OnePlus CEO tells the truth about 5G

[RejZoR]

16 hours ago, KuJoe said:

I would say content creation on mobile devices is becoming more popular. Live streaming and uploading videos from phones (or via mobile connections) is more common place these days.

The problem is data plans don't go along with it. Not even with 4G most of the time. They give you these amazing speeds and absolutely turd plans for absurd prices. In my country, every regular base plan is 19,99€ and it comes with crap data plans like something as horrible as only 10GB, but they mostly go up to 20GB/month. That's nothing for someone who streams HD Netflix regularly on phone. And it's like this for ALL providers. Some do have "unlimited" plan and when you read a fine print it says "max speed till 50GB and then it drops to 2/1 mbits"). Worthless, only thing it guarantees is that you can't ever go over the monthly plan cost, but you can only really use it for emergency stuff at that point.

 

We're fortunate to have affordable alternate options from Hofer Telekom (HoT) and A1's "Bob" in my country that give you same thing for 9,99€, so 3000 minutes and 3000 SMS and 20GB for 9,99€. That I feel is very reasonable on Bob. HoT even offers 50GB with unlimited calls and SMS for 15€. Which is again at least workable deal that doesn't cost freaking 50€ a month which is what most others are charging for the "unlimited" plans that basically end the same at 50GB...

 

Phone ISP's are generally really shitty with data plans. We'd be stuck with 2GB plans if alternate options like Bob or HoT didn't exist. They pressured everyone else to become more competitive which was nice. It made a huge impact when HoT arrived in my country. Basically all competitors freaked out because people were mass migrating to them. Understandably.

 

So, yeah, they need to realize if you offer fast speeds you also need to bump up the data plan and not be dick about it and charge absurd monthly costs for it.

[KuJoe]

6 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

The problem is data plans don't go along with it. Not even with 4G most of the time. They give you these amazing speeds and absolutely turd plans for absurd prices. In my country, every regular base plan is 19,99€ and it comes with crap data plans like something as horrible as only 10GB, but they mostly go up to 20GB/month. That's nothing for someone who streams HD Netflix regularly on phone. And it's like this for ALL providers. Some do have "unlimited" plan and when you read a fine print it says "max speed till 50GB and then it drops to 2/1 mbits"). Worthless, only thing it guarantees is that you can't ever go over the monthly plan cost, but you can only really use it for emergency stuff at that point.

 

We're fortunate to have affordable alternate options from Hofer Telekom (HoT) and A1's "Bob" in my country that give you same thing for 9,99€, so 3000 minutes and 3000 SMS and 20GB for 9,99€. That I feel is very reasonable on Bob. HoT even offers 50GB with unlimited calls and SMS for 15€. Which is again at least workable deal that doesn't cost freaking 50€ a month which is what most others are charging for the "unlimited" plans that basically end the same at 50GB...

 

Phone ISP's are generally really shitty with data plans. We'd be stuck with 2GB plans if alternate options like Bob or HoT didn't exist. They pressured everyone else to become more competitive which was nice. It made a huge impact when HoT arrived in my country. Basically all competitors freaked out because people were mass migrating to them. Understandably.

 

So, yeah, they need to realize if you offer fast speeds you also need to bump up the data plan and not be dick about it and charge absurd monthly costs for it.

To my knowledge 5G has to do with transfer rates and not bandwidth. The costs of the bandwidth are a different matter and not really related to this topic, I don't expect a new technology like 5G to make much of a difference except giving individuals and companies who rely on mobile data for their jobs a much better option.

[Teddy07]

not worth it

[RejZoR]

18 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

To my knowledge 5G has to do with transfer rates and not bandwidth. The costs of the bandwidth are a different matter and not really related to this topic, I don't expect a new technology like 5G to make much of a difference except giving individuals and companies who rely on mobile data for their jobs a much better option.

Eh? You can't have 500Mbps speeds and then a 10GB data plan. It just makes no sense. But you can't expect to charge fortune for it either coz then no one will opt for it. So, yeah it matters. Transfer rates and bandwidth are the same thing. It's the amount of data you can pass through the line per secon. The issue is hard data plan limit or the "unlimited" plans with fine print. The total amount of data you can use...

[KuJoe]

3 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Eh? You can't have 500Mbps speeds and then a 10GB data plan.

Why not? It's possible to do that, there's not technical reason it cannot be done. Just because you have a faster connection doesn't mean the bandwidth is cheaper.

4 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Transfer rates and bandwidth are the same thing. It's the amount of data you can pass through the line per secon.

You are correct, I meant to say bandwidth limits (i.e. data caps). Those two are not related. This thread is about the cost of the hardware being passed to the consumer, not about how much mobile providers are charging for their plans.

[jagdtigger]

Meh, who cares when carriers still cant loose their ancient and grossly outdated habit of imposing BS data caps...

[williamcll]

Problem is all the "fast internet" provided by 5G is limited to:

• Limited speed of phone storage, NVME on SD can't arrive fast enough
• Data caps, but only in some countries.
• Inconsistent standards
• Faster loss of reception
• Web servers still being slow as ever (the main cause)

[jagdtigger]

12 minutes ago, williamcll said:

Web servers still being slow as ever (the main cause)

They feel plenty fast to me...

[williamcll]

2 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

They feel plenty fast to me...

No I mean most servers can't reach the speeds of >900Mbps such as the Oneplus update servers. 5G is often advertised as offering over a gigabit internet speed.

[jagdtigger]

5 minutes ago, williamcll said:

No I mean most servers can't reach the speeds of >900Mbps such as the Oneplus update servers. 5G is often advertised as offering over a gigabit internet speed.

No surprises there. Most of the world is still sub gigabit(and the majority of them is on asymmetric connection), plus using torrent to distribute your stuff is way more efficient...

[corsairian]

I'm at the Mercy of Sprint regardless. Even with 5G I doubt it would fix the constant buffer on 480p videos. Or mysteriously not receiving text messages.. That was a fun conversation with my boss... 5 messages I never got. Thanks Sprint.

[Donut417]

7 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

It's not limited to Sprint, most carriers have this kind of problem. I guess the protocol or implementations has a flaw that nobody managed to identify and fix. 
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah but Sprints Network is shit. They dont have any money to upgrade it. If T Mobile is not allowed to buy Sprint then its likely that Sprint could go under. They bit off too much when they bought Nextel and they have never been able to dig them selfs out of that hole. There is a big reason T Mobile went from number 4 to number 3 in terms of ranking. 

[Donut417]

On 12/8/2018 at 11:09 AM, RejZoR said:

What do people need 5G for anyway? To stream 4K video on a 6 inch device? It's the most demanding bandwidth wise. And most pointless as well...

I think they are positioning it as a replacement for home internet. The issue is, in the cities where they are deploying this, many of those cities have Fiber or Coax meaning they have good wired providers and are not likely to win out over them. The place that needs 5G is the rural areas where they cant get shit. BUT those poor bastards are not going to get the upgrades. So really there is no point.

[Silentprototipe]

Meh? I get like 40 Mbps at worst in my small town. Ive gotten like 113 Mbps at best on LTE. I really dont think I need more than what my house wifi can take

 

[Jumper118]

an iphone with 5g will cost 5g  

[Donut417]

3 hours ago, Jumper118 said:

an iphone with 5g will cost 5g  

Thats not really funny. Why? Because is probably fucking true. The cost of phones are so over the top I cant even belive it. There is no way in holy fuck Im spending more than $500 on a phone. Not going to happen, unless the phone in question cures cancer. 

[LAwLz]

No way it costs anywhere near close to 300 dollars to add 5G to a phone.

Just no way in hell, and it does not make one ounce of sense to assume it is so expensive.

 

The MDM9615 was Qualcomm's state of the art LTE modem back when Apple started integrating it into the iPhone 5.

That modem, plus the RTR8600 transceiver, and all the other circuitry necessary for LTE cost Apple less than 35 dollars to integrate.

 

It's inane to assume that the move from 4G to 5G would cost almost 10 times as much.

 

According to DigiTimes who spoke to companies in the supply-chain, they said that the 5G modems will cost about 70% more than current high end 4G modems. What do current high end 4G modems cost? The Intel solution Apple uses in the iPhone Xs costs 17 dollars...

17 dollars for the PMB9955 baseband, PMB5762 Transceiver solution and PMB6829 power management chip.

 

17 * 0.7 = 18 dollars increase in price.

 

 

Maybe Qualcomm's solution is more expensive? Nope.

The Snapdragon 845 in the Galaxy S9 includes all the necessary parts for LTE connectivity, and the entire chipset itself costs 67 dollars.

67 * 0.7 = 47 dollars increase in price.

 

 

So let me repeat that. Even if OnePlus were to buy an entire extra SoC, with the GPU, CPU and everything of that sorts, and add the estimated 70% price increase for the modem to the entire chipset (the extra one), that would still just be a price increase of:

67 * 1,7 = 114

144 dollars.

 

 

If the price premium for 5G is more than 100 dollars (and I am being very conservative here) then they are taking advantage of the situation to rip off customers. It's not because 5G is expensive, it's because companies sees it as an opportunity to increase margins before it becomes more widely adopted.

[D13H4RD]

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

If the price premium for 5G is more than 100 dollars (and I am being very conservative here) then they are taking advantage of the situation to rip off customers. It's not because 5G is expensive, it's because companies sees it as an opportunity to increase margins before it becomes more widely adopted.

It’s probably the perfect excuse for OnePlus to make a $1000 phone 

[williamcll]

On 12/9/2018 at 8:00 PM, jagdtigger said:

No surprises there. Most of the world is still sub gigabit(and the majority of them is on asymmetric connection), plus using torrent to distribute your stuff is way more efficient...

Correction: I mean there is very few servers such as the oneplus update/ROM site that can actually benefit from 5G due to being able to offer gigabit speeds.

[killster10000]

i thought 5g was for home use so they can provide service to a block with 1 tower 5g, i am excited as the small city i live in only has att uverse with very slow speeds. WIth 4 towers i bet they could offer 200mbit? to every house. For phones ya, 4g is fast already. 

[Donut417]

5 minutes ago, killster10000 said:

i thought 5g was for home use so they can provide service to a block with 1 tower 5g,

No its just a dick measuring contest between carriers. In reality they are not using 1 tower for a lot of people. They intend to install Micro Cell sites on Utility poles in the neighborhood to provide 5G services. Though T Mobile has stated they can provide 5G long range via the 600 Mhz band they recently bought. Though I wouldnt count on much speed at a distance. 

 

6 minutes ago, killster10000 said:

i am excited as the small city i live in only has att uverse with very slow speeds

Do be too excited, those who are going to get 5G are major cities. Those who live in Rural area's where 5G really could make a difference will probably be disappointed. 

[killster10000]

10 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

No its just a dick measuring contest between carriers. In reality they are not using 1 tower for a lot of people. They intend to install Micro Cell sites on Utility poles in the neighborhood to provide 5G services. Though T Mobile has stated they can provide 5G long range via the 600 Mhz band they recently bought. Though I wouldnt count on much speed at a distance. 

 

Do be too excited, those who are going to get 5G are major cities. Those who live in Rural area's where 5G really could make a difference will probably be disappointed. 

 

 

Oh trust me im not excited at all, but that is the use case i can think of @ home.

 

I know the monopoly that has been in place since the start of time here. only one choice unless you get satalite

[Ulvis]

Wirless network wifi and GSM/HSDPA,..  always  exists limits ,how much people use  and which service they use ...

 

[Ulvis]

On 12/12/2018 at 12:35 AM, killster10000 said:

i thought 5g was for home use so they can provide service to a block with 1 tower 5g, i am excited as the small city i live in only has att uverse with very slow speeds. WIth 4 towers i bet they could offer 200mbit? to every house. For phones ya, 4g is fast already. 

if people watch video or use torrents, only a few people will have normal speed, but the router is unable to process requests and guarantee normal speed.

p.stry changing to another network tower which people don't use so much.

Spoiler

 

 

[maartendc]

Yeah who is really waiting on 5G at this point? It would be more useful to have better 4G coverage, without bandwidth and data limits. 4G is plenty fast for most real-world applications: video calling, video streaming, music streaming, uploading photos to the cloud, etc. etc.