Hacker News Reader

Comment by zanny | Hacker News Reader

On top of all of that 4G is still so data-restricted you cannot do anything with it that the speed was meant for. The cost of streaming a blu-ray quality film over 4G on many carriers can cost you tens of dollars alone.

I agree, and would rather see ubiquitous and cheap 4G before anyone talks about 5G. I think 4G already has the potential to eliminate the vast majority of wired to the home cable Internet service given its rates, the only downside is the extreme spectrum crunch and the lack of viable open bands to use to provide Internet to everyone.

View on HN

> The cost of streaming a blu-ray quality film over 4G on many carriers can cost you tens of dollars alone.

In the UK this is simply not the case. I have unlimited 4g connection, and I had unlimited 3g before that. In fact, the 3g was my _only_ internet for a long time via tethering. It was good enough to play TF2, and could easily download 20gig games overnight via steam etc.

I assume somewhere there is a fair use policy - but if i've never hit it I reckon it's doing a pretty good job of only hitting abusive use.

5g isn't going to solve the problem of US pricing being shit.

These deals don't exist any more. Trust me, I've looked!

They do exist. Abundantly.

They definitely do - I signed up to one the other week.

Three do "all-you-can-eat" 4G data + 200 minutes = £23/month (50% off first 6 months)

Care to share the provider or details?

When I was in the UK for a few months in 2014 the deals were worse than the US and the data caps were lower (LTE on EE).

EE also actually went down twice while I was there in London which I've never had Verizon ever do.

Check out uswitch, they have a few unlimited data deals: https://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/compare/sim_only_deals/

(Select "Unlimited data" from the filters on the left-side)

> On top of all of that 4G is still so data-restricted you cannot do anything with it that the speed was meant for.

Please don't confuse profit-oriented carriers with what 4G is capable of. Or states which through legislation create high network construction and operating costs. For example by having laws enabling unreasonable profiteering for cell tower site real estate. Or by collecting high fees for radio spectrum. Or by failing to shut down spectrum squatters.

And states where carriers "co-operate" with government (= provide hooks to their network trunks) and are practically untouchable even though they practice rather obvious collusion.

In other words, please keep technology and societal issues separate.

5G or any other technology with a high barrier of entry is not going to change any of that.

4G works just fine where those societal issues don't exist. In states which have real competition between carriers and a low barrier of entry. Regardless of population density.

If those issues didn't exist in the U.S., truly unlimited data-only 4G would be about $15-$30 per month -- in a small Alaskan town or in the heart of New York and anything in between.

I believe they meant that 4G use is data-restricted because of carrier pricing.

I get fantastic 4G speeds on my iPhone, for quite a while it was faster than my home connection. But I could never use it that way due to the carrier pricing structure.

> But I could never use it that way due to the carrier pricing structure.

Why do you think they're able to keep that pricing structure?

At least in Verizon's case, they're able to keep that pricing structure because they have the best network. They're able to keep the blazing fast speeds because nobody can afford to use the network they built.

Right. That was AT&T's issue with unlimited iPhone plans. They calculated they could offer it because no one used much data. As soon as people starting actually USING it AT&T's network collapsed in busy areas.

Monopolies, oligopolies, not enough regulation, and very high switching costs mean phone companies can charge crazy rates with near impunity.

I agree with most of what you said, but "trully unlimited" for $15-$30/month ? how did you came to those numbers ? what does unlimited mean ?

> On top of all of that 4G is still so data-restricted you cannot do anything with it that the speed was meant for.

In the states sure, but the US are not the only country in the world ;)

To point: I was in Japan for several weeks at the end of 2015. The coverage (served by NTT Docomo) was very good, literally everywhere I tried. This includes the urban and transit corridors I visited, as well as in somewhat more rural areas in the mountains. My experience with similar areas in the US is that, even in major urban centers, there are black holes of poor service. Even a little bit outside of cities, coverage quickly gets very hit or miss here.

Even subway trains and stations had uniformly excellent service. A defining experience: exactly once did I note poor reception on my phone. Zero bars, 4G in a subway station. I was figuring I was SOL for a time. Nope! There wasn't even any additional load latency that I could tell -- web browsing was snappy as ever. I've lost track of the times in the US where I'm at one or two bars, LTE and I've just given up waiting for the bits.

This brought about a dawning realization that even the best covered areas in the US are practically rural backwaters compared to Japan's infrastructure, using the same wireless technology generation.

Thus I won't point any fingers at the technology. Instead I'll reserve that judgement for the US carriers. :-/

I'm blessed in living in a country with perfect 4G coverage and data plans that make it enjoyable. We have generally three sim car types: normal phone sim (roaming, voice and some limited data ~5-10GB but you can tether), tablet sims (around 20GB data only with roaming) and stationary internet sims (unlimited data, no roaming, no voice).

I have two of the latter and it boosted my happiness working from coffee places. I bought a good portable 4G router with 12 hours of battery and that worked out so well for me that I actually cancelled my wired home internet.

Pretty much all data plans in Japan since last year are data capped. Of course you get unlimited but the speed is capped to Excruciatingly Slow after 7GB (on the higher end plans).

EDIT: you can get unlimited WiMax boxes (capped at 3 GB/3 days), but that doesn't work in a lot of areas (Tokyo subways...). Some MVNOs seem to offer unlimited data but it's speed capped from the outset.

> On top of all of that 4G is still so data-restricted you cannot do anything with it that the speed was meant for. The cost of streaming a blu-ray quality film over 4G on many carriers can cost you tens of dollars alone.

Is this a technical limit of 4G, an infrastructure limitation of not having enough backhaul to the base station, or a business limitation of just wanting to make more money?

If it were merely carriers acting in parallel to keep up rates, then the whole thing would fall apart when Sprint and T-Mobile started offering unlimited LTE.

Right, so 4G isn't actually data constricted and there's (supposedly) no need for 5G yet.

But the data cap regime didn't come crashing down when T-Mobile and Sprint started offering unlimited LTE. Why would you pay for Verizon with its data caps when you can get T-Mobile all you can eat for $70? The reason is because 4G is data constricted. T-Mobile in particular doesn't have enough backhaul, and it's cells cover too much area and get overloaded.

This hasn't been my experience at all with T-Mobile in the Baltimore-Washington area. If anything the experience in terms of coverage and performance has been getting consistently better since Legere took over, even with the introduction of unlimited and music freedom/binge on(video).

It was fine when I lived in Baltimore. It's pretty spotty on the train between Baltimore and DC. It's potato out in the VA suburbs where my parents live. It was rocking in Philly. YMMV.

I have a different reason: Because a family won't pay to get 3-5 unlimited lines from T-Mobile. 4 unlimited lines on T-Mobile = $220/mo, unsubsidized. And sprint's data still isn't really to the speeds of T-Mobile or Verizon.

These plans aren't as amazing as people think, especially since they still limit tethering (and maybe maybe throttle data).

However, I think your conclusion is correct. If 4G was fine, the market value of cell tower time would be a lot lower.

exactly. Here in Ontario i go without a data plan because of the extremely high costs. Every time a new low-cost provider comes along, they get bought by Rogers/bell/tellus.

But who is streaming Blu-Ray over their cellular connection? There is still a lot of room to grow with existing use cases. E.g. when I upload photos or videos of my toddler on Facebook, the picture quality is still potato. It could be better even without breaking my bandwidth budget.

I'm in Denmark and get 20GB/month. I'd stream a movie on Netflix while in a summer house or on holiday (my subscription covers most of Europe and some other countries)

What is the plan name?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com