U.S. is behind on 5G rules and deployment
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
They're in the process of pulling out 3G in some rural areas I've been to. There's even less coverage than before.
The State of Vermont did, though: https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/vermont...
Several rational actors with complete public information can still collaborate just by their actions alone. There's an entire category of "Hat Puzzles" [1] that involve extracting information from other players moves. The big four (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile) don't need to collude to arrive at a stagnant, uncompetitive market. They have found an equalibrium that benefits all of them, and would hurt any who attempted "competition".
What exactly is the sign of lack of competition? In the last ten years, I can think of few pieces of tech that’s gotten better faster than cell service. When the iPhone 3GS came out, you could get peak speeds up to 2-3 Mbps. On my XR, I’ve gotten 100 Mbps+. That factor of 20-30 increase is about the same as the increase in iPhone CPU performance over that time (which itself has been a stupendous success story). Maybe GPUs have improved faster? Certainly not desktop CPUs, or mobile or desktop operating systems, or web browsers, or search.
I wish people better understood how monopolistic power harms everybody. It results in false scarcity trade offs, for instance. But that’s abstract.
but there's no reason that has to be true, other than "that's the way it is". The money itself is fungible.
The subsidies are only given for areas that don’t have coverage currently. One national carrier is accused of overstating coverage in rural areas to keep subsidies from being given to rural cellular carriers. To get the subsidy, you’d want to understate the coverage.
EDIT: Previously, I incorrectly stated there is no subsidy for cellular. I forgot about Obama’s Mobility Fund. Phase 1 was $300 million in 2012, and Phase 2 was planned to be about $450 million per year over the next ten years. But that’s halted at the moment. Note that annual capital expenditures by the big 4 cellular providers is $55 billion annually. You’re talking about a really tiny investment by the government in the most underserved areas, not something big enough to really influence the coverage map.
I wish 5G had addressed the data and meta-data security model for wireless communications. If that had also been targeted, it would have mitigated a lot of current concerns.
Besides, roughly 80 percent of Americans live in urban areas. Why should 5G deployment wait for the rest.
Are the 20% who live in rural places not full Americans who do not deserve something simply because of their geography? I hope you don't like eating, using a computer, or living in a house because those are the people who grow your food, mine your minerals, and cut your lumber.
Why should 5G deployment wait for the rest.
No one is saying wait. They're saying that there's no need to hurry through a major deployment that delivers only minor benefits.
Nobody deserves 5G.
Are you under the impression that when the stork is delivering babies, it asks them where they want to live?
There is a subset of people who choose to live in rural areas. But they are not a majority. And the remainder shouldn't be condescended to as if they made a bad life decision and are being punished for not wanting to live in a city.
Nobody deserves 5G
I'm not arguing that they do. But there are an awful lot of people in this thread who are OK if 3G and 4G never finish rolling out in rural areas as long as they, themselves, get gigabit 5G connections.
i think those people are simply not making the false conclusion that we can improve rural coverage by preventing the improvement of urban coverage.
US has no companies selling 4g/lte/5g infrastructure for carriers, maybe the US won't have startups selling services either.
I encourage everyone to read this study: https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/04/2002109654/-1/-1/0/DIB...
The implications of losing the 5G race are huge and it's sad to see a serious level of misinformation and ignorance being represented here. The idea that a delayed roll out is considered acceptable is completely misunderstanding the game we are playing.
Computers used to be niche, not everyone had one. That's not how technological progression is made though.
Just for ongoing cost… I've been in the house for 30 years. I've had new copper pulled three times (twice for adding ISDN lines back in the day and once to bury the service). The copper lines have over the years required days of effort for the linemen to work their way back toward the switching office looking for bad connections. Every spring for a few years I used to have problems from moisture ingress to the lines. My neighborhood is older than telephones. All of the pairs on the poles were in use and they had to work their way back through the lead clad lines to repair mine instead of just switching to a good pair. Eventually in the days of DSL they lost me as a customer because they couldn't (or wouldn't) afford to give me a clean enough pair of copper for reliable service.
So from the phone company's standpoint they made a capital expenditure which was long overdue to nail up fiber to the poles, and for a 4 hour truck roll they got me back as a customer for probably a decade.
The fiber on the poles is made for easy installation. There are ports already in place for each house. The installer rolls out some bulk fiber in a black cladding with some sort of tensile element. The cross section is smaller than a copper line, so it fits anywhere the copper is. I didn't see how he terminated it after cutting, but it didn't take long.
… and my upstream speeds are now 50 times faster than the cable company could provide. Happy nerd.
4G can too, but it's a very niche option and will remain so with 5G and beyond until mobile operators stop thinking of themselves as mobile operators.
Alternatively, use the sub-6 GHz bands. The end game by whatever means is that all the cords are cut and radio is the ubiquitous connection technology.
Problem I see is the same argument for 6g. Suddenly 5g isn't enough. Suddenly all that infrastructure is going to be a waste.
Makes me think that people imagine setting up this stuff is magic and free. New fiber lines. Crews to trench and pull cable. Line crews to go on hundreds of thousands of poles. This isn't cheap both materials and labor.
Hell, my buddy and I got a quote about 2 years ago to run a fiber trunk line about 1.5 miles from the interstate to an office we had in Colorado. It roughed out to about 750k. That was with a friend who would do the boring. Easements, code, general feasibility due to existing infrastructure. Shit ain't easy or cheap. And we were in a rural area. I'd imagine an actual city is about two nightmares and a trip to a suicide booth.
The problem is that most BTSs have weak links in remote locations, and it will become a problem to manage the increasing density of such devices in this places.
I've read that 5g will allow for more divices/bts and larger coverange, but I still don't understand how that will be possible.
edit: some numbers from here https://twitter.com/Gabeuk/status/1099709788676636672 --
> Challenges of 5G deployment, according to Zhengmao Li, EVP China Mobile (biggest operator on the world).
> 1. 5G needs 3 X base stations for same coverage as LTE due to higher frequencies
> 2. Power consumption of a 5G base staion is 3 X LTE
> 3. 5G base station costs 4 X price of LTE
so, 1/3 the coverage at 4x the price
IDK, I'm just an analyst so I'm waiting for the internal spec sheets, until then I can only speculate, but I don't see anyone too exited about it.
IMHO most clients will be happy with an average of 40mbps and decent latencies, which is somewhat difficult to achieve consistently in many places.
But I also know that competitors will force us to get onto 5g with marketing stunts. There is already a large ISP marketing LTE as 5g so...
Edit: Frequencies depend more on regulation than anything else, and the spectrum in Spain is not really open for many experiments. Also more power consumption will be a problem In remote places. Maybe we could use more solar arrays, but that's increasing the cost further and adding complexity.
I've seen about ~20 of my friend switching to 5G phones, partially because Youtube buffers when seeing 1080p videos on the 4G network.
Pretty often?̊̈ I think I'm watching 1080p videos on my data plan at least 3~4 times a week?
5G doesn't solve a bandwidth problem, it solves a latency problem. 4G has a latency of ~50ms, 5G is more like 1ms. 50ms is noticeable in areas like remote robot control, video conferencing, remote surgery, IoT, remote control vehicles (not on the roads).
That's not true or am I misunderstanding something?
"Latency was more consistent than the other measures across the 4G networks tested (an average of 53.1 milliseconds)."
I do work for a UK mobile company and was in a presentation about exactly this. 5G means more realtime.
Yes, 4G _can_ do lower latency, but in general it doesn't, especially in built up areas, where 5G beamforming outperforms .
Whether we think we need it or not, why would we willingly give up the chance to capture value from the next emerging tech?
The U.S. isn't saying "we don't need it." The U.S. is saying, "We're a massively large country with a lot of currently underserved areas. How about we concentrate on finishing the 2G, 3G, and 4G rollouts; and we'll do 5G when and where it makes sense?"
The United States isn't Luxembourg. We're not going to cover entire nation with a few dozen base stations. You're talking about hundreds of thousands of stations.
Plus, how far "behind" can any country be since the first large scale deployment (according to Wikipedia) was only three months ago?
This isn't an all or nothing thing. We can continue 4G roll out in rural areas while 5G gets kicked off. If we wait until the entire US is ready for 5G we'll have lost the race. Which is exactly what the article points out. It's a winner take all game.
Look at the current state of the internet. The US is a leader in cloud services, yet many rural areas lack fast internet. One doesn't preclude the other.
The argument that the US should cede leadership in the tech space because some places don't need 5G (may never need it, or are not ready for it) is absurd.
edit: please read this: https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/04/2002109654/-1/-1/0/DIB...
But we've saturated our sensory inputs, and now nobody really knows what to do with faster last-mile speeds. The networking companies tried pitching everyone on the idea that VR/AR would be the next big thing and require major investment in 5G. But that was hogwash, and networking speed is not what's holding back VR adoption.
> Whether we think we need it or not, why would we willingly give up the chance to capture value from the next emerging tech?
Because we have a limited amount of resources for investment? Because we can weigh the pros and cons and future potential, and allocate money towards things we actually need?
It's pretty clear that most people saying "we don't need 5g" or "we have better things to do" are completely wrong. The implications of losing the 5G race are enormous, from economic to national security. To the point where some are calling for a "Manhattan project" for wireless.
Based on the comments I've seen here, the public is completely misinformed and ignorant of the stakes.
I've worked in telecom and for the DOD. There are many people in these organizations whose careers depend on continual telecom infrastructure upgrades, and so they spend their days writing reports like these. They're filled with scare tactics about being left behind, but there's virtually no substantive discussion about the tangible benefits of 5G. There's some vague references to IOT, but this just further discredits the report IMO because IOT data tends to be small, adoption of IOT tends to be overstated, and I've seen no compelling evidence that IOT is threatening to exhaust the capacity of our network infrastructure.
The actual threat here is that there are only three cellular networking companies (Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia), none of which are US-based, and Huawei has taken the lead. But buying a bunch of Ericsson/Nokia equipment and rolling out 5G is not going to fix this.
I worked for one of the three companies in Silicon Valley for several years. They paid a non-competitive salary with no stock options, and eventually the skilled people left for greener pastures. The company survives on hiring naive recent graduates who are here on Visas and have limited job mobility. I don't have high expectations for them, and the U.S. buying more 5G equipment from them will not fix the underlying problems.
Widespread 5G adoption is coming whether you like it or not. So, we can either accept the reality of the situation or stubbornly lose out to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. I truly don't understand your position here.
If it's not superior or not needed, why does it matter? That's literally the joke from the movie Canadian Bacon: "Why are the Canadians so advanced in zamboni technology?" That being part of the public reason to invade Canada.
You're also making a "keeping up with the Joneses" argument.
"Oh my God, they have it! I need it to! Or I might be left behind!"
"What is it?"
"I don't know, but I know I have to have it!"
Japan is pretty advanced in toilet tech too. That's WAY more useful at this point. Slap some AI into that with your phone so they track what you eat and can predict when you're going to take a shit. Then, it'll pre-warm the toilet seat for you.
Compared to 4G, I'm not going to die waiting an extra few seconds to watch a youtube video while bored at the DMV because I forgot to bring a book. It would be nice for telecom and municipalities to maintain current infrastructure better so they can reduce costs. A savings that should go to users. Instead of always buying new shit when they just paid off the old equipment.
Are you suggesting we make a massive investment in Ericsson/Nokia 5G equipment and roll it out nationwide? That's costing us billions, not making us billions. For technology that may never provide any significant benefit.
Or that we manufacture 5G in-house? No U.S. company makes cellular infrastructure. Even if we could somehow incentivize a company to do so (which again, would likely cost us many billions), they could never do so in time. We could buy out Ericsson or Nokia, but they're now well behind Huawei, there's no obvious buyer, they're mostly situated overseas, and would likely be a poor investment.
If you have limited resources, why not spend it on NASA or universal healthcare instead? What about the ROI there? Why not spend it on funding the NIH, the EPA, or subsidies for green energy?
Once 5g is ubiquitous, hardwired internet connections will go the way of dedicated sound and video cars. Why would anyone want to deal with cable or dsl when everything already runs over IP anyways and they already have a phone plan?
to be used by... other phones
>A lot of laptops come with sim slots
really only useful if you're working on a train or something because most stationary places you'd use a laptop at has wifi.
>Is a tablet a phone? What about a phone that has a usb-c port that can drive display port (or UltraGig) and supports bluetooth peripherals?
Not sure where you're trying to get at here, but everything you've described is already covered by your prior point about laptops.
>Why would anyone want to deal with cable or dsl when everything already runs over IP anyways and they already have a phone plan?
data caps? I'd take a 1TB data cap on cable/dsl over an "unlimited" 5g plan with some arbitrary FUP.
Why would anyone want to deal with cable or dsl when everything
already runs over IP anyways and they already have a phone plan?
In South Korea, many people are very excited in 5G as our current 4G LTE-A speed (about 50 ~ 80 Mbps) is considered 'not-enough'.
Generally, 4G networks are (at least in Korea) about 1/10 ~ 1/2 of the general WLAN speeds (100Mbps ~ 1Gbps), and I believe that cellular networks have a long way to go to be as fast as WLANs.
Here's something that people never say anymore: So what?
Who cares if YouTube lags on 4G? So what if you have to wait eight seconds for buffering. Does it really matter if you see SD or HD video instead of 4K video on a three-inch cell phone screen?
No, it doesn't.
There are a lot of people unlike you, and please don't assume that they all have the same patience that you can give to Youtube.
Well, iPhone XS Max is 6.5 inch, Galaxy Note 9 is 6.3 inch, Galaxy S10 Plus is 6.4 inch. Most phones used in South Korea are at least 5 inch or bigger.
Korea's 1440x2960 counts 11.68% out of all smartphone users, 1440x2560 counts 19.03%. 1080x1920 counts 29.21%.
That's 60% of all smartphone users.
Then, there comes the need for 1080p/HDR mobile videos (think Netflix!).
Awesome. But the article is about the United States.
Korea's 1440x2960 counts 11.68% out of all smartphone users
2960x1440 on a 6.5-inch phone is 506dpi, which is more than the human eye can see. So you're either a marketing victim, or trying to impress your friends, or both.
I stand by my assertion that you don't "need" (your word) 4K on a phone.
So, no, unless you are an insect, you cannot tell the difference between 720p and 4K on a mobile phone. It's all just showing off for your friends.
[1] https://venturebeat.com/2018/09/04/fcc-will-vote-on-5g-plan-...
It feels a bit like moving back to Canada where contactless payments is standard for most transactions, while in US I had to sign a piece of paper for $5 coffee at Starbucks. People in the US have this strange attitude that if it isn't standard in the US then it isn't worthwhile.
How anyone can argue against faster wireless internet connections seems crazy to me. It's like that famous quote (which Bill Gates sternly denies having made) about 640k being enough for anyone.
If it came without costs nobody would be against it. The question is if's worth the cost and opportunity costs.
> The Federal Communications Commission has proposed policy that could jeopardize the collection of vital information for weather prediction, the heads of the Commerce Department and NASA say.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48772008 https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/03/08/critical-w...
Don't bring your phone, put it in airplane mode, use a burner, use a pager. Just a few ways of "hiding".
Where are we on mesh technology at this point? I haven't caught up in like 3 years, but I hear it is coming along?
And even if the cost were the same, why would you rather pay for a slow GB than a fast GB?
Why don't you switch to a company with an unlimited plan, if you don't like paying per GB? Sure, they'll throttle you after you use some number of GBs, but it's still probably a better alternative if you don't like paying per GB.
The only time I can remember it not working was on the California coast near Big Sur, even then, I was able to get a text out.
4G is pretty fast for my use cases, I'm often on Wi-Fi... I feel like we're looking at diminishing returns here.
If everyone had two SIM cards and two carriers at all times, people would soon switch to the one with best coverage/price/speed, and suddenly there would be real competition again.
A bit like "project Fi" is backed into two networks.
LTE had the same promise. Best case 5G takes off, media conglomerates attempt to purchase/merge with new ISPS/old telecoms rolling out 5G, the government inevitably doesn't enforce antitrust, and we're in the exact same place we're at now.
tl;dr, US govt dysfunction is largely responsible for the lack of innovation in the area, as the military "owns" the prime 5g wireless spectrum. No US competitor exists because there's no competitive market that is allowed to exist.
People that are saying "we don't need 5g" are missing the point. These problems could be applied to many future technologies.