5 ms·
I live in a large European city and am very often out and about and use my phone to navigate and consume content. I simply don't see the need for 5G. 4G was a
by mschild 3y ago
I live in a large European city and am very often out and about and use my phone to navigate and consume content. I simply don't see the need for 5G.
4G was a major stepup in speed and given the rise of smartphones and platforms like YouTube, the speed increase made sense. There was an actual use for it. The speed increase for 5G seems to not really be needed though? At least for a majority of people 4G seems to do exactly what it needs to do.
- tommiegannert 3y ago(Outside Zürich) I see 5G as motivated by carriers, being able to pack more customers into the same cell. And I would never pay extra for it. My carrier once called and wondered if the 5G is working, and how I experience it. I'm guessing that was a PR stunt, since otherwise I wouldn't have noticed the awesome things they do for me in the background... But I might be too negative on this point. Maybe they actually wanted to know if their technology was working, by calling me and asking...
- blensor 3y agoTangentially, if you are from outside Switzerland make sure to know your roaming charges very very well. Swiss carriers have gigantic roaming charges. Every time. I fly through Zurich (from Austria) I blow through my roaming limit 60 seconds after landing because I forgot to disable data. 1MB/16€ Yes that is Megabyte not Gigabyte
- mrighele 3y agoAFAIK It’s your operator that decides the roaming charges, based on your contract (they may be different based on the country though). So you may want to check with them
- blensor 3y agoYes, it's definitely something that you (I) need to solve with the own carrier. I do still feel that there is something iffy about that, because Switzerland and Austria being direct neighbors it seems strange that they don't have at least a somewhat reasonable roaming agreement by default.
- muro 3y agoSimilar if you are from Switzerland and cross any border. If you are in Switzerland semi-regularly, either get a plan that has cheap roaming in and out of EU, or two SIMs.
- CaptainZapp 3y agoSwisscom, for quite some time now, includes roaming in EU countries and the UK with unlimited calling and SMS and 40GB highspeed Internet per month. Ironically, calling a friend in Paris from Prague is free, while calling from Zurich is 70 cents a minute. My sister, who lives in Vienna, is shocked about our subscription prices (ca 70 EUR a month, unlimited everything and EU roaming as described above) while I'm more surprised by costs she incurs while visiting. To me the deal is fine. It may not be the cheapest but I never incur any additional costs. Even globally you get 100MB free internet with your subscription per month and can buy additional packages for about 20EUR per GB, which I don't think is unreasonable. Other carriers are more on a rip off spree. While SALT intices customers with cheap subscription offers they may hit you very badly with internet roaming costs. Until very recently they didn't even allow to set a limit.
- gpvos 3y agoI pay around 19EUR but get only 5GB data, and I'm fine with that. When in CH I buy an extra bundle, but even then the costs stay very far below a crazy 70EUR. Data is blocked when I haven't paid for roaming, so no risk there.
- Eavolution 3y agoThat makes my sub £9.00 pm (unlimited calls/texts, around 20gb data although unsure on exact amount), europe treated as the UK, seem very cheap.
- fsh 3y agoAll European Telcos were like this before the EU banned them from doing it. Unfortunately, Switzerland decided not to follow this particular EU regulation.
- carschno 3y agoAgree. I have an Android tablet that is a few years old, and the bottleneck is already the device's processing power, not the network, when it comes to rendering fancy web pages, for instance. This is clearly visible on both 4G and wi-fi. Of course, the counterargument is that higher speed enables a new generation of (web) applications. Perhaps that materializes one day, but at this point it mostly remains irrelevant for the consumer.
- nextweek2 3y agoFaster speeds might not seem necessary, however you have to remember you are sharing the bandwidth. The quicker you can get your data the less time you spend using bandwidth. If I can halve the download time that allows another user to use the bandwidth sooner.
- Fragoel2 3y agoIndeed, the article mentions that the 'killer app' of 5G has yet to be found
- 0xy 3y agoThe killer app of 4G hasn't been found, considering 4G can stream 10x 4K videos simultaneously in my area, at low latency.
- zeroimpl 3y agoAm I charged less for that data transfer when it’s 5G? To me the important consideration is the cost of the data. 1Gbps seems pointless if the cost is still $10+/GB.
- throwaway049 3y agoIn the UK there are companies offering 5g as an alternative to fixed line at your home. Do you have something like that where you live?
- fuzzfactor 3y agoAT&T doesn't seem to intend to upgrade those of its older wired systems which are still at 1MB download. Instead they expect you to migrate to a wirelss solution.
- Nullabillity 3y agoAnd this is the huge problem with allowing this focus on wireless buildouts.
- ksec 3y ago5G is about capacity, if you want more people to use the network, using more Data, and more affordable. Then you want 5G. Yes, your 1Gbps Ethernet is enough for majority of your needs. Except you are not the only one using the 1Gbps Ethernet.
- f6v 3y ago> 5G is about capacity If that’s right, then all the consumer-oriented ads for 5G are pointless.
- jackvalentine 3y agoThey really are, but you can’t convince people to upgrade their handset on ‘our network is going to get shittier and shitter unless you move to a new technology’.
- roxgib 3y agoBut it's not like they're dismantling the 4G infrastructure yet right? For a while at least I would have assumed people moving to 5G would steadily free up capacity on 4G bands.
- jackvalentine 3y agoCarriers are moving allocated spectrum to 5G from 4G, my carrier’s 4g service is basically unusable at times now. Even if they weren’t, people are using more and more bandwidth just naturally loading ads and shit I guess.
- Ekaros 3y agoHandsets I think start to be there. Even for reasonable prices, not for the cheapest, but reasonably priced ones. But they still charge extra and lot of it here for the contract...
- fafzv 3y agoThey are not, because if you stay in 4G, your experience will only worsen with time.
- kalleboo 3y agoWhere I live, mobile base stations are a popular form of home broadband since it's cheaper than fiber (the only other option for most homes). The 4G networks have long been inadequate as they are too overloaded and only with expanded 5G coverage have these solutions actually worked well.
- mschild 3y agoOur providers offer that as well, but its significantly more expensive for the same speeds you'd get from cable/fiber/dsl. 500Mbits is 49 for wired, but 79 for having a 5G modem. And typically, if you have a 5G station close to you, you usually also have a fast wired internet option so baring edge cases, it doesnt make sense here.