Ignoring all the hype and BS, all the cell infrastructure really comes down to a battle between user bandwidth needs and available spectrum (multiplied by spectral efficiency and density of towers). Get this wrong and customer service tanks as cell sites get congestied.
There are virtually no new applications enabled IMO with 5G speeds vs LTE speeds/latency, assuming they are both not congested. 100mbit/sec LTE with 20-30ms latency is fine for nearly everything; gigabit with 5ms latency on 5G doesn't really change much, at least for the next few years.
5G NR (the access layer of 5G) isn't hugely more spectrum efficient than LTE on a bitz/hz basis, at least on a downstream basis where the most demand is (upstream is really important too though, especially for TCP, I'm not discounting that). [1].
We are getting diminishing returns on spectrum efficiency. Which means more and more spectrum required to keep up with demands, which is really what 5G enables (more channel bonding, much wider channels). However, we are totally running out of spectrum to allocate to mobile services. The spectrum that is available in large quantities is extremely high frequency and can't really penetrate walls (it will even struggle with rain).
So long term the only thing that carriers can do is densify their cell sites, which is extremely expensive from a capex perspective. Some carriers have realised this, some haven't (or don't have the funds to do it). In the UK 3UK is doing it; with thousands of planning applications to add new sites (with huge NIMBY backlash everywhere).
I agree with that. 5G is overhyped, probably due to the fact that sales guys were seeing speeds up to XY GB/s, but forget to mention that it is working only on wideband (mmWave) part of 5G, which might come later, but maybe never at all.
So people either have "5G" which is just a marginally better LTE working on same frequencies as 3G used to or people have 5G mmWave, which works only when they are standing at one spot of a street and in a very specific body position. The moment when there is a wall, glass, tree or a even a mist, 5G mmWave does not work.
5G is disappointment, because it was senselessly overhyped yet its overall usability for end user is not much different from 4G.
> There are virtually no new applications enabled IMO with 5G speeds vs LTE speeds/latency, assuming they are both not congested. 100mbit/sec LTE with 20-30ms latency is fine for nearly everything; gigabit with 5ms latency on 5G doesn't really change much, at least for the next few years.
I'd say few new consumer applications (other than replacing home internet). In commercial applications like TV production being being able to pack 10x as much data into a connection at lower latency is interesting and enables some things that previously required complex/unreliable cellular bonding or wildly expensive satellite connections.
>5G NR (the access layer of 5G) isn't hugely more spectrum efficient than LTE on a bitz/hz basis, at least on a downstream basis where the most demand is (upstream is really important too though, especially for TCP, I'm not discounting that).
This was something anyone could see from a mile away. Generations 1-4 were about multi-plexing signals on the same spectrum (1 was frequency channels, 2 was time channels, 3 started to include multiple simultaneous access via clever math, and 4G used orthogonal frequencies to really amp up the simultaneous access).
Problem with 5G is that orthogonal frequencies are pretty much the best way we know how to multiplex, even over wires, so we had to look elsewhere for things like new frequency bands and multiple antennae, etc. These were never going to feel as impactful as the multiplexing changes did, but there was too much at stake for marketing departments, so they just plowed ahead with hype.
> There are virtually no new applications enabled IMO with 5G speeds vs LTE speeds/latency, assuming they are both not congested.
5G will enable the sorts of edge computing needed for stuff like facial recognition. It's fundamentally a policing/military/counterinsurgency technology being laundered as consumer tech.
> There are virtually no new applications enabled IMO with 5G speeds vs LTE speeds/latency, assuming they are both not congested. 100mbit/sec LTE with 20-30ms latency is fine for nearly everything; gigabit with 5ms latency on 5G doesn't really change much, at least for the next few years.
This goes both ways: how can anyone possibly make (let alone sell) new applications when practically no consumer has a good enough connection to use them?
Not for surgery per se (which is too high of a risk), but in my country people did manage to find a similar, reasonable use case. They equipped ambulances with high-res cameras and cellular network for senior medical technicians in hospitals to give advices to medical technicians on the ambulance in real-time, which seems like a nice addition.
I think one of the biggest improvement points of 5G, which most people don't notice, is that it improves the number of devices that can connect to the local cell tower.
With 4G, you get 100k device connections per 1 sq kilometer.
With 5G, this number becomes 1 million connections per square kilometer.
This is a very big deal if you are in a heavily congested area (big cities, major league sporting events). Also a very big deal to high priority services (like police radios, emergency services, etc), as it goes a long way to ensuring connections are available.
Also goes a long way to delivering on the promise of IoT... with 1 million connections a lot more things become possible.
It's more of an evolutionary tech, than revolutionary. Then again, 5G means means 5th generation... implying the evolutionary process. The average user won't notice it, but its still important nonetheless.
This perfectly illustrates why 5G is a disappointment for consumers—increasing the number of devices each tower can support is a carrier problem, not a customer problem.
I've never in my life heard somebody on 4G LTE say, "Eugh, my connection is too slow!". It's always "fast enough" to browse the web at reasonable speeds, watch videos, or have an OK-quality FaceTime call.
5G is definitely a cool tech. What's not cool is how carriers trick people into thinking they're using "5G" (or even "6G") just because their phone's cellular data connection is operating on the 5G spectrum. What's also not cool is how carriers market their 5G services with claims of speeds that a normal user will never achieve. I've never seen a carrier market 5G as a solution for maintaining connections in congested areas, even though that realistically seems to be the big ticket item.
How well does 5G work wrt distance from the tower? So far, the good old 2G (GSM/GPRS/EDGE) is best in this regard, at least in my own experience. No matter how far from civilization you are, you're more likely to get 2G than no service at all. You can call, sure, but data works so terribly it could as well be unavailable. Does 5G solve that?
If tech hype is more or less marketing + effective PR (tons of articles and blog post written about said tech), I've felt this author's sentiment toward the hype viz. reality of 5G with AR/VR, blockchain, and the current wave of AI as well.
So much of the 2010's internet UX is fully baked. We can communicate with voice, audio and video with the world from anywhere on cheap pocket devices. It would be harder to make this any more frictionless without some sort of new HCI paradigm. We've got wireless comms going wherever it made commercial sense, "enabling" workers to get directives and do business from their morning commutes. You can shop from the toilet.
You can also make original music in the palm of your hand for the cost of a used iPhone.
What I'm getting at is the digital revolution is here if not already over. We're in our cyberpunk future already, but surprise humans don't need too much to be absolutely sated if not overwhelmed by technology and I don't think they're itching for more of it. The business of selling tech right now is hard because so many of the jobs are _done_. All that you can do is generate hype.
I don't doubt I'm missing some of the forest through the hype trees here, but tech in the 2020's has a lot to prove to me.
Ironically, T-mobile is sitting pretty for 5G spectrum because the acquisition of Sprint gave them a boatload of spectrum that Sprint in turn got when they acquired Clearwire...who acquired the spectrum for WiMax. Funny how life turns out.
Maybe it was a flop as seen by people who expected it to make them grow a third arm or get mind-controlled by the secret government. That plan flopped greatly. /s
It's curious how telcos' incessant blabbering about 5G ended up getting so deep into people's heads that they began thinking it was something that would make every interaction on their smartphones instantaneous. 5G was never about the individual user. It was always about the grid; the ability to provide expected bandwidth/connectivity to more users at the same time.
At least for me individually 5G has been a worse experience vs LTE because of how quickly it drains the tiny 2,227mah battery in my iphone 12 mini, turning off 5G doesn't noticeably affect my cell performance while at the same time increases my battery life by 1-2 hours. I can't imagine how bad it'd be if i had a ultra-wideband plan, that radio requires a giant cutout in the metal frame which is also only present on u.s. region iphones. 5g ultra-wideband has always seemed like just a party trick to me (who would ever need gigabyte speeds on a phone??)
The benefits of 5G have nothing to do with your cellphone service and everything to do with enabling connected infrastructure that could not be done with LTE.
It's pretty funny how T-Mobile has rolled out 5G in my small town (with a single cell tower), but have not bothered to upgrade the connection to the tower so we still only get about 2mbps on a good day.
Even better is the local ISP offers 10gbps fiber service and has lines directly next to the tower, but the cell tower doesn't use that, and instead has some long range microwave backhaul.
I always wonder what the point of spending the money to upgrade the tower to 5G was.
5G gave me an incredible, almost magical, connection for in my home that's located 30km from the nearest city. On a good day, I'm getting 600/50Mbps with ~20ms latencies which is about 10-100 times better than the previous connection was giving me. It made my family's life possible in the lockdown times of Covid-19.
Fiber will be soon available here, though, and I'll be replacing 5G with it, to get a more stable, less energy-hungry connection that is less tied to chinese suppliers of networking hardware and software.
edit perhaps what I have is only some ultimate final form of 4G, I don't know nor care really.
I have unlimited with my plan. I just compared the costs of all plans with the added costs of a new smart phone. The very best return was actually going with the almost highest plan.
So I always recommend to do the Excel sheet and include all costs for the 2 year contract.
Well, T-Mobile is just way too expensive anyway. I pay 25€ for unlimited with Vodafone. It's not the best network but it works surprisingly well where I live. I get ~500mbps at work and ~300mbps at home. Much better upgrade than the one from 3G to 4G.
All the BS hype about 5G was a red flag for me. They were always showing how doctors could operate on people in far away places (never mentioning the fact that the people in the far away places probably have no health care) and it is also all supposed to lead to everything from energy efficiency to higher efficiency.
But all I get is a higher phone bill and no option to opt out of a 5G plan even though I turn it off on my phone.
And what did we probably really get? More surveillance. You do know, don't you, that these mmWave can pinpoint you and your activity with an ever increasing exactness that should concern all of us.
The worst thing the Australian government has done in recent years is backflip on the onus being on them to connect you to fibre via their National Broadband Network (NBN) programme, now the onus is on the consumer to spend thousands to connect to 5G instead.
I've been doing up my mother's connection 25 mins away from a city CBD (I live in another state). I have had to purchase a $1,000 5G modem, 2x2 MIMO directional antennae, rewired the property myself with Cat6 and an old Cisco switch and waps.
I got a 22-26x increase in download off peak and 30x increase in upload (up to about 600-700mb/s off peak)
Would've been wonderful if they just gave them the fibre they promised, though
Fixed wireless 5G is definitely faster but the medium's line of sight requirement means I'd really prefer slow 250mb/s fibre to volatile 100-750mb/s 5G
I've worked out I could hit about 2.5-3gb/s if I went 4x4 MIMO with a 10m mast and aimed it perfectly (tower is 300m away) - but there's no way to control who else is connected and taking the bandwidth - so I'm not investing anymore in her property
> The big winner from the marketing hype has been the handset manufacturers, which have convinced customers that they must have 5G phones - without really telling them why
Its is a fact that much of recent tech development has been skewed by the explosion of mobile. It also feels as if this era is finally saturating and that might not be a bad thing. Mobile computing is obviously an amazing new dimension but it is also intrinsically a dumbed-down version of what fixed lines and more serious hardware (desktops etc) can offer.
Visions of a what a good digital society looks like vary, but resilient, high capacity fiber networks combined with a shift to more client-heavy computing would my preference. Imagine upgrading homes to be real digital hubs (e.g. supporting self-hosted clouds) offering a stark alternative to the remote mega datacenter plus puny touch screens.
The way 5G is implemented by carriers/devices is such garbage. Unless I disable 5G entirely, my phone will refuse to switch to 4G even when 5G is so weak my speed is under 2mbit and 4G is testing at 45+mbit. It even takes over a minute of no connection at all before it will connect to 4G.
I’m in Sydney and the 5G is pretty good. Definitely better than or at least similar to the terrible internet options Verizon and other providers ever had back in the US (ignoring FIOS if you’re lucky enough to get it.
It was the same with the initial rollout of 3G. There were all kind of crazy ideas for what this would enable, strange form factors of phones and so on. It usually takes a decade and turns out more boring, but in the end it _will be_ a better network. Nobody wants to go back to EDGE and many application now do rely on robust LTE.
Yeah, because it was before smartphones (phones having "normal" internet access, full featured browsers and all other things being done on top of that). A lot of effort was spent on things like Broadcast and Multicast Service (BCMCS), etc back then.
Counter point: 5G has been the most important technological innovation for my family in a decade. We live in the US but our home had no unmetered broadband access prior to 5G rollout. (No DSL (for BS "technical line reasons) and no StarLink or cable video)
[+] [-] martinald|2 years ago|reply
There are virtually no new applications enabled IMO with 5G speeds vs LTE speeds/latency, assuming they are both not congested. 100mbit/sec LTE with 20-30ms latency is fine for nearly everything; gigabit with 5ms latency on 5G doesn't really change much, at least for the next few years.
5G NR (the access layer of 5G) isn't hugely more spectrum efficient than LTE on a bitz/hz basis, at least on a downstream basis where the most demand is (upstream is really important too though, especially for TCP, I'm not discounting that). [1].
We are getting diminishing returns on spectrum efficiency. Which means more and more spectrum required to keep up with demands, which is really what 5G enables (more channel bonding, much wider channels). However, we are totally running out of spectrum to allocate to mobile services. The spectrum that is available in large quantities is extremely high frequency and can't really penetrate walls (it will even struggle with rain).
So long term the only thing that carriers can do is densify their cell sites, which is extremely expensive from a capex perspective. Some carriers have realised this, some haven't (or don't have the funds to do it). In the UK 3UK is doing it; with thousands of planning applications to add new sites (with huge NIMBY backlash everywhere).
1: https://www.5g-networks.net/5g-technology/spectral-efficienc...
[+] [-] TheLoafOfBread|2 years ago|reply
So people either have "5G" which is just a marginally better LTE working on same frequencies as 3G used to or people have 5G mmWave, which works only when they are standing at one spot of a street and in a very specific body position. The moment when there is a wall, glass, tree or a even a mist, 5G mmWave does not work.
5G is disappointment, because it was senselessly overhyped yet its overall usability for end user is not much different from 4G.
[+] [-] WithinReason|2 years ago|reply
You can reasonably replace your home internet with 5G
[+] [-] 542458|2 years ago|reply
I'd say few new consumer applications (other than replacing home internet). In commercial applications like TV production being being able to pack 10x as much data into a connection at lower latency is interesting and enables some things that previously required complex/unreliable cellular bonding or wildly expensive satellite connections.
[+] [-] RC_ITR|2 years ago|reply
This was something anyone could see from a mile away. Generations 1-4 were about multi-plexing signals on the same spectrum (1 was frequency channels, 2 was time channels, 3 started to include multiple simultaneous access via clever math, and 4G used orthogonal frequencies to really amp up the simultaneous access).
Problem with 5G is that orthogonal frequencies are pretty much the best way we know how to multiplex, even over wires, so we had to look elsewhere for things like new frequency bands and multiple antennae, etc. These were never going to feel as impactful as the multiplexing changes did, but there was too much at stake for marketing departments, so they just plowed ahead with hype.
[+] [-] VagueMag|2 years ago|reply
5G will enable the sorts of edge computing needed for stuff like facial recognition. It's fundamentally a policing/military/counterinsurgency technology being laundered as consumer tech.
https://twitter.com/2youngBadazz/status/1364621468999409666?...
[+] [-] pokstad|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mgrund|2 years ago|reply
I think 5G latency requirements are currently very academically driven without much practical validation, see e.g. Tactile Internet.
[+] [-] thomastjeffery|2 years ago|reply
This goes both ways: how can anyone possibly make (let alone sell) new applications when practically no consumer has a good enough connection to use them?
[+] [-] Zealotux|2 years ago|reply
I never, ever understood that argument; I simply can't imagine a hospital relying on a cellular network for such sensitive work.
[+] [-] kotatsuyaki|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DeathArrow|2 years ago|reply
Maybe the argument was more for government officials, not for people like you.
[+] [-] lordfrito|2 years ago|reply
With 4G, you get 100k device connections per 1 sq kilometer.
With 5G, this number becomes 1 million connections per square kilometer.
This is a very big deal if you are in a heavily congested area (big cities, major league sporting events). Also a very big deal to high priority services (like police radios, emergency services, etc), as it goes a long way to ensuring connections are available.
Also goes a long way to delivering on the promise of IoT... with 1 million connections a lot more things become possible.
It's more of an evolutionary tech, than revolutionary. Then again, 5G means means 5th generation... implying the evolutionary process. The average user won't notice it, but its still important nonetheless.
[+] [-] bradgessler|2 years ago|reply
I've never in my life heard somebody on 4G LTE say, "Eugh, my connection is too slow!". It's always "fast enough" to browse the web at reasonable speeds, watch videos, or have an OK-quality FaceTime call.
[+] [-] CivBase|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grishka|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] efields|2 years ago|reply
So much of the 2010's internet UX is fully baked. We can communicate with voice, audio and video with the world from anywhere on cheap pocket devices. It would be harder to make this any more frictionless without some sort of new HCI paradigm. We've got wireless comms going wherever it made commercial sense, "enabling" workers to get directives and do business from their morning commutes. You can shop from the toilet.
You can also make original music in the palm of your hand for the cost of a used iPhone.
What I'm getting at is the digital revolution is here if not already over. We're in our cyberpunk future already, but surprise humans don't need too much to be absolutely sated if not overwhelmed by technology and I don't think they're itching for more of it. The business of selling tech right now is hard because so many of the jobs are _done_. All that you can do is generate hype.
I don't doubt I'm missing some of the forest through the hype trees here, but tech in the 2020's has a lot to prove to me.
[+] [-] eli|2 years ago|reply
Well that’s obviously not true. I was at the launch event for WiMAX which had huge hype and now you’ve probably never heard of it.
5G actually exists and works. In my home (admittedly near a tower) it’s faster than my gigabit Fios over wifi.
[+] [-] kjellsbells|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soco|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daneel_w|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OJFord|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alden5|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nerfbatplz|2 years ago|reply
The benefits of 5G have nothing to do with your cellphone service and everything to do with enabling connected infrastructure that could not be done with LTE.
[+] [-] Saris|2 years ago|reply
Even better is the local ISP offers 10gbps fiber service and has lines directly next to the tower, but the cell tower doesn't use that, and instead has some long range microwave backhaul.
I always wonder what the point of spending the money to upgrade the tower to 5G was.
[+] [-] bretticus|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lostmsu|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darthrupert|2 years ago|reply
Fiber will be soon available here, though, and I'll be replacing 5G with it, to get a more stable, less energy-hungry connection that is less tied to chinese suppliers of networking hardware and software.
edit perhaps what I have is only some ultimate final form of 4G, I don't know nor care really.
[+] [-] reportgunner|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phoboslab|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krisknez|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] secondcoming|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PinguTS|2 years ago|reply
So I always recommend to do the Excel sheet and include all costs for the 2 year contract.
[+] [-] snehk|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _ph_|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] YinLuck-|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] krisknez|2 years ago|reply
The speeds are great. On 4G and 4G+ I've been getting speeds of 20-30mbps even though ISP's were advertising 200+mbps speeds (theoretical maximums)
On 5G I easily get 100+mbps, majority of times around 500mbps.
Where I live we get unlimited usage 5G for around $25-30
[+] [-] rhn_mk1|2 years ago|reply
The introduction of the new spectrum has relieved the pressure on overloaded cell sites, and we’ve seen cellular speeds rise significantly.
[+] [-] FollowingTheDao|2 years ago|reply
But all I get is a higher phone bill and no option to opt out of a 5G plan even though I turn it off on my phone.
And what did we probably really get? More surveillance. You do know, don't you, that these mmWave can pinpoint you and your activity with an ever increasing exactness that should concern all of us.
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8804831
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/js/2021/6657709/
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8645553
https://www.fastcompany.com/90314058/5g-means-youll-have-to-...
[+] [-] lmpdev|2 years ago|reply
I've been doing up my mother's connection 25 mins away from a city CBD (I live in another state). I have had to purchase a $1,000 5G modem, 2x2 MIMO directional antennae, rewired the property myself with Cat6 and an old Cisco switch and waps.
I got a 22-26x increase in download off peak and 30x increase in upload (up to about 600-700mb/s off peak)
Would've been wonderful if they just gave them the fibre they promised, though
Fixed wireless 5G is definitely faster but the medium's line of sight requirement means I'd really prefer slow 250mb/s fibre to volatile 100-750mb/s 5G
I've worked out I could hit about 2.5-3gb/s if I went 4x4 MIMO with a 10m mast and aimed it perfectly (tower is 300m away) - but there's no way to control who else is connected and taking the bandwidth - so I'm not investing anymore in her property
[+] [-] lmpdev|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nologic01|2 years ago|reply
Its is a fact that much of recent tech development has been skewed by the explosion of mobile. It also feels as if this era is finally saturating and that might not be a bad thing. Mobile computing is obviously an amazing new dimension but it is also intrinsically a dumbed-down version of what fixed lines and more serious hardware (desktops etc) can offer.
Visions of a what a good digital society looks like vary, but resilient, high capacity fiber networks combined with a shift to more client-heavy computing would my preference. Imagine upgrading homes to be real digital hubs (e.g. supporting self-hosted clouds) offering a stark alternative to the remote mega datacenter plus puny touch screens.
[+] [-] causi|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] DeathArrow|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] pirate787|2 years ago|reply