5 ms·

Why would I want to replace my home internet with something less secure, less reliable, lossier, and slower?

indy 4y ago
It may be worse for the end user but it's great for corporations. Samsung could sell you a smart TV with built-in 5G so that it can always serve you ads even if you never connect it to your wi-fi.
- selcuka 4y ago
  Can't they already do this now? Is 5G necessary?
  - kunagi7 4y ago
    Well, they can just stuff a 5G NB-IoT modem inside of newer TVs, using eSIMs received by OTA (either WiFi or a previous valid eSIM). As long as the manufacturer foots the eSIM bill (and it's profitable) they can serve ads.
- mlindner 4y ago
  Or better yet, serve you ads when you're not using the TV where it randomly comes on from time to time and displays an image ad and then turns off again.
  - indy 4y ago
    Yes, and not just TVs but any piece of electronic equipment with 5G built-in will be capable of serving ads and sending usage information back without needing access to the user's WiFi or router
raverbashing 4y ago
The same arguments apply to wireless headphones. (And I'm not disagreeing with you)
- tremere 4y ago
  No, that's specious. The user experience matters a lot more when using headphones. The weight and tension and tethered nature of a wire degrade the user experience when it comes to an apparatus that goes on your head. In contrast, I personally do not derive any pleasure from liberating my home internet gateway from a cable that goes to the wall.
  - raverbashing 4y ago
    > The user experience matters a lot more when using headphones. Sure, for the use cases where, for example, you're moving too much, wireless is good But you get an inferior experience on most other cases, for example, switching it from one device to another, not to mention spectrum crowding etc
    - vinay427 4y ago
      > But you get an inferior experience on most other cases, for example, switching it from one device to another I almost always have a better experience switching from one device to another. It’s zero extra taps (just play/pause of some content on the second device) on my Jabra earphones or zero to one taps for my AirPods (one if they’re already playing media on the original device). Compare that to wired headphones, which I would need to unplug and then snake around my desk to the second device.
      - raverbashing 4y ago
        That is, if your device supports it, but upgrades take time and my headphones still work great (and weren't too cheap)
    - tsimionescu 4y ago
      Well, the use case where your headphones are connected to one device and you are moving around accounts for, say, 80% of the time spent using headphones. So even if other use cases get more annoying, it really doesn't matter unless they become unbearable (and disconnecting BT on my phone and then connecting from my laptop to the headphones, which is about the worse case scenario, is not unbearable).
pony_sheared 4y ago
In London, in an apartment block, I tried BT broadband (60Mbps max), then Virgin cable (100Mbps for £55 / month, prices go up for more speed), then EE 4G (£30 / month for 200Mbps +/-50Mbps, unlimited d/l upload is also over 60Mbps, about 6x on Virgin). I don't game, so don't care about ping. So, where I am, using 4G for my home internet is faster and cheaper, and I can gift data to my phone. I have not had any issues with reliability.
- dazc 4y ago
  In Southampton, there are lots of places around the city where 4G coverage is simply not reliable. Even with a strong signal you can get speeds that vary from literally nothing to 60MBPs. I once lived within half a mile of the centre and could never connect to anything between 5pm and 11pm which rendered the service entirely useless. We've had 4G for ten years or more now, I'm not ready to put my faith in 5G and don't expect to be any time soon. I almost signed up for a new office a mile from the centre where the best cable speed on offer was 20Mbps and the thought of relying upon mobile internet was enough to make me think twice. I'm currently in semi-rural location, no mobile service at all indoors but, 200 metres from the fibre cable cabinet, enjoying cheap and reliable 60Mbps without a hitch.
  - jon-wood 4y ago
    Mobile signal remains spotty in Southampton, I’m unable to use 5G at home because I’m in the dead zone between the coverage of three masts. That’s less of an issue in recent years though because the terribly named “toob” have rolled out fibre across most of the city, and will sell me a line doing a gigabit up and down for £25 a month, which is less than I was previously paying for DSL over a bit of wet string.
    - martinald 4y ago
      Probably council rejecting new masts if it is like most places in the UK. 3UK have thousands (maybe 10k?) new masts in planning to really improve 5G coverage (and they have the spectrum to actually deliver 2gig/sec to phones in the real world). Annoyingly the (vast in many cases) majority will are being rejected on suprious grounds by the council.
geysersam 4y ago
You shouldn't! But mature 5g isn't supposed to be any of those.
dehrmann 4y ago
> less secure Not really. The link layer is encrypted, and you're almost certainly running SSL on top of it.
izacus 4y ago
Because it's cheaper and more convenient for you ISP and you'll just need to eat the crappier service when noone will want to deploy fiber to your house anymore.
temp0826 4y ago
Speak for yourself...my parents live in a rural area and just switched from a local wireless isp (via some directional/long range 802.11 setup) to a tmobile 5g router and it's been an absolute godsend in terms of speed and reliability. Growing up there was depressing and I was flabbergasted to see them join this century with something I'd consider "high-speed" (seen it hit 200mbps personally).
- anderspitman 4y ago
  Several of my teenage years involved a lot of conniving to get better internet to our rural house. Best I managed before moving out was very high latency and unreliable microwave at 1Mbps. Now there's great LTE and I think even 5G there.
youngtaff 4y ago
I’ve been using 5G while waiting for fibre to be laid and use it for day-to-day internet connectivity It’s 20-30x faster than my VDSL2 line and only £8/month more expensive And apart from the day of the Queens funeral it’s been really reliable On the day of the funeral throughput was like 28kbps, whereas 4G from the same tower was 100Mbps so I presume the teleco had an internal network issue with their 5G backhaul / network (probably sold all the capacity to broadcasters)

indy 4y ago

It may be worse for the end user but it's great for corporations. Samsung could sell you a smart TV with built-in 5G so that it can always serve you ads even if you never connect it to your wi-fi.

selcuka 4y ago
Can't they already do this now? Is 5G necessary?
- kunagi7 4y ago
  Well, they can just stuff a 5G NB-IoT modem inside of newer TVs, using eSIMs received by OTA (either WiFi or a previous valid eSIM). As long as the manufacturer foots the eSIM bill (and it's profitable) they can serve ads.
mlindner 4y ago
Or better yet, serve you ads when you're not using the TV where it randomly comes on from time to time and displays an image ad and then turns off again.
- indy 4y ago
  Yes, and not just TVs but any piece of electronic equipment with 5G built-in will be capable of serving ads and sending usage information back without needing access to the user's WiFi or router

raverbashing 4y ago

The same arguments apply to wireless headphones. (And I'm not disagreeing with you)

tremere 4y ago
No, that's specious. The user experience matters a lot more when using headphones. The weight and tension and tethered nature of a wire degrade the user experience when it comes to an apparatus that goes on your head. In contrast, I personally do not derive any pleasure from liberating my home internet gateway from a cable that goes to the wall.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  > The user experience matters a lot more when using headphones. Sure, for the use cases where, for example, you're moving too much, wireless is good But you get an inferior experience on most other cases, for example, switching it from one device to another, not to mention spectrum crowding etc
  - vinay427 4y ago
    > But you get an inferior experience on most other cases, for example, switching it from one device to another I almost always have a better experience switching from one device to another. It’s zero extra taps (just play/pause of some content on the second device) on my Jabra earphones or zero to one taps for my AirPods (one if they’re already playing media on the original device). Compare that to wired headphones, which I would need to unplug and then snake around my desk to the second device.
    - raverbashing 4y ago
      That is, if your device supports it, but upgrades take time and my headphones still work great (and weren't too cheap)
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    Well, the use case where your headphones are connected to one device and you are moving around accounts for, say, 80% of the time spent using headphones. So even if other use cases get more annoying, it really doesn't matter unless they become unbearable (and disconnecting BT on my phone and then connecting from my laptop to the headphones, which is about the worse case scenario, is not unbearable).

pony_sheared 4y ago

In London, in an apartment block, I tried BT broadband (60Mbps max), then Virgin cable (100Mbps for £55 / month, prices go up for more speed), then EE 4G (£30 / month for 200Mbps +/-50Mbps, unlimited d/l upload is also over 60Mbps, about 6x on Virgin). I don't game, so don't care about ping. So, where I am, using 4G for my home internet is faster and cheaper, and I can gift data to my phone. I have not had any issues with reliability.

dazc 4y ago
In Southampton, there are lots of places around the city where 4G coverage is simply not reliable. Even with a strong signal you can get speeds that vary from literally nothing to 60MBPs. I once lived within half a mile of the centre and could never connect to anything between 5pm and 11pm which rendered the service entirely useless. We've had 4G for ten years or more now, I'm not ready to put my faith in 5G and don't expect to be any time soon. I almost signed up for a new office a mile from the centre where the best cable speed on offer was 20Mbps and the thought of relying upon mobile internet was enough to make me think twice. I'm currently in semi-rural location, no mobile service at all indoors but, 200 metres from the fibre cable cabinet, enjoying cheap and reliable 60Mbps without a hitch.
- jon-wood 4y ago
  Mobile signal remains spotty in Southampton, I’m unable to use 5G at home because I’m in the dead zone between the coverage of three masts. That’s less of an issue in recent years though because the terribly named “toob” have rolled out fibre across most of the city, and will sell me a line doing a gigabit up and down for £25 a month, which is less than I was previously paying for DSL over a bit of wet string.
  - martinald 4y ago
    Probably council rejecting new masts if it is like most places in the UK. 3UK have thousands (maybe 10k?) new masts in planning to really improve 5G coverage (and they have the spectrum to actually deliver 2gig/sec to phones in the real world). Annoyingly the (vast in many cases) majority will are being rejected on suprious grounds by the council.

geysersam 4y ago

You shouldn't! But mature 5g isn't supposed to be any of those.

dehrmann 4y ago

> less secure Not really. The link layer is encrypted, and you're almost certainly running SSL on top of it.

izacus 4y ago

Because it's cheaper and more convenient for you ISP and you'll just need to eat the crappier service when noone will want to deploy fiber to your house anymore.

temp0826 4y ago

Speak for yourself...my parents live in a rural area and just switched from a local wireless isp (via some directional/long range 802.11 setup) to a tmobile 5g router and it's been an absolute godsend in terms of speed and reliability. Growing up there was depressing and I was flabbergasted to see them join this century with something I'd consider "high-speed" (seen it hit 200mbps personally).

anderspitman 4y ago
Several of my teenage years involved a lot of conniving to get better internet to our rural house. Best I managed before moving out was very high latency and unreliable microwave at 1Mbps. Now there's great LTE and I think even 5G there.

youngtaff 4y ago

I’ve been using 5G while waiting for fibre to be laid and use it for day-to-day internet connectivity It’s 20-30x faster than my VDSL2 line and only £8/month more expensive And apart from the day of the Queens funeral it’s been really reliable On the day of the funeral throughput was like 28kbps, whereas 4G from the same tower was 100Mbps so I presume the teleco had an internal network issue with their 5G backhaul / network (probably sold all the capacity to broadcasters)