Can't we just buy Chinese stuff... and copy it?
I'm only half joking. History teaches us that any technological shortfall can be remedied fairly quickly if you have a clear priority and the audacity to steal.
5G doesn't require imploding plutonium.
I'm only half joking. History teaches us that any technological shortfall can be remedied fairly quickly if you have a clear priority and the audacity to steal.
5G doesn't require imploding plutonium.
Reading HN, I was under the impression that we didn't need 5G anyway (except for people streaming videos in stadium, which I haven't really understood why yet).
I can stream at 25 Mbps just fine on 4G+/LTE too. At off-peak times. I’ve even seen it hit 70, 80, 90 Mbps occasionally.
The problem happens at peak times, usually starting around 6pm, when the network slows to a crawl and I can’t stream things reliably despite having 5/5 signal strength, because my carrier (Three UK) has sold too many cheap unlimited data plans and their 4G network is highly congested.
5G is needed because it greatly improves the data carrying capacity of given blocks of spectrum, meaning more users and higher speeds in areas that currently suffer capacity constraints.
And honestly, 5G’s 200 Mbit+ speeds would just be nice to have to speed up things like downloading multi-GB OS updates and the like.
If it's the former, 5G helps you. If it's the latter, 5G makes zero difference to you.
If I monitor my router’s status page I can see it start to bounce between several different Cell IDs when the congestion hits, and the SINR drops to low single digits (from 16-20dB when it’s fastest).
In any case, as I understand it, backhaul upgrades will be a part of 3’s 5G rollout anyway.
Unless your server sits right beside the cell tower, you will never see that promised 1gb/s
I am excluding future usage though (biggest I could see is "That smartphone is your only mean of connection to the net, either via the device or when acting as a modem.").
For simpler components (resistors, capacitors) special types still have some manufacturers in the west (e.g. high-precision, especially robust variations, ...). Cheap mass-production not so much.
I remember trying to find out if you can get EU-made LEDs, and the result was that maybe some high-power ones by OSRAM would fit the bill, but it wasn't clear what was made where.
China is not the enemy, we should work with them to build a healthy middle class existence for all the world's citizens. Having one a country mono-culture doing the lions share of the advanced manufacturing is just asking for another dark age when that society suffers a catastrophe.
The reality here is this quickly leads to a discussion about regulations some people would be furious at the even the thought of re-examining.
The US (and other countries) lost much of its electronics supply chain (and manufacturing in general) due to political priorities, and it can regain it by shifting those priorities and enacting new policy. This idea of "it's gone and never coming back" is false and a result of an over-attachment to certain ideas and certain policies.
that would require a fundamental rethinking of economics and trade away from free-marketeering towards an understanding more similar to the Chinese who put these questions into the context of national (security) interest, and that is very unlikely to happen, in particular in the US in which private interest groups wield significant power over a largely weak and incoherent government. In Europe, it may be possible if France would have more of a say but countries like Germany or the Netherlands would be significantly hurt by the inevitable retaliation so it's probably a nonstarter here too.
AFAIK, those interest groups don't actually wield very much power, but they've been very effective at promoting the fatalistic attitude that their favored polices are inevitable and permanent.
For proof, look at the current president who started a major tariff war that was very much against a major leg of free-market policy. What paused it wasn't those interest groups, it was political uncertainty caused by retaliation that targeted farm states by the other party in that war.
This is a feeling shared by both the left and right in the populist portions of both parties.
People are looking for ways to get more solid middle class jobs back into the USA, and protectionist trade policy is an obvious place to start for many.
Prior to Bretton Woods there had never been a system of free trade between (nearly) all countries enforced by a singular superpower.
There's nothing fundamental saying that America won't swerve away from providing the service of protecting and enforcing global trade. If that ever happens, it will have many serious consequences, but the US could still decide it is in its best interest.
Most Intel chips are still being made in the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_si...
If you add non-Hauwei kit, you not only have to buy the more expensive gear but you also have to buy a more expensive licence for the protocol on the Huawei kit.
Source: adding SMSCs, GMLCs, SMLCs, etc to HW networks.
It's really not about owning.