Ericsson: 5G migration won't be a terrifying slog. No. We have ‘plug-ins’

All the network equipment providers are engaged in major operator projects which they hope will guarantee them a place in those MNOs’ 5G rollouts in the coming years. This week, it was certainly the turn of Ericsson to score 5G marketing points, with a series of operator engagements around the world, and the announcement of 5G …

[Dieter Haussmann]

Beam-forming is great but mobile devices are too compact to incorporate beam-forming MIMO antennas. So, we have cell towers that can beamform to the device but a low powered device which also can't beamform it's reply and so I worry that the device can 'hear' the tower, but not the other way round. Increasing gain on the tower would just increase the SNR.. How would this work?

[anonymous boring coward]

Guessing here, but presumably the focus is on download bitrate?

[Pascal Monett]

"beams concentrate this energy, sending the signal more directly to the user"

Why do I imagine someone suddenly being vaporized by a beam of energy ?

I wonder how long it will take for the EM-conspiracy fringe to claim cancer from this based on that beam thingy.

[scrubber]

Cell vs Beam

Will our former colonists have to stop calling it a cell phone now?

[Aids]

Re: Cell vs Beam

"beam phone" certainly has a ring to it

[Yugguy]

What has

A pic from Mudder got to do with it?

[Commswonk]

Oh dear... again

...because operators will not tolerate another big bang upgrade

Once again I find myself thinking that HMG seeing 5G as a suiitable replacement for TETRA is another opportunity for an epic Fail. I can't see police / fire / ambulance being happy with a new system that dribbles into service in slow time. While the TETRA roll - out wasn't quite "big bang" any loss of functionality while 5G meanders into service is unlikely to be seen as satisfactory.

I'm still trying to work out how electronically steerable beams can be of any help to multiple users in different locations within individual cells, even if the name "talk group" isn't retained.

[Howard Cole]

Plug-ins

"By calling them plug-ins, a term that usually applies to web applications, Ericsson made its offerings sound simple, modern and unthreatening"

Is it just me getting old? Since when did plug-ins not refer to something with a plug. I think you'll find this is a term used by the software and web developers that is borrowed from the good old hardware with connectors era.