When I find a use for 3G I'll turn it on, but in the meantime I'm happy with the 50% extra battery life I get from using 2G only.
British government has bought a £200m 5G 'academic wet dream'
"5G doesn't mean anything to us," says Kirill Filippov, chief executive of SPB TV, an OTT TV, IPTV and mobile TV provider touting live 360 VR in 4G at this year's Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. Filippov, who was hot from a handshake photo opportunity with Russian Minster of Communications and Mass Media Nikolay …
COMMENTS
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Wednesday 26th April 2017 12:31 GMT AndrueC
"..5G will encompass a range of new use cases, from vehicle-to-vehicle and eHealth, to faster fixed broadband and IoT."
In what way can unfixed wireless broadband lead to faster fixed broadband?
Did someone say/type that the wrong way round? I can see how fixed broadband can lead to be better mobile coverage through femtocells.
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Wednesday 26th April 2017 14:10 GMT ulbdd
It's not a typo, and it makes perfect sense once you know the details. There are 3 variants of 5G (massive IoT, URLLC for ultra-reliable and low latency, and massive broadband for high speed) and here it's the massive broadband one that is relevant. It is using high frequencies, sometimes "only" at 5 GHz but the main interest is above 10 GHz with "millimeter waves". At those high frequencies, the range is very short : about 200 to 300m, and to even get there one need a lot of antennas for beamforming (to focus the signal on the target).
In the end, mmWaves will also be used for mobile. But using it for fixed access first makes perfect sense : the cost of fiber is mostly on the last leg of the connection, and this can be handled by 5G in a cheaper way. In the US, it will enable the telcos to challenge the cablos. Also, it's easier to start with fixed access: when doing aggressive beamforming, the signal is tightly focused on the target and nothing else. If the beam is not properly directed, one loose the connection. As you can imagine, it can be an interesting problem for mobile applications, where there is often no line of sight but the radio beam bounces before reaching the smartphone. A quick turn of the corner is a fast and brutal change. For a fixed connection, this issue disappear: the beam needs to be tuned, but it's very slow changing and easy to do. Plus for fixed access the constraints on size and power consumption are of course much relaxed compared to a handset.
So in summary: there is a business case for fixed access with 5G, and it's also an easier first step before full mobility.
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Wednesday 26th April 2017 19:59 GMT Mage
5G faster Broadband nonsense.
"In the end, mmWaves will also be used for mobile"
GARBAGE. Only in-room Femto so you get charged instead of "free wiFi". Your so called fast mobile only works with femto cells FED BY FIBRE.
Its PHYSICS. About 2600MHz is the upper small cell limit for Mobile. 900MHz to 2100MHz is best. 800MHz is low capacity because cells are too large. 700MHz poorer still and pure Treasury greed to sell licences as cells are massive.
The 3500 MHZ (3.5GHz) has been tried for 10+ years. It doesn't matter what "G" or standard is used, it's crap in the real world for mobile. Works in an office femto cell or rooftop fixed wireless.
The 10.5Ghz has been used over ten years. Strictly LOS fixed wireless with minimum aerial panels about size of tablet computer.
Fibre to premises / home and to a lesser extent HFC (Fibre to cabinet and only a few people sharing a coax cable in a street) gives better broadband. Not Wireless ever.
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Wednesday 26th April 2017 15:14 GMT sebt
Bbbbuuuuttttt....
"5G is fragmented, divisive and lacking standards but – for the most part – lacks a single clear or decisive reason for being."
Whaddya mean no decisive reason? How else can we watch our milk turn sour in our IoT fridges? In HD? Or get a full spectroscopic analysis of the crap our cats have just deposited in our IoT litterboxes? From anywhere in the world?
These sceptics. Bloody Luddites, they want to keep us in the Dark Ages.
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Wednesday 26th April 2017 18:26 GMT Mark 85
Is it just me....
or is this really just smoke and mirrors to sell more phones... err... upgraded equipment and more connection time (and chargable) for the ISP's? With the industries pushing for it and the tech types saying "not so fast there Sparky" I have to wonder if this just isn't about higher profits for the phone suppliers and the ISP's.
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Wednesday 26th April 2017 20:02 GMT Mage
Re: Is it just me....
Not the ISPs. Or Mobile companies.
Infrastructure sellers and Treasury via regulators selling spectrum licences, for pretty useless spectrum.
The phone makers only slightly benefit when people realise only in-office femto cells instead of just as fast WiFi that's cheaper works.
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Wednesday 26th April 2017 18:37 GMT Steve Davies 3
5G - Yes it is an opportunity
Not for us plebs but for the Civil Servants to fiddle with until the cows come home and by then eveyone else will be using something else, more standards compliant and decidely better.
Does this scenario sound familiar? What about DAB....
I think I'll need at least one pint after digenting all that waffle.
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Wednesday 26th April 2017 19:49 GMT Mage
3G 4G 5G Irrelevant
What REALLY gives more capacity and reliability and speed is many more masts. It's CELLULAR. Basic physics and mathematics.
What what incentive is there even for hypothetical 6G? None. Because with current pricing models they will have the same number of customers (roughly) and same income (roughly), yet no matter what the system, for practical mobile frequencies you need about x10 as many masts to have x10 performance (yes it's more complicated than that).
A single wholesale RAN for Europe for 900MHz to 2100MHz would instantly double to triple the speed and performance compare to splitting the spectrum to multiple operators for the "once off per spectrum" greedy auctions. Governments get the retail VAT from use. Profiting from fragmenting the spectrum for so called competition is short term Tresury greed.
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Wednesday 3rd May 2017 06:51 GMT werdsmith
Re: What FC Utrecht has to do with 5G ?
Maybe it is the experience of trying to use 3G/4G at a full stadium and finding there is no capacity available in the local cell? It also happens to be in my town centre on Saturdays when mobile data barely works, but it absolutely fine at quieter times.
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Wednesday 10th May 2017 15:58 GMT EnviableOne
WHy are all these people talkng about 5G, no one has actually decided what 5G is yet!
perhaps a standard would be usefull before we start throwing money at it.
Perhaps getting rid of the not-spots
Perhaps decent fixed line access for all
some people are still woring on 250kbps over Alu lines and BT dont even know where all of it is.