5G. What’s the point?

[jurbie]

A question for everyone in this thread who lives in a rural location and is complaining about the lack of coverage. How old is your phone? I've been involved in the ESN rollout and have visited a lot of remote sites and have always had a near perfect 4g connection.

I've met a few farmers on my travels and they all ask me when the site is being turned on because they're seeing no difference on their 15 year old Nokia.

It might be a small sample but it does strike me that if you know the signal where you live is rubbish then there's no point in spending a fortune on a fancy phone. It's always fun firing up the speedtest app on my iPad and showing them they could get close to a triple figure download speed standing outside their cowshed.

[surveyor]

jurbie said:

A question for everyone in this thread who lives in a rural location and is complaining about the lack of coverage. How old is your phone? I've been involved in the ESN rollout and have visited a lot of remote sites and have always had a near perfect 4g connection.

I've met a few farmers on my travels and they all ask me when the site is being turned on because they're seeing no difference on their 15 year old Nokia.

It might be a small sample but it does strike me that if you know the signal where you live is rubbish then there's no point in spending a fortune on a fancy phone. It's always fun firing up the speedtest app on my iPad and showing them they could get close to a triple figure download speed standing outside their cowshed.

I work for a specialist firm who advise telecom landlords. I see a lot of sites all over the country, often in remote locations. When I had a Vodafone account I often struggle off main routes. Now I’m on EE it’s far better.

I’m also often amused by the. Farmer complaining about their Vodafone signal, while stood next to the MBNL compound....

[manracer]

I understand the idea with IoT & 5G but I genuinely don't see the need on a mobile except for when in a crowded place such as a concert or at a football match but that's hardly every day. My 4G speeds are always very good, and I'm a fairly heavy user. I've also been tethering my laptop for the past few weeks for 7 hours a day running visual studio, SSMS, various other applications plus Spotify + WhatsApp web all day every day with zero issues in Manchester city centre

I live surrounded by fields, around 12 miles from Manchester city centre yet this is my 4G phone speed vs the fibre at home:

4G


Home Fibre

Edited by manracer on Thursday 20th February 22:54

Also, lots of friends and work colleagues on voda, o2 and three who are always complaining about poor 4G speeds, something as an EE customer I cannot understand. Why they all put up with such poor speeds is beyond me.

Edited by manracer on Thursday 20th February 22:56

[theboss]

I live in remote countryside in South Shropshire and whilst there are always going to be intermittent coverage owing to the landscape and low population density, 4G coverage is pretty good here. Vodafone in particular and was the first to install here so I haven’t contemplated using another network for years, though I understand EE now provide coverage around my home area. 3 are practically non-existent. 50Mbps over voda LTE is far better than I can get down a copper phone line and a leased line quote was over £100k to install, so I’m generally very grateful for rural 4G coverage and think 5G will only improve options (eventually).

[jurbie]

surveyor said:

I work for a specialist firm who advise telecom landlords. I see a lot of sites all over the country, often in remote locations. When I had a Vodafone account I often struggle off main routes. Now I’m on EE it’s far better.

I’m also often amused by the. Farmer complaining about their Vodafone signal, while stood next to the MBNL compound....

I think Vodafone have always had fairly good rural 2g hence why so many seem to use them but it seems Voda have never bothered to upgrade their old rural sites. I had this exact conversation with someone out on one of the more remote Hebrides islands. I proceeded to park up at the end of his drive where I tethered my phone to my laptop in order to join a Skype conference call.

My work phone is on EE but my own phone is on O2 because that was the only signal I can get at home. From my own experience I'd agree that EE's coverage is very good but O2 isn't far behind. The only real difference is in very rural areas which thanks to ESN, EE have a real advantage which should continue to improve.

Having said that I spend a lot of time in rural North Wales and the EE signal is awful inside the house whereas I'll often tether to my O2 phone because it's substantially better than the broadband. I have a similar experience at Snetterton race track, nothing on EE but full 4g on O2

[OlonMusky]

schmalex said:

Folks. Please help me. What on Earth is the practical point of 5G for use in every day life?

It keeps the wheels turning innit.

[Johnspex]

surveyor said:

Johnspex said:

boyse7en said:

Johnspex said:

Starjet99 said:

I'd really rather "they" concentrate on getting better 4G coverage before we worry too much about 5G. I live in the countryside (albeit in the south east, so not completely in the sticks) and I frequently don't get a 4G connection out and about, and I struggle with getting even 3G or any connection at all at home!

You should try living in North Devon.
Mobile signal is non-existent in many places round here.

I do live in North Devon and the amount of places I can go and it is Emergency Calls Only, or not even that, is amazing. Friends in the rest of the country don't believe me when I way I didn't get a message because I was out of signal for a whole afternoon or evening - the concept of not having 3G or 4G constantly baffles them.

5G will be even worse with it relatively short range. The chances of any supplier providing antennae throughout remotely populated areas is pretty much zero

They can put one up in my garden if it will give us a signal.
Just off the A39 between Bideford and Hartland.

How much rent would you want?[/quote










£15k.

[romeodelta]

I live in Australia and sometimes my phone drops to 3G, which is PAINFUL.

When there was only 3G, I don't remember it being a problem.

Everything is so bandwidth hungry nowadays.

Progress, innit.

[OlonMusky]

romeodelta said:

I live in Australia and sometimes my phone drops to 3G, which is PAINFUL.

When there was only 3G, I don't remember it being a problem.

Everything is so bandwidth hungry nowadays.

Progress, innit.

3G now means "no internet", most of the time, I don't know what they did but something has changed since the introduction of 4G.

[hotchy]

OlonMusky said:

romeodelta said:

I live in Australia and sometimes my phone drops to 3G, which is PAINFUL.

When there was only 3G, I don't remember it being a problem.

Everything is so bandwidth hungry nowadays.

Progress, innit.

3G now means "no internet", most of the time, I don't know what they did but something has changed since the introduction of 4G.

I used to stream football on 3g. Wont load a webpage now. Somethings definitely a bit fishy

[rxe]

Fishlegs said:

Does that help?

I think the difference is that 4G is now “good enough”. I’m using a 4G internet connection all day at work and have been doing so for the last year. It’s fine. I get emails, big presentations as normal and I can work on AWS console all day with no discernable issues. You couldn’t do that on 3G,

Anyone who thinks that 5G will unlock some world of chatty devices doesn’t understand the 7 layer network model. 5G is somewhere between “Physical” and “Data Link”. If devices are going to be chatty, then that all exists at the Application level.

Connected cars depending on ultra low latency connections? Er, no, that will lead to a lot of accidents because arbitrary latency is a fact of life when you’re dealing with radios.

5G is about two things:

1) Money and “shiny new”. If EE can coax you onto a 70 quid data package because watching 4K on the bus (On a device that doesn’t support 4K) is essential to your life, then their ARPU has gone up by 40% and they’re a much more valuable company.

2) Home broadband replacement. It’s going to be a killer there.

[surveyor]

Johnspex said:

How much rent would you want?[/quote

£15k.

Under the old rules that would be high even for a Urban rooftop.

Under the new Electronic Communications Code, which came into force on December 28 2017, there is a valuation assumption that the land is not being used as a base station.

So the Operators would be offering you £50 a year - if you are lucky.

Don't like this idea? The Operator can take you to Lands Tribunal and the Tribunal will force the agreement, and set the rent.

As you can imagine it's all a bit contentious, and Operators are no longer welcomed with open arms.

[vaud]

rxe said:

Connected cars depending on ultra low latency connections? Er, no, that will lead to a lot of accidents because arbitrary latency is a fact of life when you’re dealing with radios.

It won't, because the connection will be an augmentation of connectivity, not a mandatory. In the event of the loss of connection, the vehicle OS would force a default to a safer set of parameters.

Anyway, for cars and vehicle to vehicle (not vehicle to mast to vehicle), the latency would be ms and fine for most car speeds (as low as 1ms if I recall correctly).

[Sheepshanks]

jurbie said:

A question for everyone in this thread who lives in a rural location and is complaining about the lack of coverage. How old is your phone? I've been involved in the ESN rollout and have visited a lot of remote sites and have always had a near perfect 4g connection.

I've got an iPhone 11, so it's pretty new. We're in a large, about 2500 people, village in West Cheshire. There's an O2 mast about 400 metres from our house and even phone calls indoors (just a normal estate built house) are iffy - phone is on 2 bars (of 4) now. We're supposed to have good indoor and outdoor 4G coverage but never see 4G on the phones.

I don't know what she does to it, but wife's phone seems to lose connection to our wifi regularly and it simply won't load internet pages when that happens.

[blueg33]

JohneeBoy said:

5G has a lower range and penetration through solid objects so needs about 20-30 times more masts. It'll cost an absolute fortune for any of the providers to roll out and at a time where many are still paying off their 4G investment. This is why we are only seeing availability in major towns and cities.

On the plus side, it has lower latency than 4G so is great for autonomous cars talking to each other, and other such applications. It also is better at finding you in a busy place, so all those times in a stadium with no signal will improve massively. Large data transfer speeds will render some fixed line services a bit pointless.

It's an evolution and if we don't enable it then in a few years everyone will be moaning about slow speeds and other countries being ahead of us.

The masts are small though and relatively low cost, small enough for each house to have one and it will be un-noticeable

The company I work for has a specialist team for data. 5g will make things like driverless cars work better, smart houses work better, its critical for airport and rail infrastructure just to enable capacity to keep pace with demand.

[surveyor]

blueg33 said:

JohneeBoy said:

5G has a lower range and penetration through solid objects so needs about 20-30 times more masts. It'll cost an absolute fortune for any of the providers to roll out and at a time where many are still paying off their 4G investment. This is why we are only seeing availability in major towns and cities.

On the plus side, it has lower latency than 4G so is great for autonomous cars talking to each other, and other such applications. It also is better at finding you in a busy place, so all those times in a stadium with no signal will improve massively. Large data transfer speeds will render some fixed line services a bit pointless.

It's an evolution and if we don't enable it then in a few years everyone will be moaning about slow speeds and other countries being ahead of us.

The masts are small though and relatively low cost, small enough for each house to have one and it will be un-noticeable

The company I work for has a specialist team for data. 5g will make things like driverless cars work better, smart houses work better, its critical for airport and rail infrastructure just to enable capacity to keep pace with demand.

It will need both the existing style tower/rooftop, and the smaller less noticeable infill. The infill smaller cells will be operating the mm wave and the spectrum has yet to be auctioned off. The range and penetration of this size wave is very poor hence needing the infill. There are solutions working with lampposts and even off manhole covers.

5G being rolled out at present is at a higher frequency than 2G/4G. It does not propagate as well as the lower frequency technology, and the old fashioned solution is to turn the power up. They are heavier, and with significantly larger exclusion zones than 4G technology sites.

[shtu]

rxe said:

4G is now “good enough”.

Like all these things, adding "for now" helps a lot.

For home use, over the past few decades we've gone from 300 bps audio-coupled modems, to 10s of Mbps over copper and mobile, as technology to provide and consume that bandwidth becomes available.

That increase in bandwidth will continue, and it will find uses that most of us won't think of until they arrive.

[jurbie]

surveyor said:

Johnspex said:

How much rent would you want?[/quote

£15k.

Under the old rules that would be high even for a Urban rooftop.

Under the new Electronic Communications Code, which came into force on December 28 2017, there is a valuation assumption that the land is not being used as a base station.

So the Operators would be offering you £50 a year - if you are lucky.

Don't like this idea? The Operator can take you to Lands Tribunal and the Tribunal will force the agreement, and set the rent.

As you can imagine it's all a bit contentious, and Operators are no longer welcomed with open arms.

Is this just for existing sites? Surely if an operator wants to build a new site in my back garden they'll pay me what I ask or they can choose to build it somewhere else. Or is it the case that they offer £15k but a year later they come back and say they're dropping it £50 and there's nothing you can do about it?

[surveyor]

jurbie said:

surveyor said:

Johnspex said:

How much rent would you want?[/quote

£15k.

Under the old rules that would be high even for a Urban rooftop.

Under the new Electronic Communications Code, which came into force on December 28 2017, there is a valuation assumption that the land is not being used as a base station.

So the Operators would be offering you £50 a year - if you are lucky.

Don't like this idea? The Operator can take you to Lands Tribunal and the Tribunal will force the agreement, and set the rent.

As you can imagine it's all a bit contentious, and Operators are no longer welcomed with open arms.

Is this just for existing sites? Surely if an operator wants to build a new site in my back garden they'll pay me what I ask or they can choose to build it somewhere else. Or is it the case that they offer £15k but a year later they come back and say they're dropping it £50 and there's nothing you can do about it?

This is for new sites. It will apply to existing sites as Leases expire, depending on what type they are - it gets complicated.

And no - if a Operator wants to build it in a specific location they can force it through, and landowners have very limited grounds to defend with.

It is all contentious. Operators won a few cases early on - including a London rooftop at a rent of £1150 per annum. They have not managed yet to win a greenfield case and get as far as valuation. Most cases are on existing sites - but the London rooftop was a new one.

Edited by surveyor on Friday 21st February 12:44

[rxe]

vaud said:

It won't, because the connection will be an augmentation of connectivity, not a mandatory. In the event of the loss of connection, the vehicle OS would force a default to a safer set of parameters.

Anyway, for cars and vehicle to vehicle (not vehicle to mast to vehicle), the latency would be ms and fine for most car speeds (as low as 1ms if I recall correctly).

Exactly my point. There is nothing stopping this being done with 4G today. Some 5G low latency fantasy isn’t going to change anything.