5G

[TravelGal]

CNet had an article with a reporter attempting to use Verizon's 5G in real time. Having just watched the movie "Steve Jobs" a couple of nights ago, I saw the parallels, LOTS of hype and lots of developmental issues. I'd love to see the rollout, the technology, anything about it, discussed here on OC as it goes along.

[SteveH]

I've not paid too much attention but I do know that 5G requires a different tower technology and the coverage area per tower is significantly less. So in order to roll out 5G, new towers must be installed first.

5G Cell Towers: Why You See Them and How They Work (https://www.lifewire.com/5g-cell-towers-4584192)


I'm sure the roll out will be in heavier populated areas first. You LA city slickers will get it long before us Midwestern yokels will.

[TravelGal]

https://www.cnet.com/news/testing-verizons-new-5g-speeds-exposed-three-major-issues-with-the-next-gen-network/

Interesting reading. Verizon is out first in parts of Chicago and Minneapolis.

[WickerBill]

My phone just started showing "5Ge" instead of LTE, so I read about it. It means 5G Evolution, which is AT&T's way of cabbaging onto 5G hype without actually getting to 5G. Prototypical AT&T, really.


I still view their alignment as Chaotic Neutral, vs., say, Comcast's Chaotic Evil.

[G.]

5G means you need 5 layers of aluminum foil in your hat to protect your brain. :gomer:



I wouldn't especially rush out for this particular bandwagon. It needs pretty good deployment saturation before it's useful.

If you get a fat pipe outside of your work, or home, then great, when you're there. Travelling with 5G isn't going to be good unless you're using the 6-700MHz band, or there's a base every 100 feet or so.

Just my opinion.

[chop456]

My phone just started showing "5Ge" instead of LTE, so I read about it. It means 5G Evolution, which is AT&T's way of cabbaging onto 5G hype without actually getting to 5G. Prototypical AT&T, really.


I still view their alignment as Chaotic Neutral, vs., say, Comcast's Chaotic Evil.

I just dumped them after nearly 25 years of terrible Cingular/ATT coverage and I feel fine. Paying far less for an equally inferior product with T-Mobile and they give me a free taco every Tuesday.

[SteveH]

In Verizon 5G launch city, reviewers have trouble even finding a signal (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/04/in-verizon-5g-launch-city-reviewers-have-trouble-even-finding-a-signal/)

[SteveH]

Millimeter-wave 5G will never scale beyond dense urban areas, T-Mobile says
T-Mobile CTO says 5G's high-frequency spectrum won't cover rural America. (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/04/millimeter-wave-5g-will-never-scale-beyond-dense-urban-areas-t-mobile-says/)

[TravelGal]

Millimeter-wave 5G will never scale beyond dense urban areas, T-Mobile says
T-Mobile CTO says 5G's high-frequency spectrum won't cover rural America. (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/04/millimeter-wave-5g-will-never-scale-beyond-dense-urban-areas-t-mobile-says/)

:eek::eek::eek: Article in today's Daily News (the newspaper of the San Fernando Valley and often superior to the LA Times) that 5G will not arrive in the LA area "for several years." That surprised me but this explains part of that reason.

[cameraman]

Millimeter-wave 5G will never scale beyond dense urban areas, T-Mobile says
T-Mobile CTO says 5G's high-frequency spectrum won't cover rural America. (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/04/millimeter-wave-5g-will-never-scale-beyond-dense-urban-areas-t-mobile-says/)

They can't get decent 4g in much of rural America

[G.]

Millimeter-wave 5G will never scale beyond dense urban areas, T-Mobile says
T-Mobile CTO says 5G's high-frequency spectrum won't cover rural America. (https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/04/millimeter-wave-5g-will-never-scale-beyond-dense-urban-areas-t-mobile-says/)

Told-ya-so. :p

What 5G will do in the stix, is provide a way for your local area (say, a few rooms in your house) have blazing fast speeds, so your coffee maker can talk to your jacket, which talks to your dog's leash, which tells your 'fridge, which orders you more coffee, (as long as you have fibre to the home). The IoT is sorta part of 5G -the slower part.

[nrc]

"Never" is a long time. I was looking at coverage maps for boondocks of Ohio and was surprised at how complete 4G coverage is. Most of the uncovered areas are in valleys where you can count the population on one hand.

The average user would probably be fine if they could just consistently get the theoretical maximum speed from 4G with lower latency. I'm sure they'll start adding 5G coverage along major freeways as soon as they get reasonable coverage in the major cities.

How far it progresses beyond that depends on the interest in using it as a replacement for traditional fixed broadband. Your average small town without dense, tall buildings might actually be an better use case for 5G coverage than a large city.

[SteveH]

Verizon names 20 more 5G cities, starts preorders for $1,300 Galaxy S10 5G (https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/25/18515605/verizon-5g-cities-galaxy-s10-5g-preorders)



Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Des Moines, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Little Rock, Memphis, Phoenix, Providence, San Diego, Salt Lake City, and Washington DC.

[SteveH]

https://i.redd.it/3hh5sop2x3v21.png

[SteveH]

I wasn't really paying that much attention to 5G until this thread..... :laugh:

Now whenever I trip over an article I have to read it. Here's two good ones.

What are 5G and mmWave, and when will you be able to realistically use them? (https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/05/01/what-is-5g-and-mmwave-and-when-will-you-be-able-to-realistically-use-it)

Verizon is taking a temporary break from its plans to charge an additional $10 per month for its mobile 5G service (https://www.businessinsider.com/verizon-suspends-5g-monthly-premium-2019-5?IR=T&utm_medium=BII_Daily&utm_source=Triggermail&utm_campaign=BI%20Intelligence%20Daily%2020195.1&utm_content=B&utm_term=BI%20Intelligence%20Daily%20-%20Engaged%2C%20Active%2C%20Passive%2C%20Disengage d)

[SteveH]

Verizon?s 5G network is now hitting gigabit download speeds (https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/16/18628080/verizon-5g-network-gigabit-1gbps-download-speeds)

[nrc]

Impressive!

Back in the olden days when I worked for Lucent, the boom years came as every Mom and Pop cellular carrier was building out their 2G networks. The bust years came when all that build out wound down and we couldn't convince them that they needed to upgrade all that switch gear to awesome new 3G technology. 3G would allow them to provide 150kbps to all their customers with.... What? The iPhone didn't exist yet. Data usage over cellular was pure nerd stuff.

Thinking about it, the killer app for 5G may be connected vehicles. It's hard to see a lot of need for 1Gbps on an individual mobile device but a vehicle with a 1Gbps connection can use it for it's own data, traffic, and entertainment system along with wifi service for all the devices in it.

[SteveH]

The latest barrier to 5G speeds? The summer (https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/07/the-latest-barrier-to-5g-speeds-the-summer/)


Thermal throttling is a fact of life for smartphones. SoCs generate a lot of heat, and when this heat can't be dissipated, processors react by slowing down and thereby generating less heat. Usually this is just an issue for heavy 3D gaming sessions or a phone directly exposed to sunlight for a long time, like when mounted on a car windshield. In the era of 5G, though, heat is also an issue for your modem.

[SteveH]

I tried 5G. It will change your life - if you can find it (https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/09/tech/5g-review/index.html)

[TravelGal]

I tried 5G. It will change your life - if you can find it (https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/09/tech/5g-review/index.html)

:eek::eek::eek: Did you grow a third eye?

[devilmaster]

The biggest hurdle for 5g will be government intervention.

Govt need to control the grid and allow everyone to use it, albeit at a rate. Like the electrical grid even though an enduser may pay a private company for their power.

Any construction company getting ready to build a new subdivision, with its Mcmansions built two feet next to each other, should be thinking about building 5g completely into its infrastructure, without it being controlled by one company over the other. You are going to need hubs in the backyards, hubs on the street, hubs up high and hubs down low because it truly is line of sight.

Massive towers won't work. These hubs will have to be built everywhere. Lightpoles. Streetscaping. The news that you'll see in 10 years, is making the hubs invisible. Imagine having a family park in your nice subdiv with ugly metal poles everywhere in the park just so someone can stream a channel while they relax in the sun... so they'll learn to hide it.

You'll need gov't control because you won't want only one company having control of a downtown grid for example, and paying massive roaming charges for anyone else - that would hurt open competition for businesses.

If this is the seismic shift that everyone is talking about, (and i think it is) then gov't implementation is the way to do it properly. That is why China will have it done first - their dictators will just decree it be done and it will.

[SteveH]

Apple's brawny 5G iPhone family will require larger, pricey motherboards (https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/11/03/apples-brawny-5g-iphone-family-will-require-larger-pricey-motherboards)

[SteveH]

I subscribe to the Processor newsletter (https://www.theverge.com/pages/newsletters) email from the Verge. Today's is on the upcoming Apple phone release scheduled this week, but its more focused on the state of 5G.



This week, Apple will announce this year’s new iPhones. We’re expecting there to be four of them (https://verge.cmail20.com/t/d-l-ctdhihk-jhuritlujk-t/): the iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone 12, and a smaller one that might be called the iPhone 12 mini. Apple’s invitation for its Tuesday event included the catchphrase (https://verge.cmail20.com/t/d-l-ctdhihk-jhuritlujk-i/) “Hi, Speed.” Weird capitalization decisions aside, the “speed” hint embedded in the tagline lines up with the rumors: these will be the first 5G-enabled iPhones.

If you’re looking to buy a new iPhone this year, even before I see these phones I can provide this simple piece of advice: don’t buy one just because it has 5G.

That’s been my advice for every single 5G-enabled Android phone that’s been released thus far, and unless Apple has some reality-defying modem that enables 5G speeds in more places, it’s my advice for the upcoming iPhone as well.

The problem with 5G is that it’s not good yet. In a comprehensive, US-wide test of 5G speeds, PC Mag found them seriously lacking (https://verge.cmail20.com/t/d-l-ctdhihk-jhuritlujk-k/). In many cases 5G speeds were actually slower than 4G speeds. And the study also found that the other hyped-up reason for 5G, low latency, also isn’t here yet.

That all lines up with my experience using 5G on T-Mobile in the Bay Area. When it’s faster, it’s only nominally different. Often it’s slower and just as often it seems to have a sharper dropoff to no data at all than 4G LTE. After a year of test 5G Android phones, I have yet to believe that 5G is the most important part of any of them.

The reason for these speed and latency issues comes down to some complicated spectrum limitations. Which means that in the future the carriers will be able to unlock faster speeds for 5G, but it’s not going to happen overnight. Here’s how PC Mag’s Sascha Segan characterizes the current state of 5G play (https://verge.cmail20.com/t/d-l-ctdhihk-jhuritlujk-u/):


AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon take very different approaches to 5G. To make a long story short, AT&T 5G right now appears to be essentially worthless. T-Mobile 5G can be a big boost over 4G, but its speeds are only what we’d expect from a good 4G network—it isn’t a new experience. Verizon’s 5G is often mind-blowing, but very difficult to find.

As you’ve likely heard by now, there are really two different kinds of 5G for phones, each operating in different parts of the radio spectrum. There’s what’s called “sub-6” 5G that’s similar to LTE in how it can travel longer distances and penetrate buildings. Then there’s mmWave 5G, which is what Verizon has been deploying so far. It does provide blisteringly fast speeds, but only if you can find it.

I often joke that mmWave is great if you’re wiling to park in one spot outside next to a specific Verizon tower in a specific city — but it’s not really a joke. Verizon’s 5G is so difficult to find and use that I’m legitimately baffled as to why anybody would want to spend the extra money to build it into a phone. I’m doubly baffled that many phones cost $100 or more extra for mmWave compatibility.

Except I’m not baffled, not really. The last few years have seen the growth of the 5G Hype Industrial Complex. US carriers, Qualcomm, and phone manufacturers have all collaborated (one might say colluded) to drive a huge cycle of hype for 5G. They’ve promised streaming games, telemedicine, self-driving cars, and rural broadband for all. Some of those promises will come to pass, but the plain trust is that the networks aren’t anywhere close to ready, and these 5G phones are the clearest evidence of the gap between hype and reality.

We always give the same advice when reviewing a phone: don’t buy something today in the hopes of future updates making it better. Usually this advice applies to software, because so many promises that bugs will be truly addressed come to nothing.

For 5G, that advice still holds — but there is some nuance to it. I don’t think you should buy a phone because it has 5G, but if the phone you already were looking at has 5G, go for it.

Phone upgrade cycles are slowing. More people are keeping their phone for longer. I think this is a great thing: it means phones are good enough to last multiple years, it means less waste, and it saves consumers money. But given a timespan of two or three or more years, getting a 5G phone could make some sense, even if it’s not yet something to seek out.

Buying a 5G phone this year is insurance against the future more than it is an immediate benefit today. Some upgrades are big enough to push an upgrade cycle even if you weren’t planning on it. 5G isn’t that kind of upgrade this year, but it doesn’t hurt to have if you were planning on upgrading anyway.

To bring it back to the new iPhones, my fear is that Apple is going to become part of that 5G Hype Industrial Complex. It’s disingenuous to promise immediate benefits from 5G — at least in the US — and I hope Apple doesn’t succumb to the temptation to do so.

The new iPhones ought to have other big reasons to update: a new design, better cameras, intriguing AR features, or other things I haven’t thought of. Any of those things could be a great reason to buy a new iPhone this year. Just getting 5G is not one of them.

[cameraman]

Verizon is building out their 5g network in Salt Lake. There are black stovepipe towers going in everywhere. Between Verizon, Google, CenturyLink and Comcast I will have three fiber networks & one 5g network to choose from. Google has been DitchWitching the entire city for several years now.

[WickerBill]

The only news Apple really dropped was that they have better 5G antennas than anyone else, but the rest was the hype machine for 5G.


Camera / lidar / MagSafe / A14 were nice, though.

[SteveH]

5G is so 2019

Apple Hiring Engineers to Develop 6G Wireless (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-hiring-engineers-develop-6g-110000382.html)

[SteveH]

New '6G chip' could download Netflix film in 'less than a blink of the eye' (https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/new-6g-chip-could-download-24033680)


Associate Professor Masayuki Fujita, the team's leader from Osaka University added: "Our four-channel multiplexer can potentially support aggregate data rate of 48 gigabits per second (Gbit/s), equivalent to that of uncompressed 8K ultrahigh definition video being streamed in real time."

The researchers say their design was still relatively basic and could be tweaked to squeeze the data ranges towards a mind-boggling 1 Terabit per second.

[datachicane]

6G?
Great. In a year I'll be stuck trying to convince my relatives who get all their news from social media that 6G towers won't give them weaponized syphilis.

[SteveH]

New York City Proposes Putting Up 32-Foot 5G Wireless Technology Towers To Help Close Digital Divide
(https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/10/19/new-york-city-5g-cell-towers-link-5g-wireless-technology/)

This is trouble. Trouble I tell ya

[nrc]

Life in a tent city in Central Park will seem so much better when the Duke of New York provides free wireless for everyone.

[TravelGal]

Life in a tent city in Central Park will seem so much better when the Duke of New York provides free wireless for everyone.

It will be helpful if you're homeless and need a way to connect with social services or even, gasp, a job.

[SteveH]

https://x.com/joepompliano/status/1710007985366302783?s=46&t=FtBbY0VGTU6tkFPNjgS-pg

[TravelGal]

https://x.com/joepompliano/status/1710007985366302783?s=46&t=FtBbY0VGTU6tkFPNjgS-pg

:thumbup::thumbup: