Samsung Testing 5G Phones With 1gbps Download Speed 128
Gumbercules!! writes "While many smartphone users are still on 3G and are waiting for 4G to be available, Samsung is now testing 5G networks, capable of getting speeds up to 1gbps. Obviously, we're years away from seeing these in the wild (the company is shooting for 2020) but it's still an amazing improvement over what many people are experiencing now."
Spectrum? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wouldn't a small amount of these phones flood a wireless spectrum? It would not take many people in an area until the speed is chopped down significantly.
Or do they have poor range and expect femtocells everywhere? But why not just WiFi at that point?
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I do not know what is the limit of the "wireless spectrum" if there is any. Before this limit is reached, I guess just updating all hardware gears that transmit/route more efficiently is all that is needed.
Re:Spectrum? (Score:5, Informative)
"I do not know what is the limit of the "wireless spectrum" if there is any"
There is legal limits (controlled by the FCC)
There is technology limits
The atmospere absorbs some frequencies
There are practical limits - sure you can theoretically get lots of bandwidth in the X-Ray and gamma ray end of the spectrum, but do you really want one of those next to your ear?
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There are other things we can do. For example, transmit in quadnary instead of binary (4 possible values per timeslice, instead of 2. Basically doubles your bandwidth). Remember that frequency is only one of the factors in bandwidth. There will be technical limits on that too (requires new hardware, increased problems from noise) but I think there's a lot of room there that we haven't been forced to try yet.
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4G already supports 64QAM (6 bits per timeslice)
Going up to 256QAM will only give you a 33% increase of bitrate and make it a lot more sensitive to noise.
1024QAM and 4096QAM is as far as I know only used in cable bound communication where signal to noise ratio can be kept to a minimum.
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Don't know they are not doing this already too but seems you could go asymmetric. The handsets could send to the tower with 64QAM and the tower could use more radiated power to send 256QAM back to the handset.
Phones are no longer symmetric data entities it probably is the case most smart phone users pull down much more than they send now. Of course you can crank the radiated power from the towers up to much or you are just going to start competing with the neighboring cells more. So I don't know how big
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Don't know they are not doing this already too but seems you could go asymmetric. The handsets could send to the tower with 64QAM and the tower could use more radiated power to send 256QAM back to the handset.
Phones are no longer symmetric data entities it probably is the case most smart phone users pull down much more than they send now. Of course you can crank the radiated power from the towers up to much or you are just going to start competing with the neighboring cells more. So I don't know how big the gains would be.
Yes you can do some of that but even broadcasting from a tower at higher power levels will not fix issues. Multipath it one issue that will not go away with more power, if you are standing next to a metal building your phone will get two signals the direct one and the signal that bounces off the metal wall at 256QAM the modulation could easily get washed out by the reflected signal. A SNR of 30dB is needed for 256QAM there are many areas that fall short of that requirement.
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Consider a more focused triangulation of the individual handsets, to the point where you can get within a meter or so of accuracy. Use low bandwidth, non-hogging links to determine a phone's location, and then migrate the data channel to a number of dedicated antennas that are dynamically aimed at a handset. Boost the power and constrain the FoV to what's appropriate
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(and anything lower is error proof)
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Re:Spectrum? (Score:5, Informative)
I do not know what is the limit of the "wireless spectrum" if there is any. Before this limit is reached, I guess just updating all hardware gears that transmit/route more efficiently is all that is needed.
The limit is given precisely by Shannon's Law [wikipedia.org], which gives a mathematical limit on the amount of data that can be sent over a given amount of bandwidth. Spectral Efficiency [wikipedia.org] is the amount of bandwidth available in a given wireless spectrum.
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Wouldn't a small amount of these phones flood a wireless spectrum? It would not take many people in an area until the speed is chopped down significantly.
Or do they have poor range and expect femtocells everywhere? But why not just WiFi at that point?
What do you think? They sure as hell expect the Telcos to pony up the spectrum mesh and not themselves. Testing at an R&D facility is fine, but to start spreading 5G around is ludicrous and a bad business strategy.
Backhaul. (Score:2)
The spectrum isn't the issue. Yay, a phone that can do 1Gbps. Now get 10 of them doing that on the same tower. Then 100. Then do 100 on 50 different towers. Then do that in 100 metro service areas.
At least here in North America, the telco's barely have the backhaul to deliver service that could be classified as 4G. They aren't going to be dropping in multi-link 10GbE into every cell tower just because people want to browse the FaceTubes that much faster.
Re:Spectrum? (Score:5, Funny)
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Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:5G with 10GB/mo cap (Score:5, Funny)
From TFS: "capable of getting speeds up to 1gbps"
That's 0.125 GBps so 8 seconds for a GB. You need at least 80 seconds to hit your 10GB cap which is more than one minute. This sounds much fairer now.
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Re:5G with 10GB/mo cap (Score:4, Interesting)
I use a Yupana, it does calculations with the help of Fibonacci numbers and it doesn't make any noise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abacus#Native_American [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yupana [wikipedia.org]
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From TFS: "capable of getting speeds up to 1gbps"
That's 0.125 GBps so 8 seconds for a GB. You need at least 80 seconds to hit your 10GB cap which is more than one minute. This sounds much fairer now.
Holy crap, what is the magical carrier you speak of that has a 10GB cap!?
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Fido in Canada just started bragging about doubling their data cap... to 400MB/mo. We seriously need some competition up here.
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2GB/month but if you're a good talker you may get 4GB/month at the same cost. I myself am still on Verizon unlimited from being grandfathered in 2 years ago. They did away with unlimited 2 months after I got my contract. There are two other carriers that still offer unlimited data but one of them (T-Mobile) still has limited coverage in outlying areas. Sprint being the other, well in my area they are pure shit. A guy I work with has a hard time making or receiving calls from mid-late afternoon due to o
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The fee will be bigger for not restricting the download rate of your phone, so it's in your best interests to do so!
I'm just kidding: 5G won't be coming here. The mobile companies will demonstrate how when you look at their books, they're not actually profitable, so they can't build 5G towers. Hollywood accounting? What? You're talking crazy, these are phones, not mov
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I am still grandfathered on my AT&T phone, but I can hit 5GB in a day, then the rest of the month I'm throttled down to less than edge speed.
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I still can't understand why anyone would want to watch movies on their cell phone. Tethered to a tablet maybe but why not just wait till you're at home and watch it on your big screen TV.
I still have unlimited on Verizon and my average monthly usage is about 3-4gigs most of which is streaming music via tethering to my tablet while driving. I think some people just try to use as much as they can for shits and giggles.
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unlimited? not a chance in hell.
but they will sell larger packages...
now: $25 for 2gb, $50 for 5gb (approx/typical)
soon: $100 for 10gb, $200 for 25gb, $500 for 100gb -- per month, no rollover.. and of course, 24 month contract required with penalty for downgrading data package during the contract term.
and dont forget that the fastest speeds will only be available in the largest, most densely-populated (and/or affluent) areas (new york city, chicago, dc/nova, etc.. in north dakota or wyoming, they'll still s
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Interesting, What kind of third world country do you live in that has a Data Cap? Don't you have companies (Here (Ireland) we have Three (that's the company name)) that offer unlimited data?
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That company name sounds like a Who's On First [youtu.be] skit in the making.
Point? (Score:1)
Just what do you need 1gps on your phone for?
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You're assuming that the only use is on phones.. Tablets and computers are edging into the spectrum that was normally used for just cell phones.
You ask "Just what do you need 1gps on your phone for?"
Let the developers have a field day... if you build it, they'll find a use for it
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As a 4g hotspot user let me tell you that even now the limiting factor for me is only the allowed bandwidth on my plan (12GB per month). The 4G speed is plenty fast to do pretty much all the work I need and will even run games if they aren't absolutely latency dependent (basically anything but FPS). Even with four or five devices connected 4G is fast enough for most business uses and I would say for most people's internet use. In fact oftentimes the limits on the download speed is the server on the other
Bandwidth (Score:2)
.
Your "12 GB per month" is an artificial plan limit and not a bandwidth limit.
Re: Bandwidth (Score:2)
Same thing - this is just bandwidth expressed in bits/month (with peak speeds a bit higher).
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It is indeed an "actual" limit, just imposed by your ISP instead of by physics. The ISP allocates you a virtual channel to the Internet backbone that supports X bits per month, just like how your cell tower or wi-fi access point allocates you a physical frequency channel with a data rate of Y bits per second (discounting contention).
The only difference is that the ISP channel's data allowance is accounted for over a month - you can have higher peak speeds, and if you don't use your maximum channel capacity
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You can click on the examples to show what a faster download internet would feel like with a ~5g device connected.
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Just what do you need 1gps on your phone for?
Porn.
Actually 4G According to ITU-R (Score:5, Informative)
The technical definition of 4G requires 1Gbps stationary and 100Mbps while moving. The network tech mentioned in the article is thus 4G.
Notice that current '4G' technologies are usually called '4G LTE' in advertisements, to try to get around the established non-marketing definition.
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Definitions of technical terms never stopped marketing from mangling them. Nobody in that office gives a shit what 4G means, as long as they can sell it. 4G LTE just might sound better in a commercial than 4G. More three letter acronyms just communicates "we're smart; we know our shit; trust us".
4G Lite (Score:2)
4G LTE just might sound better in a commercial than 4G.
"For years, $competitor and $competitor have been advertising what they call '4G LTE' that doesn't even meet the 4G standard. Give them a break; it turns out they just can't spell 'lite'. Switch to $our_brand and leave 4G Lite behind."
Ya well the ITU is a little silly with this (Score:4, Interesting)
The standard set for 4G was way too high. It isn't like you can just say "We want something to work at this speed!" It is complex, and it is getting harder with wireless because you are working in an environment where you only have so much frequency and shitty SNR. You can't just throw more spectrum at the problem generally.
The thing is 4G, as it is marketed today, or 3GPP LTE as the ITU would like it is a big step up. If you've played with it on a network that implements it well, it is major. I was amazed at how much faster things were when Verizon turned it on in my area (I already had a phone that was ready for it). It is a generational kind of upgrade, not an incremental one, to consumers. So it makes sense to call it something they understand.
Remember labeling isn't all just "marketing" it is also about having shit people can understand. The concept of a wireless "generation" got introduced with 3G phones and people understood it pretty well: 3G phones were a lot faster than their old phones that they now knew were 2G. Makes sense. So it also follows that 4G phones will be faster still.
I really don't like it when new standards get set arbitrarily high and then there's a hissing match over naming and so on. Part of naming should be something to keep it clear to consumers. Don't ask them to go do a ton of research and understand arcane acronyms and so on.
I think it is reasonable to say "Every time we have a big increase in speed due to a change in technology for mobile phones, we'll call it a 'G' increase." LTE really is a new generation of phones. It is much faster, requires new consumer equipment, requires new tower equipment, etc. That it wasn't as fast as the ITU hoped is kinda silly.
Re:Ya well the ITU is a little silly with this (Score:5, Interesting)
It's funny you should say that, since the entire point of LTE is that it is a Long-Term Evolution platform. It isn't that the "standard was set too high" - it's more that the standard was designed to support high speeds so the wheel would not have to be re-invented as technology progressed.
You can either create a new set of supporting standards and technologies every few years, or you can develop a set of standards that scales up as hardware allows better speeds. So it's only if one entirely misunderstands the purpose of LTE, that the standard would appear to be set too high. The gradual progression that Samsung demonstrates in the article is what LTE-Advanced was all about and is still firmly in 4G territory. 5G is just horrible marketing.
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The gradual progression that Samsung demonstrates in the article is what LTE-Advanced was all about and is still firmly in 4G territory. 5G is just horrible marketing.
Actually 5G is simply marketing. Nothing horrible about it. People in general don't understand LTE, LTE Advanced, HDSPA and crap like that. They understand simple numbers and always have. The problem is that the standards system mixes simple numbers with complex acronyms. EDGE, 3G, HSDPA, LTE, 4G doesn't sound anywhere near as simple as 2G, 3G, 3.5G, 4G, and 5G that people can simply understand. Try it. Go to some random person in the street and just shout in his face "Quick what's faster HSDPA or LTE?" If
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Sure and that`s a fair observation, but they could have gone for 4.5 G or such (in a similar fashion as when 3.5 G was used). That way they would have still remained technically correct as well, while being able to communicate a significant technology jump to customers.
Miller Lte, Nintendo DS Lte, Lte-Brite (Score:2)
People in general don't understand LTE
They'll understand it when the "i" is restored to its rightful place. A carrier could contrast its "Advanced 4G" to its competitors' "4G Lite".
I've had 4G (50/5) since 2009. People still wait? (Score:1)
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was is this?
what you have is faster 3g.
sure, the marketer might have called it 4g though. blame him. and if he had his way, we would be at 8g.
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was is this?
what you have is faster 3g.
sure, the marketer might have called it 4g though. blame him. and if he had his way, we would be at 8g.
Screw this, we're going straight to 11g.
According to the US definition of "4g" Australia has had it since 2006.
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What's an iPad?
I've heard people mention it. Is it some kind of antique Android tablet for old people and Americans?
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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So when a police uses his radar gun in a speed trap, everyone loses data signal because they operate in the same frequency.
Win / Win!
(Yes, I know that the Ka band is like 15Ghz wide, and that phones could work around existing devices)
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(Yes, I know that the Ka band is like 15Ghz wide, and that phones could work around existing devices)
Maybe not, though. Non-communication gear in bands that are mostly empty tend to shit all over their band. Especially old police kit that you just know is well maintained and calibrated.
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I'd be okay with that so long as motorists are allowed to, in turn, shit all over the bands used by radar guns.
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A phone with a battery will never put out the amplitude that a radar gun wired into the car's electrical can put out. The radar gun would win that one every time.
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Even with fractal antennas on short wavelengths, how many of them can you fit in a handset?
You tell me, but before you do put yourself in the shoes you wore back in the 80s. Back before chip antennas were widely used, back when antennas were long whips. Then take a brief look at where we are now with the average smart phone having multiple antennas on multiple frequencies for multiple purposes in a device that is no more than a few mm thick.
I'm not going to pretend to be able to predict what technology will look like in 8 years.
Thinking of Australia in 2020 (Score:2)
Just think of the speed over a few days.... and the per mb fines if you go over
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With 5g we can use 500mb of months data in a few days as we wait for our 25mb copper line to be fixed.
Just think of the speed over a few days.... and the per mb fines if you go over :)
Its Not too late !
A Vote for Labor ahead of the Conservatives (Coalition) is the only way to guarentee this future will not happen.
The sad thing is the biased conservatve private media have the fuckwitt vote pretty much stiched up.
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What is this 5G thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Must we really publish brain farts from a fanboi on slashdot's front page? This "news item" is completely substance free. No description of technology, no links, no science, no official announcement from someone you might believe. It uses terms that don't exist - there is no 5G - or at least the mob responsible for naming GSM, 3G, 4G, LTE, LTE Advanced doesn't have one yet. And there is nothing particularly special about 1Gbps download speed. LTE Advanced already does that if is has around 67MHz of bandwidth available, and you are the only one using the cell.
So let me see, what is there that could justify its position on the front page? Oh I see now - a baseless jibe at a Apple. That's OK then.
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Is 10 Gbps up interesting enough for you?
Re: What is this 5G thing? (Score:2)
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No, because I don't foresee the ability to generate data that fast. What am I going to do, upload uncompressed 4K video signals in realtime, taken with a lens the size of a pinhead?
What I'd rather have is stability. I would be far happier with 256kbps with low, stable pings (and no packet loss) than 8Mbps that sometimes works and constantly dropped and unintelligible calls.
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Okay, I'll try to bring it back on topic for you. Samsung are presumably developing this tech so that they can patent it and then charge other companies license fees. It will all be under FRAND rules, but we have seen an unwillingness from some companies to pay the typical percentages required. Most cross-licence but some don't have anything to cross-license with.
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LTE Advanced already does that if is has around 67MHz of bandwidth available, and you are the only one using the cell.
This. Correct me if I'm wrong here but I thought the quoted maximum speeds for mobile networks are always *per-tower* not *per-user*, so you could only ever get those speeds in the real world if a virus wipes out 95+% of the local population in your area, leaving you the only one using the tower.
Re:What is this 5G thing? (Score:5, Informative)
The Samsung testing was in the LMDS frequency band, which the FCC has auctioned off already in the US to cable providers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Multipoint_Distribution_Service [wikipedia.org]
The FCC has already licensed this band for satellite downlink:
http://spectrumwiki.com/wiki/display.aspx?From=disp&f=28499999999 [spectrumwiki.com]
Which means it can't be used for 5G in the US like they are doing with NTT DoCoMo in the Samsung experiments.
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LTE Advanced already does that if is has around 67MHz of bandwidth available, and you are the only one using the cell.
Don't forget "and the cell mast has the backhaul to actually support 1Gbps."
My guess is that the majority of LTE towers deployed (at least in North America) have multi linked 100Mbps metro ethernet as the backhaul, because the telcos are incapable of seeing past a horizon of about 6 months.
Vaporware much?? (Score:1)
Re:Vaporware much?? (Score:5, Informative)
Then perhaps you should stop reading slashdot, and instead go to amazon.com and newegg.com?
AT&T Soon To Announce Launch of 1GBPS Network (Score:4, Funny)
In similar news, AT&T is expected to soon launch it's 5G 1Gbps network nationwide with speeds expected to reach *up to* 10Mbps. Rollout is expected to begin as soon as 5G/1GBps icons and logos are complete.
Re:Utter nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
Battery backup. (Score:1)
28GHz... thats WiMAX... how about 1.05 Petabit/s (Score:2)
its 2 Kilometres distance so its a repackaging of WiMAX... and we all know how well that turned out...
now personally I prefer the 1.05 Petabit/s that fibre will provide... though thats in development oh wait thats what this wireless speed is in "development"
cheers
John
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Silly human. When your mind is the Internet, you don't have to worry about bandwidth anymore. This message was brought to you at the cost of only a few Yottobits of autonomous SPAM relays.
Personally I prefer the unlimited bandwidth quantum computing provides -- when you make each atom in the universe part of the calculation. What's this "technology" of yours that is "in development"?
Dont test the speed! (if you have quota) (Score:2)
I call it waste (Score:2)
This is rant (you've been warned) I'm so frustrated with 4G. I get charged $10 more a month, and it rarely works well, if at all. I live, literally, in the middle of a major city (1M+ citizens).
No joke, if I'm facing south while sitting on the left side of my couch, I have 4G, if I turn east, I do not. The worst part is most of the apps that are running get into a mucked state if its in the middle of doing something when the phone context switches between 3G and 4G. Text messages wont send (fail, no
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And on top of it, I am completely fed up with Android rearranging how the entire user interface and basic applications function every time they update my damn phone. I went into the Verizon store and complained about my earlier Android phone, (the LG Ally) and how slow it was and the salesman showed me
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Fast but battery will be the deal breaker (Score:1)
Why? (Score:1)
Why? just why? Why?? Why Why Why Why Why Why?? Just why though why?? I don't get it why? 1Gbps??? Why? How many mobile devices can even write data at that speed? 6G next? What speed will that be? Realise that this is what you call an unregulated market - useless shit sold at extortionate prices. Maybe in twenty years - for now 4G is WAAAAAAAY more than I need. I'm sure 5G has it uses - but to be effective it will need to be rolled out to consumer networks otherwise it is just a technology that will sit on t
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Because the ultimate goal is for all Internet service to be provided wirelessly, to avoid the enormous installation cost and eminent domain / easement issues that go with physical plant.
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Fair point. I like being slightly cooked anyway.
Great! (Score:2)
Now I can blow my monthly bandwidth cap in 30 seconds or less.
Meanwhile... (Score:2)
... I can't even reliably place voice calls in most of Washington DC, since so many frames are dropped that it's hard to understand the other party. I have 4G in places, 3G in most, and when it works it's pretty fast ... if you measure "bits transmitted per ten seconds". But there is a lot more to data service than that: if all I cared about was bandwidth I'd sneakernet CF cards around. But omg speed!" is not what cellphones lack now. It's stability. Fix that, and then we can talk about speed.
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Yeah, but then you'd have to live in South Korea. ;-)