5G. What’s the point?

Author
Discussion

vaud

50,526 posts

155 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
rxe said:
Exactly my point. There is nothing stopping this being done with 4G today. Some 5G low latency fantasy isn’t going to change anything.
I partly disagree.

5g will be better for device to device and for bandwidth.

So take an semi-autonomous/autonomous car driving in the lead. It would be able to share it's raw data (LIDAR/camera/etc stream (or a synthesis)) directly with the surrounding vehicles to enrich their "view" of the world and identify hazards that are beyond their current range.

4g isn't well suited to running a local, high capacity, low latency mesh network?

schmalex

Original Poster:

13,616 posts

206 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
So. It seems to me that we’ve established that there is no real point to 5G for the consumer in as far as it doesn’t really do any more than 4G which, itself, doesn’t have sufficient coverage currently.

Rather than pouring money into a fad that appears to not to offer any real benefit to the consumer, why don’t the like of Vodafone and O2 invest in their RAN share and roll out decent 4G coverage to the population?.

seveb

308 posts

73 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
vaud said:
rxe said:
Exactly my point. There is nothing stopping this being done with 4G today. Some 5G low latency fantasy isn’t going to change anything.
I partly disagree.

5g will be better for device to device and for bandwidth.

So take an semi-autonomous/autonomous car driving in the lead. It would be able to share it's raw data (LIDAR/camera/etc stream (or a synthesis)) directly with the surrounding vehicles to enrich their "view" of the world and identify hazards that are beyond their current range.

4g isn't well suited to running a local, high capacity, low latency mesh network?
I've been trying to think of practical uses of 5g and this is about the best I can see. But even then I can't see a line of cars maintaining a strong enough signal on a busy road, given 5g is still basically a radio.

Right now it's a solution looking for a problem and better 4g coverage wold be a far better option for 95% of use cases so far.

vaud

50,526 posts

155 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
seveb said:
Right now it's a solution looking for a problem and better 4g coverage wold be a far better option for 95% of use cases so far.
It is.

Industrial manufacturing is a better use case. Too saturated for WIFI, not enough bandwidth in 4G.

Google "Factory 56" for Daimler's investment (they have a private 5g licence as well)

Woody John

759 posts

73 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
Its a weapon. Beware.

bloomen

6,897 posts

159 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
schmalex said:
So. It seems to me that we’ve established that there is no real point to 5G for the consumer in as far as it doesn’t really do any more than 4G which, itself, doesn’t have sufficient coverage currently.

Rather than pouring money into a fad that appears to not to offer any real benefit to the consumer, why don’t the like of Vodafone and O2 invest in their RAN share and roll out decent 4G coverage to the population?.
I thought it was about little to do with your mobile coverage and everything to do with the mushrooming of interconnectedness.

It'll allow someone to order a vibrator, have a self driving car come to your door, have a drone fly through the window and then the vibration cycle can be handled by an expert in a call centre somewhere for one's maximum pleasure who'll sell the setting that got your rocks off the most to ITV.

schmalex

Original Poster:

13,616 posts

206 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
Is interconnectedness really mushrooming though?

I guess the MNO’s want us to think it is, but I’m not so sure it is. And I think, judging by this thread, I’m not alone.

surveyor

17,828 posts

184 months

Friday 21st February 2020
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Coming away from the property side, I do see the reason for the push.

1. We never know what will make it big. MNO did not think SMS would take off.... They offered because it was not much hassle...
2. If we are going to be word leaders we need to develop the network so that our tech guys can come up with the use cases. As noted we don't know what they are yet, but if there is no network we will not get a look in (Better sort your site acquisition strategy out MNO's - it's bust at the moment.
3. It's progress isn't it. And who does not want to download a film quicker than they can watch it?

KrissKross

2,182 posts

101 months

Friday 21st February 2020
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Connecting driverless vehicles, if not already mentioned.

mickytruelove

420 posts

111 months

Friday 21st February 2020
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get your tin foil hats ready. I have been following 5G since the start and the way the gov backed it and said yes to the spending makes me think there is something in it for em. It will be used for tracking people. The coverage of the towers is not as good and there needs to be more of them closer spaced.

4G wavelengths have a range of about 10 miles. 5G wavelengths have a range of about 1,000 feet, not even 2% of 4G's range. So to ensure a reliable 5G signal, there needs to be a lot of 5G cell towers and antennas everywhere

With the added bandwith they could monitor every connected device to a much higher accurcy.

Just my thoughts and the 5g sim data packages are silly just now, you could max your monthly data limit it out in 30 seconds.

rxe

6,700 posts

103 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
vaud said:
I partly disagree.

5g will be better for device to device and for bandwidth.

So take an semi-autonomous/autonomous car driving in the lead. It would be able to share it's raw data (LIDAR/camera/etc stream (or a synthesis)) directly with the surrounding vehicles to enrich their "view" of the world and identify hazards that are beyond their current range.

4g isn't well suited to running a local, high capacity, low latency mesh network?
Device to device using 5G? Doesn’t exist. It’s a theoretical part of the standard. And it sort of goes against the definition of “G” - because device to device doesn’t involve the base station, so it could be anything you want.

Device to device is theoretically possible today, but I sure as hell don’t want my device taking to arbitrary devices out there. Your example - well what if the lead car fed the cars behind duff LIDAR data - nothing to see here, er, other than the truck. You’re not going to want your device talking to random stuff out there because it might be telling lies. You’d want to go the the proven source of the truth, which is a server doing validation on the other end of the network, just like it is today.

surveyor

17,828 posts

184 months

Friday 21st February 2020
quotequote all
mickytruelove said:
get your tin foil hats ready. I have been following 5G since the start and the way the gov backed it and said yes to the spending makes me think there is something in it for em. It will be used for tracking people. The coverage of the towers is not as good and there needs to be more of them closer spaced.

4G wavelengths have a range of about 10 miles. 5G wavelengths have a range of about 1,000 feet, not even 2% of 4G's range. So to ensure a reliable 5G signal, there needs to be a lot of 5G cell towers and antennas everywhere

With the added bandwith they could monitor every connected device to a much higher accurcy.

Just my thoughts and the 5g sim data packages are silly just now, you could max your monthly data limit it out in 30 seconds.
I don't think the UK Government has spent much. On the contrary they've got a whole bunch of spectrum to auction off (although hopefully the Operators learnt their lesson after the 3G auctions), and reduced one of the biggest overheads of the operator (base station rents) to an unknown degree..

Chozza

808 posts

152 months

Saturday 22nd February 2020
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I think there is some confusion with 5G and how many towers it needs .. This is more to do with what frequencies are available for 5G to use .

Once 700Mhz band spectrum is auctioned off then you're getting a better reach than the 800 and 900 Mhz.

The higher stuff 3.6Mhz etc. gets you the urban coverage .. and then you have mmWave stuff .. which is the short range stuff that needs a lot more masts .. but this is where the small wall mounted stuff will fit .

What the application for the end user ... depends :-) Mobile phones the end user probably wont notice ( TDD/FDD on M-MIMO pretty much delivers what most users expect ) .

At the moment with 5G -NSA i think eMBB is probably the most usable part .. as it gives some pretty good speeds comparable to fixed broadband.
Speed is really down to how much Channel bandwidth you have .. i've had 1.3 Gbit/s downloads in real world with 70Mhz of spectrum ...

Whats the point .. will keep me busy for the next few years :-)

wisbech

2,980 posts

121 months

Saturday 22nd February 2020
quotequote all
Home broadband replacement I think. Here in Indonesia I expect the country to jump broadband and use 5G - similar to the way the country never really was online & PC’s but skipped straight to Mobile and smart phones.

OlonMusky

708 posts

54 months

Saturday 22nd February 2020
quotequote all
Chozza said:
Whats the point .. will keep me busy for the next few years :-)
Exactly