5G networks won't have the capacity to cope by end of the decade | Hacker News Reader

5G networks won't have the capacity to cope by end of the decade

theregister.com

12 pointsDaveFlater30 comments

I am thinking of flagging this but I will leave it as it is. But just to just leave a comment here to pretty much ignore everything said in the article as I cant even pick up a decent, accurate coherent description of current 5G and future 6G tech inside it.

For anyone that may be interested in 5G /6G or Networking. Lightreading [1] is a great place to start.

[1] https://www.lightreading.com

The linked website is just the home page of a news site. That's not a good place to start.

Care to link relevant articles, for those like me that would like to know more about 5G/6G and your issues with this post?

3G4G Blog [1] is another source if you want technical details, rather than slightly dump down, prosumer but accurate news source ( Lightreading ), Or simply read summary of 3GPP Rel, they are available as white paper on Qualcomm, Nokia and Ericsson's site.

The technical case is that 5G network dont have a capacity problem. If you go and ask Three, EE, Verizon ( Ok may be not Verizon ) or Ericsson's engineers. Massive MIMO provides plenty of headrooms for current 5G, 5.5G / 5G Advance, even in places with high population density like Hong Kong. We also have plenty of re-farming to do to increase capacity. ( Re-farming means converting spectrum currently used by 2G - 4G to 5G. ) The problem is cost per capacity. Whether the MNOs are willing to spend more so their user get higher speed during congested period. And the simple answer right now is no. ( Before anyone thinks MNOs doesn't want to upgrade, it is simply they dont want to upgrade so you get 100Mbps instead of 10Mbps during congested hours. If it is below certain level they still do, assuming there is a competitive advantage. )

And unlike 3G to 4G period where you have both the market and Apple pushing MNOs to upgrade, 4G to 5G reaches a point many users are questioning whether it is worth while to pay more, at least initially. And results so far has not been satisfactory, from MNOs perspective. That is partly because they were over hyped, financial projection were too optimistic, COVID, and they completely neglect new market they have enjoyed such as 5G to Home broadband. It is in their interest to downplay this to both shareholders, ( after they have hyped it up ) and to Ericsson so they will not be paying more on hardware upgrades. At the same time it is in Ericsson's interest to show there is a need to upgrade, not just because of capacity improvement but reducing MNO's OPEX.

There were also a lot of talks about reducing complexity as one of the selling point in 6G. Especially from Qualcomm ( Yes, the infamous and top hated company on HN actually do a lot of R&D ) Which is partly true because 5G is an extreme complex beast. But it is also another word for more integration between layers and components which means potential increase of revenue for certain vendors.

And I am intentionally ignoring all the politics, both between vendors and national level.

[1] https://blog.3g4g.co.uk

There should be another site with step by step guided explanation of WiFi 802.11 and 3GPP 4G/5G standard, unfortunately after spending 15 min looking it up, history, bookmarks and google didn't help.

I just helped my parents in law to switch from DSL to Verizon 5G Home Internet. They were paying $130 a month for 10Mbps DSL internet. Now with Verizon for 80 a month, and you get a free Xbox which was a perfect gift for another family member.

The speeds are 200/40Mbps download with spikes and downs.

The other option was Comcast, but if you go internet only - the installation service is not free, but they have coax cable for Dish TV, so installation on your own would be a questionable quest. So to look for other options, I went through all big 3 (t-mobile, att and verizon), and only verizon was available. I would assume that because their cellular plan is att, if att would be available, home internet plan probably would be cheaper as a bundle.

But still a good save of money, and such an upgrade from DSL to 5G.

You did not consider Starlink?

Why would you? Starlink is waiting list to get one, installation on the roof, running the cables, more expensive, less stable with a lot of interruptions.

P.S. I do use starlink in my motorhome (rv mobile plan with their $2.5k antenna).

I have Starlink myself and installed it on a 2 m pole next to the house. Went very easy, as fast and cheap (40 euro/ month) as fiber and never had any noticeable connection or stability issues. No waiting list.

I switched to Starlink because a truck took down the fiber which hangs on poles along and over the street. Took days to repair and still looks very fragile.

5G where consistent is usually better and with lower startup costs

How do these people imagine XR to be used? I don't see what 5G will have to do with that. Also I imagine bandwidth getting clogged quickly once this starts to really compete with wired internet? I mean better and faster connections are clearly useful and the way forward, but jeez all this sales talk.

I mean this has always been the case: the press releases gush about how fast the next wireless whatever standard can be...and ignore that new devices are going online all the time so all that bandwidth is contended - meaning you have to take gigantic overall improvements to have a hope of keeping up modest real-world gains.

I have fam stuck on deteriorating DSL for whom the only other options are 5G data or the cable company (the other deteriorating copper wire). The actual-not-theoretical speed of 5G in the places I go has not wowed me. Wait on 6G or abandon all hope?

How is the cable wire “deteriorating”? As long as the physical wire is in good shape, the technology to provide a connection is just fine (especially compared to what you have now).

Sure, the cable companies are a pain to deal with, but the only real choice is to suck it up like everyone else. You’ll at least have alleviated your current issues for a few years until other options might become available.

Getting a 4G+5G antenna and pointing it in the direction of the tower should help somewhat.

It's easy to exceed the allowed transmit power if you do that, so be careful and calculate beforehand.

You can't exceed transmit power with a directional antenna. The radio transmits at a given milliwatt. dBi and dBm are a different measurement you might be referring to.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with concentrating your transmit (send) and receive (listen) with a Yagi or Dish type antenna that covers 700mhz to 2.5ghz.

Sorry, I meant EIRP. A quick Google search says that the limit is 23 dBm for LTE / 5G. With a bigger antenna (= more gain than the standard one) on your LTE or 5G router you'd have to reduce the transmit power (in mW) of the router accordingly, otherwise you'd exceed those 23 dBm.

Is the power limit based on supplied power or “post-concentration” power? I thought it was based on power consumption but I see how the other one would make sense too.

Sorry, I meant EIRP. See also my other answer.

Thanks!

What's wrong with 5G? You could get decent DSL speed if you are close to the loop and assuming their have latest DSL tech. Although I doubt they do since BT has from what I remembered abandoned G.fast.

Here in the UK I rarely get less than 1000 Mbit speeds whenever I use 5G. I'm pretty happy with that.

I suspect other countries phone networks must be capacity constrained in other places.

In the UK and barely get 5g connectivity and when i do even on max bars i barely get 10-20 Mbit. Probably better in central London but for the rest of the country it’s appalling.

West London on 5G from my phone and I just got 2.5Gbit and 25 ms latency. And I only pay £5/month (~$6/month).

That’s neat. In my area and usually outside London connectivity is much, much, worse. Also depends on parts of London. When I lived in Finchley for instance, I barely had signal on multiple providers, let alone gigabit connectivity.

Out of curiosity, what’s your provider? If it does work where I am then I’m getting one for each device.

Three. They do a 14 day trial of a 5G router for 'home broadband'. I suggest grabbing the trial and testing with their router because it has some crazy antennas in that seems to get better performance than phones can with the same sim and location. Remember to send it back if you don't want it cos otherwise you're locked in to paying for the whole contract.

Yeah, I use Three, and despite their claim to have good coverage indoor and outdoor in my area, it sucks on mobile. I might try the router, thanks for the tip. Despite having an optic cable to my house, my landline provider cant supply gigabit connectivity. If I had fast 5g i’d use it for downloads and streaming, and the landline for use cases where latency is important.

Also in West London but no 5G available for me here in borough of Ealing on Vodafone. 10 mins up the road towards London and it works.

I think that says it all.

In UK just 10 miles from Bournemouth (not a small town), on the edge of the New Forest. No 5G, and 4G is patchy for voice calls and unusable for data. It sucks.

Starlink? Not exactly cheap, but an option.

I use Starlink as my travel internet for almost a few years now. I would keep it as the last option. It is great when it works. But there are a lot of congestions, and outages. I primary use the mobile plan, so maybe residential plans are way better.

But with Starlink I definitely see on Friday night how we all are fighting for a traffic, and even streaming a movie becomes a challenge.

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