by casca on 4/20/18, 4:23 PM with 152 comments
by jupp0r on 4/20/18, 5:18 PM
This is important for consumers. When did you last get 100Mbit+ speeds with 4G? In real world scenarios, the number of people in a cell (due to limited spectrum bandwidth) limits 4G speeds, not protocol maximums. My understanding of 5G is that bandwidth can be used much more efficiently (both by being able to allocate less in idle situations and by spatial multiplexing), benefitting telcos and customers both.
by fredliu on 4/20/18, 5:14 PM
by joezydeco on 4/20/18, 4:58 PM
Or companies that want to break the residential broadband monopoly in a local area. Personally, I'm counting on TMO to kick Comcast's ass in my town. 5G would be a complete success if that happens.
by dgllghr on 4/20/18, 5:02 PM
by daveburstein on 4/22/18, 7:04 AM
Only 10-20% of the "5G" will be the 1 gig millimeter wave until after 2020. Even then, what's the practical difference for most people between 150 megabits and 900 megabits?
Some details: Most LTE going in today is 100-400 meg real with a decent connection, 600-900 meg peak. (3 or 4 CA, 4x4 MIMO.) 2) 80-90% of the "5G" in the world through 2020 will be midband 3.5 GHz 200-600 meg. Only a small fraction will be the true 1 gig millimeter wave. 3) Latency on either most likely 5-15 milliseconds. (The difference in Ericsson equipment is 1-2 ms.)
email me, daveb@dslprime.com for references to primary sources. Don't believe the hype. 5G millimeter wave is planned for 1-4 ms URLLC, but not until 2022-2025. It can go 10-20 gigabits in the lab today, but I don't know any carrier designing for more than 1 gig to a user in the next 5 years.
by Nokinside on 4/20/18, 8:51 PM
I think many people underestimate the ambition of 5G and assume that 5G is just 4G with more bandwidth.
Big advantage of 5G over 4G is that it can _also_ use unlicensed spectrum. This enables more use cases like enhanced mobile broadbands, device-to-device mesh networks, private 5G networks, etc.
5G is designed to use wifi when available. It's more than just new cellular radio interface and antennas (NR part). 5G connection can use 5G/LTE/WiFi simultaneously. Gibabit LTE can be used as an anchor for 5G functionality even when 5G network is not available. In this sense 5G NR is not a priority. 5G NR first arrives in the most congested areas to increase the bandwidth. If you have only LTE, you may not get as much as those with 5G phones in some concerts and crowded events.
Among the first uses of 5G NG are base stations companies build for themselves. Like networks in factories and other locations using unlicensed 60 GHz band. It looks like Chinese are jumping into industrial use of 5G very rapidly. They are already ahead of the schedule. Consumer applications will follow.
by awill on 4/20/18, 5:53 PM
by msoad on 4/20/18, 5:47 PM
by karlkfi on 4/23/18, 7:08 AM
This point is silly.
Lidar and radar don't replace high bandwidth internet on a self-driving car. The beefy super computer in the trunk is trying to replace the cloud compute processing that is inaccessible because there's not enough low latency, reliable bandwidth available to stream a dozen camera, lidar, radar, and IR feeds over the internet for remote processing.
Self driving right now requires either precision 3D mapping and local processing of a huge amount of data from multiple sources OR highway-only limitations where there are fewer objects to track that all move in predictable ways. Both of these would be easier and produce better results with more bandwidth and lower latency.
5G may not be mature enough to make a difference today, but that doesn't mean connected and self-driving cars aren't a legitimate use case for the technology and its stated goals.
by stagger87 on 4/20/18, 5:53 PM
by godelski on 4/20/18, 6:11 PM
by mhneu on 4/20/18, 7:22 PM
Do we need a better protocol for cell data and would this improve throughput and latency?
by ksec on 4/21/18, 8:44 PM
Yes, 5G, which includes 4.9G, or 3GPP Rel 13, 14, 15, will provides lots more Capacity. I see many saying this is only good for telcos, and 5G will be the same once everyone moved over. Which is so far from truth.
Your current LTE speed is limited by Telcos capacity. So if you have less people in your area sharing your bandwith, you are likely to get much higher speed. So If Telcos improves its capacity, it also means you get higher speed when you use it since it is less contention. This is of course assuming the demand stay constant.
And some comments refer to less congested in 5G being the reason, once everyone moves to 5G it will be the same. This is again false. 5G is more like an 4G extension, you really dont switch to 5G, at least not in the 3G to 4G way.
In many developed countries, Smartphone Users has already hit a plateau. Growth is going to be slow. Massive MIMO, in 4.9G or what ever they decide to call it, ( likely 5G ) already provides 3x capacity in FDD-LTE environment, and up to 10x in TDD-LTE. So the network, all of a sudden is capable of supporting 3x to 10x more users. As we have stated before there aren't that much user growth anymore, so as a user you now get 3x speed up when Massive MIMO is deployed in Handset and Cell tower. ( Actually this is over simplify and it is more then that )
So you ask but that is assuming user are using the same amount of Data. Most of the Data we use are actually Video, this is especially true on Mobile. We have HEVC, I doubt it will cut the Data required, but you will have a much better quality streaming.
All this is 4.9G with Massive MIMO, This is excluding additional capacity with Small Cell, LTE- LAA. And 5G is actually designed with Massive MIMO in mind, even more efficient, additional spectrum, even more antenna in Massive MIMO. It is not too hard to imagine by 2025 we have at least 20x the Capacity then we have today.
Now can you imagine you spend 20x the time then today watching Video content in 2025?
Which is one reason why many telcos around the world are already switching to unlimited*, or priority based access after certain amount of data. And assuming no additional killer apps for Data usage, Telcos will likely have to consolidate even further to may be only 3 per region.
by MichailP on 4/20/18, 7:41 PM
by k__ on 4/20/18, 5:04 PM
by rajeevk on 4/20/18, 5:54 PM
This reminds me this famous quote by Bill Gates: "640 kB ought to be enough for anybody"