4G is fast enough for me right now. My problem is the ridiculous pricing of wireless data. In ideal circumstances, I can hit nearly 75mb/s over LTE... but that just means that I could burn up my entire 3GB allotment in under 6 minutes. At $15 for the next 3 gigs, my marginal cost is nearly $1/minute for full-speed 4G data.
I don't buy this hype about so much demand and applications. Why ?<p>1. It won't really reduce costs. Why? Because 3-5ghz 5G offer similar spectrum efficiency to current methods while on the other hand mmWave(20+ghz), which do offer tons of spectrum, don't penetrate building, and attenuate rapidly in air, so you'll need more base stations.<p>2. Users have shown they aren't willing to pay more wireless. And for most things consumers do like VR and 360 video etc, wifi is fine and cheaper.<p>3.There are other good methods for the internet of things, and 5G is too late for that anyway.<p>So that leaves the realistic use cases as cars(but isn't it too early? ). and maybe VR(although we're very far from appealing VR services which users will pay $60+/month for, and we probably need for wifi confined AR to be a thing first ).<p>And on top of that the question remains - could we improve 4G enough, without needing to deploy all new hardware?
Off topic, but I thought AT&T still owned Bell Labs. It seems I missed the last 20 years in that regard:<p>In 1996, AT&T spun off Bell Laboratories, along with most of its equipment manufacturing business, into a new company named Lucent Technologies.<p>In April 2006, Bell Laboratories' parent company, Lucent Technologies, signed a merger agreement with Alcatel.<p>On April 15, 2015, Nokia agreed to acquire Alcatel-Lucent, the Bell Labs' parent company, in a share exchange worth $16.6 billion.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Bell_Labs" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Bell_Labs</a>
I have one question regarding the statement:<p><i>"the cloud infrastructure cannot be more than 100km from the end device consuming the application, due to the finite speed of light, which can only traverse ~100km (round trip) in the 1 ms that is available for the networking portion ..."</i><p>Since light would traverse ~299km in 1ms, would the max distance of the cloud architecture be ~149.9km - assuming we do not take into account any additional processing and response times?<p>Edit: The author was using the speed of light in current-day fibre-optics as an estimation (~213km in 1ms, a reduction of about 30% from vacuum).
Relevant - <a href="http://www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/v7/n4/full/nphoton.2013.45.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/v7/n4/full/nphoton.201...</a>
"In conclusion, our analysis of past, current and future trends in technology and network evolution, suggests that the increased momentum we are seeing around 5G network deployments relative to prior eras is the result of a coincidence of prevailing winds of both technological and business (human) value, and is therefore a case of ‘rational exuberance’ about the future."<p>I can't agree more! Awesome analysis.
I have a 22.5 GB data plan and I burn through the whole thing every month on LTE, without really watching movies or anything over wireless data (I don't turn on WiFi at any time, because my LTE latency and bandwidth is better than my home and work WiFi). The speed of the network isn't my constraint.
I would like to see more 4G build out first. As others have mentioned, some carriers still have data caps at the 4G level.<p>So we are not really seeing the full potential of 4G at this point.
At least in terms of its effects on network speed, latency and reliability to mobile devices, I don't expect 5G to deliver anything like the hype it's getting.<p>Having witnessed the roll-out of 2G, 3G and 4G over the last 15 years in the UK, with each one being as disappointing, over-promised and patchy as the one before it, I'm hoping to be surprised. But I'm not holding my breath.<p>I have a phone that has been downgraded to 3G only because my provider's 4G is actually slower.
Could Musk et al's satellite Internet plans [1] ever compete with terrestrial Internet?<p>[1] <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/read/elon-musk-admits-satellite-internet-plan-could-over-extend-spacex" rel="nofollow">http://motherboard.vice.com/read/elon-musk-admits-satellite-...</a>
As someone still only dreaming of gigabit speeds, I'm having a hard time conceptualizing what that kind of speed can enable. Higher resolution video/VR, sure, but is there more? Is there a game changing use case that opens up when that kind of speed is available everywhere?
I'd say that, in the US, exuberance for 5G <i>is</i> irrational since the pricing for cellular internet is ridiculous. In the mean time, we have T-Mobile's CEO calling his customers "data thieves" for rebelling against unfair rates.
Yep speeds on Cellphones can be crazy fast, I was testing a WIFI connection speed with a cellphone. Data was quite consistent ... until I noticed I was on 4G. Only to get lower results when I turned 4G off (the WIFI there is slower).
What many people who criticize the high data fees that carriers charge often forget, esp. in Germany: in contrast to highly rural US (where you need LOTS of towers to serve few people) it's not about the infrastructure costs in Germany, and it's also not about the profits of shareholders, at least not much.<p>Problem was when former finance minister Hans Eichel decided to reduce the German state debts in 2000... he did so by auctioning off the UMTS frequencies, for in total 50.000.000.000 €. That's 625€ per German citizen that first have to be paid off before the network provider makes a profit on that user. Also, the provider has to pay interest on the debts (ECB interbank rate at the time was 4.5%), and the infrastructure had to be built, maintained and upgraded (electricity costs, networking termination fees, personnel, construction workers, materials, ...); this in turn moves the "profitability point" per customer waaay behind.<p>In essence, Eichel screwed over us Germans by selling us "reduced state debt" when all we got was a debt-shift from the state to private entities, and we still suffer to this day from the highest data prices in Europe.
If only 5G brought end-to-end encrypted calls and texts, too. We're going to live through another decade of poorly encrypted wireless communications.
I'm going to do that lazy contribution thing you do on HN, where you ignore the thrust of the piece and instead complain about the web experience.<p><a href="https://imgur.com/kfbbZo2" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/kfbbZo2</a><p>Bell labs are you for real?