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For real, I've always though such a switch to 5G was premature after the investment poured in 4G. Why? Are people tiktoking that much to require an upgrade? Es

For real, I've always though such a switch to 5G was premature after the investment poured in 4G. Why? Are people tiktoking that much to require an upgrade? Especially one that seems to break a lot of backwards compatibility

jacquesm 3y ago
My phone is capable of 3G (and 2G as well, but I haven't used that in a long time) and I've used it all over Europe. It is funny because sometimes I have bad coverage for newer bands and protocols but 3G always saves the day in those cases. In Latin America it was quite useful as well, especially rural areas.
dbbk 3y ago
If you turn off 3G it lets them repurpose that spectrum for 4G/5G is my understanding
snickerbockers 3y ago
I've never understood why anybody cares about 5G, what do people do on their phones where bandwidth is a bottleneck? 4G is clearly fast enough for video streaming at resolutions and bitrates that matter for small screens. Online gaming tends to get bottlenecked on lately moreso than bandwidth and anybody who takes it seriously will be playing on consoles and PC. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume most filesharing happens on PC also. So what's the point?
- Shish2k 3y ago
  With sufficiently fast mobile internet, there is no more need to be digging and drilling to pull cables through roads and buildings (I’ve been using a 4G/5G dongle as my primary internet access for the past 4 years because the council is perpetually “3-6 months away” from bringing a fibre connection to my street. 4G was pretty painful, but 5G is actually just-about-tolerable by my gamer-nerd standards, and the less-technical friends and family who visit my house don’t even notice. Maybe the 20ms pings with occasional 100ms spikes is too much for professional-level FPS competitions, but I’m happy to chill out in the silver leagues so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
rsynnott 3y ago
In congested areas 5G should provide significant benefit. I was in London a while ago (using an old-ish 4G-only phone); in busy areas it's really not good, at all.
snakeyjake 3y ago
>Are people tiktoking that much to require an upgrade? Yes. Total global wireless data traffic went from 58 exabytes per month in 2019 to 154 exabytes per month in 2022 and is predicted to surpass 326 exabytes per month by 2025. 4G cannot handle this. 5G probably cannot handle this rate of growth for much longer. https://www.ericsson.com/en/reports-and-papers/mobility-report/dataforecasts/mobile-traffic-forecast https://www.ericsson.com/en/reports-and-papers/mobility-repo...

jacquesm 3y ago

My phone is capable of 3G (and 2G as well, but I haven't used that in a long time) and I've used it all over Europe. It is funny because sometimes I have bad coverage for newer bands and protocols but 3G always saves the day in those cases. In Latin America it was quite useful as well, especially rural areas.

dbbk 3y ago

If you turn off 3G it lets them repurpose that spectrum for 4G/5G is my understanding

snickerbockers 3y ago

I've never understood why anybody cares about 5G, what do people do on their phones where bandwidth is a bottleneck? 4G is clearly fast enough for video streaming at resolutions and bitrates that matter for small screens. Online gaming tends to get bottlenecked on lately moreso than bandwidth and anybody who takes it seriously will be playing on consoles and PC. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume most filesharing happens on PC also. So what's the point?

Shish2k 3y ago
With sufficiently fast mobile internet, there is no more need to be digging and drilling to pull cables through roads and buildings (I’ve been using a 4G/5G dongle as my primary internet access for the past 4 years because the council is perpetually “3-6 months away” from bringing a fibre connection to my street. 4G was pretty painful, but 5G is actually just-about-tolerable by my gamer-nerd standards, and the less-technical friends and family who visit my house don’t even notice. Maybe the 20ms pings with occasional 100ms spikes is too much for professional-level FPS competitions, but I’m happy to chill out in the silver leagues so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

rsynnott 3y ago

In congested areas 5G should provide significant benefit. I was in London a while ago (using an old-ish 4G-only phone); in busy areas it's really not good, at all.

snakeyjake 3y ago

>Are people tiktoking that much to require an upgrade? Yes. Total global wireless data traffic went from 58 exabytes per month in 2019 to 154 exabytes per month in 2022 and is predicted to surpass 326 exabytes per month by 2025. 4G cannot handle this. 5G probably cannot handle this rate of growth for much longer. https://www.ericsson.com/en/reports-and-papers/mobility-report/dataforecasts/mobile-traffic-forecast https://www.ericsson.com/en/reports-and-papers/mobility-repo...