We might as well drop the whole ?G classification. Since the US carriers started branding stuff 4G that wasn't anywhere close to spec its been a free for all.
Marketing aside, the tech might have merit in its own right though. I think the Ka band isn't available for use in my country though...
4G actually means something, it's just not enforceable. The trouble is, the trademark was not acquired in time before it became a "generic term" which means anyone can call anything 4G.
Data cap's are indirectly related to transmission speeds so you may always be able to burn though the data cap in under 10 seconds, but competition will still slowly raise the cap as technology improves.
IMO, the current 2+GB caps are not that bad, raise that to 20GB and you can watch a fair amount of hulu for example (~50+hours) without a problem.
Brilliantly put. I see some tech bloggers go through "specs" of speed, only to forget the data cap. If money is not an issue, then maybe, but most people usage over the cap will truly bite.
I thought 28 GHz signals would be stopped by relatively small obstacles (thin walls). It's not a matter of detection; the signal is absorbed and there is none left to detect on the other side. How could they overcome this with an antenna array?
Edit: According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka_band this band is used for satellite communications, but it very susceptible to attenuation in rain. So it's very cool that a new antenna tech could improve on satellite downlinks, but it still doesn't seem practical for a cell phone.
Absorption is directly correlated with frequency, yes. Their 2km mile is probably a lab condition free-space number which will never even come close to being reached in the real world, especially in urban areas.
This could be useful to a telecom if they implement an expensive design that uses obstructions to their advantage. Essentially blast the radio waves down streets as if they are isolated tunnels. That would reduce interference to almost nothing, but require many more access points than they currently have. They would also still have the problem of penetration indoors.
All these faster speeds won't do anything really for heavily populated areas. The most important thing is total available bandwidth (bytes/sec/hz), and it's unclear how better that will get. LTE itself doesn't improve a lot over 3G techniques, the thing that's making LTE faster in saturated conditions right now is that there's just more bandwidth compared to 3G.
> "In my opinion 4G achieves a decent speed and what we need to do is crack the capacity crunch we are facing."
Translation: "The theoretical numbers we sold LTE with are a good target, maybe this technology lets us deliver that in the real world to all the users who want it."
From what I can tell, this technology isn't about making spectrum more efficient, but opening up new parts of the spectrum (10+GHz) that weren't usable before. edit: nice map of radio spectrum. Being able to use 28GHz seems like a massive leap. http://www.telecomcircle.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Spec...
Well, if you read the article, it's not actually a Samsung thing. This is university research that was partially funded by a grant from Samsung among others.
[+] [-] Havoc|13 years ago|reply
Marketing aside, the tech might have merit in its own right though. I think the Ka band isn't available for use in my country though...
[+] [-] sp332|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 300bps|13 years ago|reply
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-57408432-266/is-the-at-t-i...
[+] [-] commiebob|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Retric|13 years ago|reply
IMO, the current 2+GB caps are not that bad, raise that to 20GB and you can watch a fair amount of hulu for example (~50+hours) without a problem.
[+] [-] FooBarWidget|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OGinparadise|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sp332|13 years ago|reply
Edit: According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka_band this band is used for satellite communications, but it very susceptible to attenuation in rain. So it's very cool that a new antenna tech could improve on satellite downlinks, but it still doesn't seem practical for a cell phone.
[+] [-] hexedpackets|13 years ago|reply
This could be useful to a telecom if they implement an expensive design that uses obstructions to their advantage. Essentially blast the radio waves down streets as if they are isolated tunnels. That would reduce interference to almost nothing, but require many more access points than they currently have. They would also still have the problem of penetration indoors.
[+] [-] r00fus|13 years ago|reply
I'm going to wait until field trials in actual units are underway before becoming excited about this one.
[+] [-] whyrusleeping|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NegativeK|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pieter|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kalleboo|13 years ago|reply
Translation: "The theoretical numbers we sold LTE with are a good target, maybe this technology lets us deliver that in the real world to all the users who want it."
From what I can tell, this technology isn't about making spectrum more efficient, but opening up new parts of the spectrum (10+GHz) that weren't usable before. edit: nice map of radio spectrum. Being able to use 28GHz seems like a massive leap. http://www.telecomcircle.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Spec...
The short-term solution is to open up more spectrum to mobile use, but things are looking pretty congested. http://siliconangle.com/files/2011/03/spectrum_map1.jpg
[+] [-] soperj|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mwfunk|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mmahemoff|13 years ago|reply
http://boingboing.net/2005/09/14/gillettes-5blade-raz.html
[+] [-] gcb0|13 years ago|reply
if anything, i'd like better latency and coverage.
[+] [-] msh|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jlarsson|13 years ago|reply