So is it 4.5G or LTE-Advanced Pro? Either way, it’s pretty damn quick

While BT and the UK government may think that 10Mbps is plenty of speed, nobody else does it seems, and the mobile world is now gearing up for 1Gbps. In fact, the so-called 4.5G even has an official name, LTE-Advanced Pro. Whatever it’s called, the ability to increase the bandwidth beyond the 150Mbps of standard 4G comes from …

[Anonymous Coward]

self-driving cars which rely on 900Mbps bandwidth to function properly

Driver-in-the-cloud? Can't see anything which could go wrong with that.

[Martin Summers]

Re: self-driving cars which rely on 900Mbps bandwidth to function properly

Only acceptable when we have flying cars as far as I'm concerned.

[TRT]

Re: self-driving cars which rely on 900Mbps bandwidth to function properly

Google Maps is making a BIG THING about their service working off-line.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: self-driving cars which rely on 900Mbps bandwidth to function properly

There's no way self driving cars are going to rely on a 900Mbps network in order to work reliably. Why? Because even with whizzy new future tech we aren't going to get coverage at that sort of speed over all our road network in a time frame that any of us care about. Just look at mobile coverage now, it uses much lower frequencies that travel further and there's still stacks of places where a mobile signal is iffy at best. Self driving cars might talk to other cars in the local area and they might connect to a network for optimization of traffic etc but they will have to be able to work completely autonomously in order to be any use (autonomous in as much as they won't have ask for information)

[ToddR]

Re: self-driving cars which rely on 900Mbps bandwidth to function properly

Actually there is a Wifi device in prototype that could be used to provide gapless Wifi at 1.6Gbps up and down the entire road and rail network.

[TRT]

Re: self-driving cars which rely on 900Mbps bandwidth to function properly

Is it a copper hook that rides along a fat copper cable suspended over the roadways?

[ToddR]

Re: self-driving cars which rely on 900Mbps bandwidth to function properly

"Is it a copper hook that rides along a fat copper cable suspended over the roadways?"

Hehe!

1Mile apart APs attached to lamposts or overhead road sign gantry using 3 rainy day battery backed solar panel :)

[TRT]

Re: self-driving cars which rely on 900Mbps bandwidth to function properly

I have installed 10-Base5 before now.

[Cuddles]

"is it 4.5G or LTE-Advanced Pro"

Given that the original target for 4G was already 1Gbit/s, how about we just call it 4G? There's a reason LTE was originally supposed to be referred to as 3.9G.

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest use for speeds like this would surely come from users wanting to pull down large files quickly, or video streaming. Both of these are most likely where the screen size, storage capacity or processing power of the receiving device is greater than that found on a phone. So, something like a laptop. That means you need to tether in order to make the best use of that.

That's OK then, the mobile operators are always more than happy for you to tether, especially when you have unlimited data.

[Anonymous Coward]

Video streaming?

Unless you plan on getting 32K HDR videos soon, you don't need 900 Mbps, or even 90 Mbps. Netflix only requires 15 Mbps for their 4K video, though if they had a bit more bandwidth there's certainly room for improvement on the quality.

[PiltdownMan]

4.5G

I'm not even getting the 3G I've paid for yet, let alone forking out for 4G & 4.5G!!

[dotdavid]

"Putting these high speeds in the hands of users begs the question of what they will be used for"

Burning through the 500MB data limit in the user's contract faster?

[MR J]

Cant wait for EE to get this!...

I can see Bacon on TV telling everyone how good it is for streaming HD video of them riding skateboards... For 30 seconds a month due to data restrictions!.

[chris 17]

i'd be happy to pay a mobile phone provider £30 per month for unlimited upto 200Mb BB and ditch my home phone line and BB.

My 4g on Three connection out paces my NTHell service on speed and latency.

[Pedro's Wonderous Wonder]

EE does CA on 1800MHz and 2600MHz, they only have 2X5MHZ on the 800MHz band.

They might, in future, use all three bands though.

[kellerr13]

BULL

Every time they come out with a new "faster" network, it ends up slowing back down over time, as they increase the amount they charge. They also offer unlimited storage (for now) only to change their mind a few years down the road.

No thanks. I will keep and EXPAND my own control over my own communications.

Everybody needs to be hard at work in developing "Internet 3". I needs to be...

1. A mesh network (so government and corporations don't have control)

2. No DNS (so government and corporations don't have control)

3. No DHCP (so government and corporations don't have control)

4. Auto encrypted point to point (so government and corporations don't have control)

[Pseudonymous Diehard]

What can you do

...with 4.5G that you cant on 4G?

Nothing, because there will still be a 1GB limit and hefty charging thereafter.