Avalanche2 t1_iti2jko wrote
As the recipient of a new 5G iphone from work, I have to ask, why does 5G suck so bad and why are people so excited by it? It's awful thus far.
Warlock_Ben t1_iti8wuc wrote
I'll try to answer your questions
- Why does 5G suck so bad?
- 5G outputs a much higher frequency signal than 4G does, this has the benefit of allowing a much higher bandwidth (which means faster internet speeds). However, this same change means that the 5G signal degrades across a shorter distance & has less penetrating power as compared to 4G. The solution for this is for telecoms to install a lot of 5G antennas across a given area. Where before a city center might have 1 cell tower, with 5G you might have a 5G cell on each street corner & they'd all connect back to 1 central node.
- Telecoms are still building this network of 5G cells so the coverage is pretty bad right now.
- Why are people excited for it?
- The higher speeds mean that you not only could do more on your phone, but it also supports more users in a given area, so in congested areas like arenas or convention centers each user will have more bandwidth & can do more things.
- It also allows for very high speed at home internet (so instead of paying your local ISP a ton of money for a crappy connection, you could pay a wireless vendor to provide you with a wireless solution). This is less important in big cities, but is a huge deal for rural customers who might be stuck on near dialup connections.
nuke621 t1_itjwma4 wrote
Ooof, so much mis-information here. 5G is the 3GPP Release 15 specification. LTE was Release 8. 5G can be applied on all current bands. It sucks because carrier marketing runs way ahead of network builds, period. It takes time to touch 75K macro towers and build who knows how many CRAN/micro cells (think street light mounted cell site). The bugs will be worked out.
exportgoldmannz t1_itirnoy wrote
Your comment contradicts itself somewhat by saying 5G far less distance so you need a massive amount of towers, then says that rural connections will benefit from this. How? Towers are expensive to build, and it sounds like now every farm needs a tower and the back haul.
Anxious-Floor-3375 t1_itj0jm9 wrote
That is in fact what is happening. Atleast here it is. They've started putting up towers every few miles and now my 5G signal is gradually picking up in more and more places. I live in a pretty rural area. The nearest town from here is 20 miles. I would say in the last year I've seen 20+ towers go up in all kinds of places. To be fair though not all of the towers have been 5G a lot are pushing 4G signal.
exportgoldmannz t1_itj0r8n wrote
Yup 4G for rural which gets 10-30KM and then 5G backfill for dense urban areas.
No idea how this helps remote farms. A fibre run would be cheaper than a fibre run AND cell site for each farm or two
danielv123 t1_itk74ql wrote
Depends on how remote. Any house in LOS of a tower can have an antenna installed, which is much faster than 4g and much cheaper than digging the fiber. It won't get every house, but it will help a lot of people.
Anxious-Floor-3375 t1_itwg05y wrote
Lol they are simultaneously running fiber here as well
Bells_Ringing t1_itj9a6l wrote
They can string fiber on poles versus run it to the house. Amd the cell repeaters can extend that farther. It enables cheaper speeds to the home than ftth oddly enough
Mayor__Defacto t1_itjkbn7 wrote
The marginal cost of running it to the house over poles vs running it over poles to a tower to cover the house favors running it over poles to the house by a wide margin. Tower rents on rural land are around $1500 a month. Unless you’re covering 40+ customers with that, you’re not even covering the rent you’re paying.
goofygoober2006 t1_itkmbmt wrote
5G point to point can span a long distance similar to a microwave shot.
Mayor__Defacto t1_itjk3od wrote
2.2 - will never happen. The same things restricting rural broadband speeds also prevent 5G coverage from replacing wired connections - namely, the revenue per mile of cable is garbage. For many places you’ll have to backhaul quite a lot of remote towers to actually cover a rural area properly, and in terms of cost it is either higher or indistinguishable from the cost of local broadband. Rural broadband is garbage because the ROI is garbage - the big players are largely coasting on investments made by the smaller players that went bankrupt because it was financially impossible. It only exists because the big guys bought it on the cheap.
allaboutAI t1_itlk67k wrote
5G is important for companies - helps advance these industry 4.0 technologies like autonomous vehicles for example. Provides higher speeds, lower latency, etc that allow for more connectivity between machines.
cardiffjohn t1_itk7f4s wrote
Yeah I got 3 to 6 MBPS on ASDL. I now get 200+ MBPS on 5G. Game changer.
Efficient-Radish1873 t1_iti8ouv wrote
5G has been garbage in my opinion. I would normally think it was my carrier but between my wife and I we have all 3 majors in the US and it's garbage with all of them.
glaive1976 t1_itje1nq wrote
Not sure where you are, but my admittedly anecdotal experience the 5G in my area is stupid better than 4G. It feels like magnitudes of difference.
ovirt001 t1_ito3tlt wrote
> why does 5G suck so bad
Mostly because carriers universally suck so bad. The only meaningful improvements in 5G are protocol changes and the addition of C-band/6GHz frequencies (in the US). mmWave is a joke and always has been for wide-area communications. It's easily blocked by every building material including glass.
> why are people so excited by it?
Pandering by tech journos who don't actually understand the technology and the physics behind it.
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