Re: I'm somewhat miffed
From what I understand, 5G is more efficient, but only if the 5G mast is close by, and by close I mean within a few tens of meters, not say a km+ away like a typical cell tower.
One of the ideas was that you add 5G to the main cell towers (same as 3G etc), then add repeaters in the areas between the main cell towers every 50m or so. One plan being to add them to street lights as they get replaced, or local road signs etc. (The repeaters only need power, they use a microwave link for data).
That way in theory, mobile phones are only a few tens of meters away from a 5G signal, so can run at a lower power.
The issue seems to be that whilst many main cell towers have had 5G added, very few of the repeaters have been installed yet. (Costs, NIMBY, not rolled out yet etc etc).
So instead of the phones connecting to a cell only a few 10s of meters away, and so allowing for lower power usage, they are still having to connect to the main cell towers, which are typically further away, and in that use case, 5G seems to be worse than 3G/4G for power consumption.
I suspect till there are lots of 5G repeaters all over an area, you'd probably be better sticking with 4G/3G etc, at least for power usage issues.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
