed to reach) has a limit of 1Gbps [1]. I don't think I ever got a 1G speed on a 4G/LTE phone. I have no doubt that 5G will be faster than 4G just as I have no doubt it won't meet any marketing promise. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G#IMT-Advanced_requirements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G#IMT-Advanced_requirements
  - p_l 4y ago
    The reality is that the higher capacity goes not towards giving you more speed, but towards supporting more users per cell.
  - jdsully 4y ago
    I got close to that back when it was new. These days there’s too many users on most towers to achieve it.
- legitster 4y ago
  Also not an expert, but my friend is an industry RF engineer. And the way he described it is that the only "meaningful" improvement on the industry-side is the extra capacity that the new higher frequency range provides. Everything else is just slicing and dicing the existing frequency range (and dethrottling some customers) for marketing purposes.

SigmundA 4y ago

5G towers dont just have a 500 meter range, low band is the same as 4G and C mid band is more than 500 meters. 5G doesn't just mean millimeter wave.

wil421 4y ago

Are you talking about Low Band, High Band, or mmWave High Band 5g? There are a few flavors but I’m assuming you meant mmWave. The telco I work for has only deployed mmWave 5g in Stadiums in my city and similar large cities. We have deployed Low Band 5g “nationwide” and it’s only 20% faster than LTE. Mid Band 5g has only been deployed in select cities in 2022. *disclaimer: I’m not a RAN engineer. I googled all of the info above.

j16sdiz 4y ago
These are not they told us though. They promised for the highest bandwidth bands, and gave us the lowest tier.
lesuorac 4y ago
20% faster than what speed LTE? 4G (what the Long Term Evolution was supposed to reach) has a limit of 1Gbps [1]. I don't think I ever got a 1G speed on a 4G/LTE phone. I have no doubt that 5G will be faster than 4G just as I have no doubt it won't meet any marketing promise. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G#IMT-Advanced_requirements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G#IMT-Advanced_requirements
- p_l 4y ago
  The reality is that the higher capacity goes not towards giving you more speed, but towards supporting more users per cell.
- jdsully 4y ago
  I got close to that back when it was new. These days there’s too many users on most towers to achieve it.
legitster 4y ago
Also not an expert, but my friend is an industry RF engineer. And the way he described it is that the only "meaningful" improvement on the industry-side is the extra capacity that the new higher frequency range provides. Everything else is just slicing and dicing the existing frequency range (and dethrottling some customers) for marketing purposes.