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I'm particularly interested in this as I live in Hull.
5G is rolling out on EE next year (they're already trialing it in that London). I've read various download speed numbers but they all seem to be between 1 and 10 Gbps, which seems to be way faster than most fibre broadband, certainly for domestic use.
So are we going to see everything done over the mobile networks over the next few years, or do the fibre providers have something up their sleeves?
It'll be 1-10 Gbps for the first few people who take it up - and then the bandwidth will get saturated. Just like they all do.
Also, the latency won't be that great - so gamers will still need wired. The internet is also only as fast as your wired lan (about 1gps I think) and your wireless router, which be at best 100mbits per second unless you get a 4x4 mu-mimu router and have a device capable of using that - or a 5g capable device.
Wired will respond by altering ethernet standards etc, so you can gain more speed.
Fibre is also, more secure.
Also, the latency won’t be that great – so gamers will still need wired.
Every talk/meeting I have been in with Telcos about 5G they say low latency is one of their main targets for 5G, they are well aware of gamers and other low latency markets.
You have to remember 5G is not like previous generations, it is actually 2 or 3 different radio networks working in cooporation. One of the networks is a short range WIFI replacement.
Fibre is also, more secure.
Not really, security comes from end to end encryption; no one would rely on the physical layer for security.
E.g. you can just break into a street cabinet / mobile phone mast box and monitor all the traffic, over fibre, without anyone ever knowing. They use generic keysets of which there are 1000s of sets floating about, inc 100s which have been lost.
The 4G companies couldn't even get 4G running properly, so they introduced LTE.
I'll believe the low latency hype when I see it out in the real world, dealing with interference, walls, thousands of users in one area etc.
There's an interesting thread on it here
But horribly worse signal strength. 5G is so weak that rain and moisture in the atmosphere attenuates the signal dramatically. They'll essentially have to put 5G nodes at every streetlight.
The characteristics of MMWs are different than the “low-band” (i.e., microwave) frequencies which are currently in use by the cellular and wireless industries. MMWs can transmit large amounts of data over short distances. The transmissions can be directed into narrow beams that travel by line-of-sight and can move data at high rates (e.g., up to 10 billion bits per second) with short lags (or latencies) between transmissions. The signals are blocked by buildings, and foliage can absorb much of their energy.
Sounds awesome. Can't even use it in my own house or in a park.
The latency benefit will be completely mitigated by the need to bounce the connection between many interconnected nodes to actually reach a gateway or the end destination.
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/9anxwq/5g_hype_is_coming_dont_fall_for_it/
It's always good to see progress but as people above have said, in a real life situation with multiple users I don't think you'll get that bandwidth consistently and even if you do the cost will be prohibitive. For sure at some point in the future everything will be wireless with crazy fast speeds and low latency and affordable for the masses but I think we're quite a few years from that point.
Plus 5G is only going to be deployed in dense urban areas, rural communities aren't cost effective to cover.
And don’t forget, 5g, like 4g cells breathe..
So coverage will alter accordingly.
Plus 5G is only going to be deployed in dense urban areas, rural communities aren’t cost effective to cover.
No, it’s gonna be Uk wide, we’re just starting in the major 5 Cities.
It’ll l ripple out. As always happens.
5G internet – is it going to kill cables?
Only if you get uncapped usage
It’ll l ripple out. As always happens.
Except that's not really what happens except for 2G.
3G and 4G coverage is patchy at best, covers major population areas but anywhere low density there's bugger all coverage.
I live in the sticks, we have crappy 2-3mb broadband and only got 4G coverage 18 months ago. I can't imagine we'll get anything decent as it just isn't cost effective for the telcos
No.
The same was said of 4G, but very few people only rely on 4G at home because only now, 6 years after it's initial roll out it's possible to get 'all you can eat' data for a reasonable cost.
Also, with 4G LTE it's technically possible to get 1000Mbps, 3 times faster than Virgin can give you at home, okay, I've never managed to get close to that, but there's parts of Cardiff where you can get 150Mbps on 4G, about twice the bandwidth of what you'd get from a home OpenReach connection, but still consumers aren't switching because the it's patchy and unreliable.
As other have said, if the goal was really to kill off hardwired home internet, they could do it far easier patching the 4G network, but they won't for the same reason why you can't get 76Mbps from OpenReach or 350 from Virgin if you don't live in the 'burbs - there's no money in it.
IMHO the bandwidth has already passed hardware, even with 350Mbps you can't download at max capacity because there's a half dozen bottlenecks that stop you and large file downloading is becoming a thing of the past for 99% of users.
<span style="display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: 'Open Sans'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 22.4px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">The same was said of 4G, but very few people only rely on 4G at home because only now, 6 years after it’s initial roll out it’s possible to get ‘all you can eat’ data for a reasonable cost.</span>
Yes, but as I understand it, that's precisely because there isn't the radio bandwidth for everyone to use it at once - so they put caps on to stop everyone bingeing Netflix all evening.
5G will use higher frequencies so they can pack more connections in.
Plus 5G is only going to be deployed in dense urban areas, rural communities aren’t cost effective to cover.
Rolling it out to rural places is more cost effective that cables though so if it's going to be covered you have a great market in the areas fibre doesn't tough.
For most people a decent 4g connection would get them going these days so it could well replace cables for a vast majority of users.
Backbone infrastructure will be the biggest issue though as with 4g it's great until everyone has a go, they just need to make sure they can move enough data in the background to sort it out.
I don't think people's usage patterns will change much. People will still be watching netflix, so the backbone requirements won't change.
No but you need to get the capacity to the towers not where it is at the moment.
5G uses higher frequencies for faster data. But higher frequencies are shorter range, and easily absorbed by walls etc. So it will need a lot more base stations to get good high speed coverage.
A mobile signal would be nice.
I'm rural and have recently ditched the landline and gone 4g. Through a wire I was 1-2mb, with 4gee I've had over 50mb.