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Comment by xrd | Hacker News Reader

Can anyone explain to someone dumb like me why 5G isn't a better alternative to this? Is the coverage in rural areas that much better?

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5G doesn't magically extend range. It is still using the same frequencies and range is going to be about the same as 4G. The high-bandwidth (and low range that the other comments are talking about) is just a different frequency that 5G can run on. It's like the difference between 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz wifi. I say range, but really it's penetration through walls and such.

So in rural areas, you'd be more interested in range/penetration, but there's only so much you can do with trees, hills, etc. in between you and the transmitter. Starlink has no obstacles between you and the satellite, and it runs at 10+Ghz giving more bandwidth.

Meanwhile T-mobile purchased the 600 Mhz band that used to be used for broadcast TV for their 'extended range LTE/5G'.

> Starlink has no obstacles between you and the satellite

Starlink requires 100 degree cone free from any obstacles, 25 degrees up from the horizon.

> 100 degree cone free from any obstacles, 25 degrees up from the horizon

Yeah, but that's not really a tall order, particularly in the kinds of places where 4G/5G coverage is bad or nonexistent. Maybe not where you're deep in a gorge or under a tree canopy, but lots of the wilderness is open space, or at least has open space accessible.

And people in rural areas are already used to putting up towers to get crappy wifi over line of sight to the next neighbor/town. Dishy on a stick won’t be a major hurdle.

5G really only works well in dense/populated areas. In central Colorado I'm lucky to get 4G LTE in town, and usually expect 3G. Most areas in the US west (Utah, Wyoming, etc) don't have any service. It's very different if you're way out.

If you have 4G or better, I'm not sure. Here's a map of 5G from ATT in Colorado: https://www.cellmapper.net/map?MCC=310&MNC=410&type=NR&latit...

> dense/populated areas Not even that. Verizon is so congested in a lot of areas that you can have a very strong signal but literally data just doesn't work.

ya cell service is pretty bad. I go play soccer t the same fields I bring my kids to. When its adult games I get great speeds. When its practice for my kids and all the adults are on their phones watching youtube, I get such bad speeds at the same location

Yes, in Australia certainly, coverage of StarLink is potentially better.

Much of Australia has great 4G LTE, but when there's no signal, there's really no signal.

So there are two obvious key advantages to StarLink:

1. Full coverage in the Outback

2. No Data Caps

Despite having a great 4G LTE / 5G network in Australia we still have data caps on mobile plans. Home Mobile Broadband plans without data caps do exist, but usage policies prevent use outside of registered premises!

Also, our NBN has been a disaster in many places, and unusably bad.

NBN satellite (aka Sky Muster) is pretty solid and speed is generally ok but the latency is a killer and makes it useless for anything interactive. Fine for the target audience web browsing and streaming videos.

Sky Muster!

I always forget about that! :-)

Be interesting to see which way and how fast the NBN updates to FTTP happen now Labour is back in power!

5G is a technology that is very short-range. If you have a concrete wall between the emitter and the receiver you will get a terrible connection. Maybe 30 mbps vs 500 mbps. Maybe 10 blocks away and you've already lost connection - unless there is another tower within a few blocks. So I don't think it would be feasible for big ISPs. maybe for some specific outdoor camps, yes. But it would require the cost of mainting infrastructure nearby all the RVs, including maintaining a clear view without physical obstructions.

I see 5g as the main connection while traveling, and starlink for back country. Is starlink latency low enough to connect to a bluejeans call w/ or w/o video?

starlink aims for about 20ms of latency - its good enough for video calls or gaming.

5G doesn't have any bearing on the range, the frequency does -- 5G lowband will have about the same range is 4G. But to see the blazing multi gigabit/sec speeds, you'd need the high mmWave frequencies, which does limit the range,

Oh, did not know that. so 5G also includes a communication protocol ? E.g. could I make 5G work through 2.4 gHz (WiFi frequency, right ? ) and would it work well ? e.g. gigabit speeds thru 2.4 gHz ? I genuinely don't know, don't mean to make a stupid question.

kinda stupid question: (not meaning to sound as an asshole question) Isn't the mmWave part of 5G itself ? Or what would you define as 5G ?

I think most of your questions are answered here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G

As I understand it, 5G does everything 4G does, and adds new capabilities like mm-Wave.

Of course, all reports on it will emphasise the new stuff, so it's easy to get that impression.

3G/4G/5G are generations of protocols for cellular communication, they can run over many different physical frequencies.

Their standards committees agreed on certain bands of frequencies, some with more capacity than others.

I'm not an RF engineer, but given 5G can operate on frequencies higher and lower than 2.4Ghz, then I don't suppose there's any reason you couldn't if you were hacking up your own transmitters/receivers. A regular phone wouldn't, though, as they don't have 5G radios that can talk on those frequencies (or they've got hardware filters of some kind to ensure that they don't).

5G in rural areas is basically non-existent. Even 4G coverage is spotty outside of urban/suburban areas. My house in Montana has 1 bar of cell service - maybe 100kbps down max. Starlink gives me 1000x that.

…have you travelled out of a city recently? Like…to farming areas of your state/province?

I live in Toronto, where I have solid 5g for maybe 30km in any given direction (except probablyLake Ontario, lol…though I do still get 5G on Toronto Island…) - but I travel out to Palmerston, Ontario, and in some places along the way I’m shocked to see the ‘E’ for EDGE or 2G status on my iPhone. My grandparents still have dial-up with no option for Cable…in southern Ontario…

I used to farm in rural Illinois. Same deal. I don’t think people in less agricultural areas really get it.

Chris is another great resource for RV wifi: https://www.youtube.com/c/MobileInternetResourceCenter/video...

RVs go to remote scenic areas that have notoriously bad cellular service.

Consider Yosemite. It's visited by plenty of tech people, but Highway 120 through the park has almost to cell coverage from Groveland to Lee Vining.

4G/5G coverage has gotten much better over the last few years but plenty of places I go with my RV its not great (usually in the mountains both east and west). Also there aren't great unlimited plans for jetpacks/hotspots/routers very expensive or caps.

Honestly if your serious about reliable access you want multiple ways online so Starlink + Cellular + WiFi wan would be a good way to go, maybe even two cellular carriers.

This is not meant as competition for somewhere that has even a moderate amount of decent terrestrial based infrastructure. It's for places where the mobile phone network is poor or non-existent, really remote areas, etc. If you look at where the market is for consumer grade small ku and ka band geostationary terminals such as rural parts of idaho, wyoming, montana, far parts of Eastern Washington state, etc.

At my brother's house in coastalMaine for example, there is marginal cell coverage (which is better than it used to be). But aside from downtime now and then--which is pretty good in my and his experience--I could actually work from there which I couldn't with cell.

I'm willing to bet on it! I live in the center of Silicon Valley and it would take me a 30 minute drive to the south or the east before I lose cell phone access.

Doubtful! Plenty of places in Los Altos without service. SIGH.

I am agreeing with you, but I can see how my comment is unclear.

Is there still the dead-zone just north of Sand Hill Road on 280? (I "remember" a dead-zone in Portola Valley and/or Woodside.)

For those of you outside Silicon Valley, yes, that Sand Hill Road. Interstate 280 is the best access (driving through/around Stanford is a pain).

That said, dead-zones can be convenient excuses.

Data caps. I pay 96 Canadian dollars per month for my 5G 40GB data plan. Starlink provides a way better solution.

In many rural areas the rollout of 5g has been a downgrade in service quality.

as an RVer I use my hotspot for working, and 5G CHUGS through my limits in a week or two so not ideal

5G coverage is quite poor even in metropolitan areas.

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