Is 5G like 4G where it’s more spectrally efficient? So even if 5G is slower because it’s allocated fewer MHz, in aggregate, the network’s bandwidth is increased?
While 20mbps vs 100mbps is nice to have the luxury of comparing on mobile, my bigger question is how many gb you can consume as a user before getting throttled.
Canada has speedy mobile networks... and $5-$10/gb pricing. No wonder why it’s fast.
Just ran this test from my iPhone 7^. 60GB/mo 4G plan, 15€/mo. 115 Mbps down, 30 up, barely takes a dent inside buildings. 100GB plans are available.
I’m looking at 5G developments with bewildered amusement :popcorn: (especially the beyond ridiculous marketing side) and honestly couldn’t care less right now.
^ mentioning iPhone 7 because I had a 8 that stupidly went MIA, and the 7’s connection definitely is “lousier” that the 8 was, which was able to maintain a solid connection (obviously not at the speeds above, but continuously usable) on a 350kph TGV.
In Italy I pay 5€/month for 4G 40GB/month (WindTre operator). I tested this morning in Treviso, near Venice, (I was working remotely), download speed was about 40Mbit/sec. Vodafone is much faster but a bit more expensive.
In France I signed up for an exclusive offer with Free Mobile operator where 100GB/month (in France) for 1 year only cost 1 EUR per month, and then would go back to 19.99 EUR per month. After 11 months, the company shat itself they would lose a ton of customers, so decided to give a 10 EUR a month discount... indefinitely. The kicker is that their roaming deal in the US is amazing: 25GB per month at HSPA+ speed. So now I pretty much have a $11/month bill for my data plan in the US. I use Google Voice for people to contact me. Best deal ever.
Apart from the food, the thing I miss most from France. You can fibre hop indefinitly, because at any point in time someone's offering 100mbit or more at 10eur/mo. Currently 30 is the cheapest I can get fiber, at a measly 50mbit.
Just HSPA+ speed (I think). In any case they wouldn't just remove the service, they'd transfer to another protocol. For the life of me I can't understand why anyone would need more speed. It's not like I need to download a 3GB game in X seconds in a spot where I don't have a wifi. This whole LTE and 5G is marketing bullshit. No one needs that much speed. IMHO.
In the US with ATT I currently pay $90/month (15.2x more!) for "5Ge" (fake 5G, which is actually 4G). At home, with not quite full bars, I have 87Mbps down, 3.9Mbps up (higher than article says average for ATT 5G). The plan is "unlimited" data, but you lose priority if you use more than 22.5GB/month. I've went above that limit a few times but was never throttled (so that's good!). I guess another silver lining is that the plan works in similar unlimited fashion in Mexico/Canada.
A big problem is the marketing around 5G is a total clusterfuck, to the great detriment of consumers.
As I understand it, the "true" original definition of 5G was millimeter wave technology. From the PCMag article this is based on:
> Millimeter-wave uses very weak, short-range panels that are easily blocked by obstacles. In our tests, millimeter-wave doesn't generally penetrate buildings, and even has trouble with glass; we had our drivers keep their windows down, with the phones facing out, so the network even had a chance.
That is, this kind of 5G is essentially useless now, and will be for a long time until buildings/cars/subways etc. are built with repeaters that would make indoor coverage possible.
However, I definitely don't understand all the various versions of "5G" so it's difficult for me to understand which tech is used by which phones and carriers.
Sub-6 is about beam-forming — instead of sending your signal in all directions, it sends only in the direction of your device (and visa-versa which is why antenna design is a larger cost on mobile than before). Now the base station can use the same bandwidth for another device located in a different direction. Over time this will get better and have compounding effects.
And that’s just one item in the basket. mmWave is another. There are several.
LTE already has a fair bit of beam-forming standard, 5G dramatically increases the number of antennas used to do so (allowing you to beam-form more efficiently /precisely)
Another bucket is coding schemes: LTE uses Turbo and Convolutional Coding, whereas 5G adds Polar and LDPC codes to the mix which bring us closer to the Shannon Limit (theoretical maximum data capacity given a certain SNR).
On the tower side they've been using multiple directional antennas per base station since the 2G days. Beamforming is only going to help on the mobile side.
5G marketing is concentrating on new high-band, because first 5G installations are deployed into new high-band.
5G spectrum covers also low-band and-mid band spectrum from 1G through 4G LTE frequencies.
5G installations in the countryside will have low-band that is more efficient than 4G/LTE. You can have _less_ base stations than LTE, not more in the low-band. 5G NR is more efficient radio interface in all bandwidths.
5g has several parts. If used on existing frequencies, I believe it's more efficient as you suggested. Which will be a clear win, once there's enough deployed equipment (base stations and mobile devices)
It also is available on new frequencies. Lots of bandwidth on those frequencies, but a lot less signal propagation too. Helpful for sports stadiums, transit terminals, and other crowded situations, not so helpful for most situations.
Carrier aggregation sounds like it could be useful too.
While 20mbps vs 100mbps is nice to have the luxury of comparing on mobile, my bigger question is how many gb you can consume as a user before getting throttled.
Canada has speedy mobile networks... and $5-$10/gb pricing. No wonder why it’s fast.