Verizon and AT&T Prepare to Bring 5G To (Select) Markets In 2017 (ieee.org) 53
An anonymous reader quotes IEEE Spectrum:
This year, Verizon and AT&T plan to deliver broadband internet to select homes or businesses using fixed wireless networks built with early 5G technologies. These 5G pilot programs will give the public its first glimpse into a wireless future that isn't due to fully arrive until the early 2020s. With 5G, carriers hope to deliver data to smartphone users at speeds 10 times as fast as on today's 4G networks, and with only 1 millisecond of delay... Over the past year, companies have completed a flurry of lab tests and trials to figure out what types of radios, antennas, and signal processing techniques will work best to deliver 5G in hopes of bringing those technologies and their capabilities to market as soon as possible.
The article notes that standards groups are halfway through their eight-year process of finalizing technical specifications (set to finish in 2020), but "With so much cash on the line, and facing pressure from data-hungry customers, carriers are moving fast." In Japan, NTT Docomo has even tested dozens of programmable antennas simultaneously transmitting signals, resulting in transmissions at 20 gigabits per second. "At that speed, a complete 2-hour, 1080p, high-definition movie can be transmitted in a second and a half."
The article notes that standards groups are halfway through their eight-year process of finalizing technical specifications (set to finish in 2020), but "With so much cash on the line, and facing pressure from data-hungry customers, carriers are moving fast." In Japan, NTT Docomo has even tested dozens of programmable antennas simultaneously transmitting signals, resulting in transmissions at 20 gigabits per second. "At that speed, a complete 2-hour, 1080p, high-definition movie can be transmitted in a second and a half."
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Metered Cell Service (Score:4, Interesting)
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No this is fixed point wireless. Not mobile. Don't people read
So people would need to buy a service - above and beyond their data plan - to realize such speeds at home? Why, when someone w/ their Charter or Comcast (ugh) connection can access whatever they need via WiFi? Right now, the main bottleneck is mobile bandwidth
Also, does 5G on the mobile wireless imply that all calls would be data only, and not voice/data like it is now?
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5G isn't a specific wireless standard, as the original 'G's were. 5G encompasses every possible means of connecting a device to another. Not only is it about faster connections, but ultra low latency, and also high security, with a big emphasis on machine to machine.
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No this is fixed point wireless. Not mobile. Don't people read
It doesn't matter. Whether it's a cable modem, dialup, wireless fixed or not fixed, it's a communication channel to access resources on the internet. Even though there are different technologies the companies and their technologies are in competition with each other and Verizon and AT&T have a history of not being competitive with any of their offerings trying to convince people that new cool this and that are worth a premium price and they clearly are not and there is no demand in the market for it.
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I don't find it valuable enough to be able to watch Netflix anywhere on any device to pay a premium price.
As TFA [ieee.org] says, these are fixed wireless installs. This technology is not actually relevant to Netflix "anywhere" unless you define "anywhere" as in or near your house or automobile; as TFA also points out, both Verizon and AT&T's projects are going to use millimeter-wave. These frequencies do not penetrate walls well [scientificamerican.com], so they are really useful only for two purposes: fixed installs, and vehicle installs. Even vehicle installs with 5G will be of questionable value in cities as you drive in and out of radio
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I find it valuable not waiting on my device. In the change from HSDPA to LTE to LTE-A I don't hit my data cap any faster, I don't download any more. I also spend far less staring at loading screens on my phone. There's more to high speed than just streaming 4K of garbage.
Happw New Year to all! (Score:2)
Gloriously offtopic, but who cares.
Health, wealth and harmony in your personal and professional lives to all.
Even those of you not using BSD.
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Anything to avoid FTTH (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet another bridge tech to keep from having to run fiber to the home. Cable companies are almost to the point where passive coax makes sense everywhere (Comcast will be deploying "fiber deep" tech in their network over the next 2-4 years). VZW again attempting to dump their copper pair network, this time for wireless. No idea what AT&T is up to with Uverse these days, but I think they're continuing to push RDSLAMs out closer to the customers. Any new build developments above a certain number of homes will be fiber to the home for every ISP thanks to joint open trenching, but all that legacy stuff is too expensive to dig up. The good news is that fiber continues to get cheaper.
Verizon was on the right track with FIOS, but unfortunately not enough customers bought into the tech to make it profitable in the timeline they wanted. This is the fundamental problem with very large national ISPs, they cannot scale out the last mile without sinking billions into the network, but because people don't necessarily understand what increased bandwidth means (and yes, lack of competition), there's little business at risk for doing nothing. So once again when the new bandwidth hog hits the network the ISPs are woefully unprepared.
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Verizon was on the right track with FIOS, but unfortunately not enough customers bought into the tech to make it profitable in the timeline they wanted. This is the fundamental problem with very large national ISPs, they cannot scale out the last mile without sinking billions into the network, but because people don't necessarily understand what increased bandwidth means (and yes, lack of competition), there's little business at risk for doing nothing. So once again when the new bandwidth hog hits the network the ISPs are woefully unprepared.
No, you fail to comprehend people don't need increased bandwidth, and your neighbors don't care to subsidize you, the bandwidth hog. They believe that if you want increased bandwidth, you should pay for it, and they're right.
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Sure, for many people there's no need for increased bandwidth. Until the next big thing hits and all of the sudden everyone needs more bandwidth. Dial up internet was fine for mostly text web pages and email. Then someone started producing graphics rich web sites with lots of advertising and people needed more bandwidth. Then people started sharing/downloading music, taking more bandwidth than available, so the ISPs had to catch up again. Then Netflix and Youtube. I'm not sure what the next big thing is, bu
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No, you fail to comprehend people don't need increased bandwidth, and your neighbors don't care to subsidize you, the bandwidth hog. They believe that if you want increased bandwidth, you should pay for it, and they're right.
Give me a traffic meter which is as good as my power meter and stop including unsolicited traffic and I will stop complaining.
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not enough customers bought into the tech to make it profitable in the timeline they wanted.
You missed that last part of my sentence, which is the critical part. Capex is all about time to payback the investment. If a stock buyback or acquiring a competitor has a faster payback or is preferred to the investor markets, infrastructure will take a back seat.
Battery life? (Score:2)
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That is a DRM feature; you are not suppose to see any of it.
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What gives you that impression? Each successive release of data connections beyond 3G have reduced battery consumption both in idle and during transfer.
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The first gen 4G chipsets had horrid battery life. I'd imagine that the first gen 5G chipsets will as well.
Apple usually tends to wait for the 2nd gen chipsets before they upgrade their handsets.
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And what has that got to do with 4G / 5G standards?
They're a bit late to the game (Score:2)
Other things sneaking into standards (Score:4, Interesting)
One thing that is curiously absent from public announcements of new standards is that successive standards proposed by the 3GPP have taken more and more feature of land mobile radio standards like TETRA, DMR, etc.
5G promises to be the first modern standard where LTE could in theory completely replace 2-way radio communication including features such as call priority, preemption, and incredibly short call setup times.
We could be looking at a change in the model by which 2-way radio systems are being provisioned, from a DIY, own your own radio tower and transmitter solution, to a wide coverage area with leased bandwidth solution.
This to me is more interesting than incremental speed increases.
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Erm, I make VoIP calls using Google Voice over 4G LTE all the time. And I'm on Sprint so my LTE speeds aren't as good as what you'll usually get with the other 3 major carriers. Heck, on a good day I could make VoIP calls while on 3G. VoIP only needs about 100 kbps; the extra bandwidth is just to ins
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You don't seem to understand so let me go through it statement by statement.
Erm, I make VoIP calls using Google Voice over 4G LTE all the time.
The ability to send voice over LTE is not the concern. HOW you send voice over LTE is. The requirements for a phone call are very different from the requirements of a radio replacement.
And I'm on Sprint so my LTE speeds aren't as good as what you'll usually get with the other 3 major carriers.
Fallback modes for trial systems work all the way back to 3G. The system is not at all constrained by speed but constrained by back-end functionality.
Back in the landline days we used to have a half second latency
Okay we're starting to talk about the right kind of specs now. But your half a second latency is abo