Verizon can't cover a basketball stadium with 5G

[spartaman64]

7 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

And where did the 3 year 100% arbitrary deadline come from? That doesn't even make any sense. Why 3 years? Why not 2? 6 months? 5 years? Because you just made up a random time frame that means nothing.

 

5G mm wave rollout is going to take a long time. In 3 years, every major city should have some 5G coverage - but how much? There's no way to predict.

I say 3 years because I think that's a very reasonable time frame for the network to mature and for them to work out all the kinks. If it takes like 10 years for cities to get good mm 5G coverage then I wouldn't call that a very successful roll out and we would probably have something better by then

[Euchre]

For the matter of '5G' vs '5Ghz': the former can use the latter, but as implemented in the US, and most anywhere thus far, the latter is not used for the former. The 5G spec allows for the communication technology (the method of communication) to be used across a nearly insanely wide spectrum of frequencies. As of this point, the US is using the 2.5Ghz band for 5G cellular.

 

On the whole here, "5G" is just being used as a marketing tool, nothing more. 4G wasn't even made an official spec before US carriers were going nuts referring to their technologies as such, and in the end don't really meet the standards set forth by the 3GPP to be true 4G. When you can't get 100mbps downloads on cellular, you aren't yet experiencing full 4G, so moving on to '5G' is like going to college on an elementary education. The whole '5G' branding is being used to encourage people to switch providers and get new devices, because carriers need cash flow.

 

Verizon is sunsetting its 3G network at the end of this year, and bragging about '5G' helps push more people into newer devices, and allowing for the 'downcycling' of 4G devices to help migrate people off of 3G hardware. Many Verizon customers I've spoken to who are still using 3G devices complain that Verizon doesn't even have 5G yet (in their area, or in any practical sense), so they have 'no reason to force everyone onto 4G' (their perception). Since marketing is all about perception, you can see how this plays out. I sometimes get to explain to them how getting rid of 3G CDMA ('non-SIM' to the common user) is a good thing, as in theory we should be entering a time when all US carriers can roam on each others' networks.

 

AT&T will be sunsetting their 3G network by 2022, despite the fact that there's no serious reason they can't continue to support 3G GSM devices on the network on their secondary bands, as LTE is nicely backward compatible, and 5G technologies appear to be right in the same line of compatibility as well. However, no carrier in the US wants to be seen as the 'backwards' carrier, nor are they fond of not selling more devices every year, so AT&T will push 3G out, ostensibly to give way for '5G'.

 

So the marketing obfuscation will continue, and we'll see iterations of pointless 'newness' that aren't real improvements for years to come, because people don't understand what they're really getting.

 

Anybody remember WiMAX? Yeah, that sucked for anything other than urban cheap internet.

[mr moose]

7 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

You 100% missed my point. Companies don't care at all the cost to the environment and others around them and that is the cost I was referring to. I don't care at all if they see a proper return on investment because that has nothing to do with me. Again it's an incredibly wasteful technology. 

What cost? as I asked,  have you seen a cost analysis or feasibility study?  How can you call it a waste when you don't know the cost and don't know the roll on effect?

 

3 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

I am not ignoring the pros I am saying the cost isn't worth it. Last time I checked base stations for 5g consumed more power than 4g stations and more are required due to limited range. That is not worth it imo. 

Citation?  how many connections can that station handle in one instance, does it consume more power permanently? or only when providing faster/more connections?

 

 

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

What cost? as I asked,  have you seen a cost analysis or feasibility study?  How can you call it a waste when you don't know the cost and don't know the roll on effect?

 

Citation?  how many connections can that station handle in one instance, does it consume more power permanently? or only when providing faster/more connections?

 

 

"Challenges of 5G deployment, according to Zhengmao Li, EVP China Mobile (biggest operator on the world). 1. 5G needs 3 X base stations for same coverage as LTE due to higher frequencies 2. Power consumption of a 5G base staion is 3 X LTE 3. 5G base station costs 4 X price of LTE"

 

This was a tweet by a man named gabriel brown. Granted this a tweet of someone citing someone else so I guess take it as what you will. 

[Blademaster91]

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

You're confusing things.

 

5G mm wave has terrible range. 5G mm wave is not a replacement for 4G. 5G NR has the same range as 4G, and will be a straight up upgrade for basically anyone.

Then it makes no sense why Verizon isn't using 5G NR instead, less hardware instead of needing to put up many 5G mm towers to cover a stadium.

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Both should happen, depending on the market. 4G should be rolled out to extreme low density rural areas. 5G NR should replace existing 4G towers, and 5G mm wave should be rolled out to ultra dense areas like Stadiums, Airports, Shopping Malls, Movie Theatres, etc.

The issue with that as already mentioned carriers are ditching 3G in favor of 5G, I kind of doubt these carriers are going to invest in putting up more 4G towers, when they can market and brag about how great their 5G is. Dropping 3G service is also really wasteful IMO as it would force people to buy new devices.

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

AC is more than enough... for now. Stopping at AC and just being like "Welp, this is the best WIFI will ever get. Let's stop here" - what in god's name?

 AX isn't an upgrade for most people, like 5G it has worse or no signal through walls, most would be fine with AC as having the extra advertised speed with AX is pointless if the range is worse. I don't see the point in 5G either as it would only consume more battery power in a phone.

[spartaman64]

3 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Then it makes no sense why Verizon isn't using 5G NR instead, less hardware instead of needing to put up many 5G mm towers to cover a stadium.

The issue with that as already mentioned carriers are ditching 3G in favor of 5G, I kind of doubt these carriers are going to invest in putting up more 4G towers, when they can market and brag about how great their 5G is. Dropping 3G service is also really wasteful IMO as it would force people to buy new devices.

 AX isn't an upgrade for most people, like 5G it has worse or no signal through walls, most would be fine with AC as having the extra advertised speed with AX is pointless if the range is worse. I don't see the point in 5G either as it would only consume more battery power in a phone.

because 

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Brooksie359 said:

"Challenges of 5G deployment, according to Zhengmao Li, EVP China Mobile (biggest operator on the world). 1. 5G needs 3 X base stations for same coverage as LTE due to higher frequencies 2. Power consumption of a 5G base staion is 3 X LTE 3. 5G base station costs 4 X price of LTE"

 

This was a tweet by a man named gabriel brown. Granted this a tweet of someone citing someone else so I guess take it as what you will. 

 

So if 3 base stations can provide the same connection speed for 60 times the users (conservative number based on using lower frequencies than advertised full speed mm frequencies) and consumes 3 times the power. that means it is significantly cheaper to install and run than LTE per user.

 

EDIT: even if it where 4 times the cost (which I don't believe is anything worth considering as all new tech costs more) 3x3x4 =  36 times more than LTE but serves 60 times more consumers.   I don't see the waste.

[Donut417]

I wonder what bands they are using for 5G. I know T Mobile's approch is to have low, mid and high band 5G. The high band shit wont have long range or penitration power. But the lower band stuff should help a bit. 

 

On 10/21/2019 at 10:37 PM, Bacon soup said:

did you see the study from japan that tested sperm count under multiple 2.4GHz sources? Dont put your phone in your pants pocket without airplane mode lads.

Thats the reason I keep my phone in my pocket. I dont want kids, so Im hoping the RF is cooking my little swimmers to death. 

 

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

 

So if 3 base stations can provide the same connection speed for 60 times the users (conservative number based on using lower frequencies than advertised full speed mm frequencies) and consumes 3 times the power. that means it is significantly cheaper to install and run than LTE per user.

 

EDIT: even if it where 4 times the cost (which I don't believe is anything worth considering as all new tech costs more) 3x3x4 =  36 times more than LTE but serves 60 times more consumers.   I don't see the waste.

You are assuming that there are 60 times more users to serve and that the demand is high for faster data speeds is also high enough to warrant the 9x increase in power consumption and 3x increase in amount of towers meaning more land requirements. I'm sorry but the amount of times I have thought that 4g wasn't enough are essentially nonexistent and I work down town in the largest city in my state. The world already has a huge issue with its power consumption and the toll it has on the environment and I don't think we should be investing in technologies that increase power consumption rather than decrease. We should be pushing for technology that helps decrease power consumption. If 5g consumed the same amount of power with the same per coverage area then I would be all for it but sadly it doesn't. 

[ZacoAttaco]

5G seems to be a really conflicted and contradicting technology. Some love it and others loathe it and the tech is still far away from being deployed.

 

EDIT: I think mmwave offers higher speed and bandwidth but reduced range and penetration. The actual technology 5G NR or 5G New Radio is the major upgrade, and the lines between the two are blurred.

[mr moose]

3 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

You are assuming that there are 60 times more users to serve

It's not an assumption, 4G congestion is a thing. 

 

https://www.zdnet.com/article/5g-needed-to-ease-4g-lte-congestion-opensignal/

 

https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/slow-4g-download-speeds-peak-hour-congestion-on-telcos-compared-20190703-p523s2.html

 

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

and that the demand is high for faster data speeds is also high enough to warrant the 9x increase in power consumption and 3x increase in amount of towers meaning more land requirements. I'm sorry but the amount of times I have thought that 4g wasn't enough are essentially nonexistent and I work down town in the largest city in my state. The world already has a huge issue with its power consumption and the toll it has on the environment and I don't think we should be investing in technologies that increase power consumption rather than decrease. We should be pushing for technology that helps decrease power consumption. If 5g consumed the same amount of power with the same per coverage area then I would be all for it but sadly it doesn't. 

 

So your imposing your personal understanding of power consumption and the environment to justify ignoring the reality of mobile  telecommunications and its necessities?   and you are still ignoring the fact it uses less power per person than 4G.

 

 

 

 

 

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, ZacoAttaco said:

5G seems to be a really conflicted and contradicting technology. Some love it and others loathe it and the tech is still far away from being deployed.

 

EDIT: I think mmwave offers higher speed and bandwidth but reduced range and penetration. The actual technology 5G NR or 5G New Radio is the major upgrade, and the lines between the two are blurred.

It's already deployed in Australia and Sth Korea. It has a few teething issues but it is far from unworkable.

 

 

The reason 5G is so controversial is because many just don't understand how technology rolls out.  They think because they understand a small portion of the tech or because some youtuber was pontificating how stupid Verizon is (likely for the clicks), they now believe they understand everything there is to know.    It's like when the NBN was first proposed,  I had many similar arguments about wireless technology back then.  The number of people who were adamant you would never get speeds above a few Mbps on mobile or that mobile could never sustain the number of users it now currently does was insane (and most of them were self confessed tech enthusiasts).  We now see that was all horse shit.  

 

It seems many people on these forums who pride themselves as being advocates of pushing technology further are falling prey to the naive mindset that they understand everything already and ironically claiming it as failed or "retarded" before while people significantly smarter than them are making it work. 

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

It's not an assumption, 4G congestion is a thing. 

 

https://www.zdnet.com/article/5g-needed-to-ease-4g-lte-congestion-opensignal/

 

https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/slow-4g-download-speeds-peak-hour-congestion-on-telcos-compared-20190703-p523s2.html

 

 

 

 

 

So your imposing your personal understanding of power consumption and the environment to justify ignoring the reality of mobile  telecommunications and its necessities?   and you are still ignoring the fact it uses less power per person than 4G.

 

 

 

 

 

I fail to see your reasoning. If you have base stations that use more power and there are more of them then how does that not use more power? There are still the same amount of people per area regardless of what technology is used so to say it uses less power per person doesn't make sense. 

[mr moose]

14 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

I fail to see your reasoning. If you have base stations that use more power and there are more of them then how does that not use more power? There are still the same amount of people per area regardless of what technology is used so to say it uses less power per person doesn't make sense. 

The number of consumers connecting to mobile services are growing, it is not a static condition.  The articles I linked explain that 4G is now experiencing congestion because there are too many people on the network and that number of people is growing.  If companies do not invest in 5G (or anything better than 4G/LTE) then that congestion is only going to get worse.

 

That is why when you consider the number of people using the network versus the cost of running the network,  current 5G (assuming your source is accurate) will use less power per user.  Just because you can get an acceptable speed on 4G right now doesn't mean that it will continue to in the future.  The reason Sth Korea are pushing so hard to get it up and running is because of their population density.

 

 

[leadeater]

58 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

I fail to see your reasoning. If you have base stations that use more power and there are more of them then how does that not use more power? There are still the same amount of people per area regardless of what technology is used so to say it uses less power per person doesn't make sense. 

Power is not a fixed thing and devices, regardless of complexity will only draw as much as they need. The quotes you used back a few posts are all maximums and likely for the ultra high frequency band, higher throughput just requires more power to do so but that is only required when that is actually happening i.e. connected clients are causing it.

 

So a 5G cell tower will only use as much power as the load demand necessitates, if the per connected client power is less than 4G the same number of connect clients will result in less power draw of the tower for 5G. The reason for this is a few factors but a big one is the silicon process used for the microprocessor in these, same deal as CPUs in computers, is smaller and more power efficient but similarly has a higher peak power due to them being much faster. So you have more efficient microprocessors, more efficient radio technology (hardware and software/firmware), higher peak processing power, higher peak bandwidths which all factor in to those figures you saw.

 

Similarly an i9 9980XE can use a lot of power, even stock, but it won't sit there using 500W at idle with no workload and will be able to complete the same work as a i7 6950X quicker for more power or at the same time length for less power. It can be both true that a device can use more power and also less power, which particular state depends on demand etc.

 

So a 5G tower with 30 connected clients on the same bands as a 4G tower with 30 connected clients would be using less power. The problem for telecommunications providers is in the deployment planning you have to factor in the peak possible power so the battery systems you pair with these have to be larger and if you plan on enabling the higher frequency bands you have to factor that in to tower placement from the beginning even if initially disabled.

[GoldenLag]

12 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Yeah the potential throughput is higher but honestly I don't think its necessary. 

remember what they said regarding optical cables across the Atlantic Ocean? 

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, GoldenLag said:

remember what they said regarding optical cables across the Atlantic Ocean? 

That would cost way too much and who would even use them?

[GoldenLag]

Just now, leadeater said:

That would cost way too much and who would even use them?

that there was no use for the massive bandwidth that it provided........... copper was doing the job just fine........

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, GoldenLag said:

that there was no use for the massive bandwidth that it provided........... copper was doing the job just fine........

You can keep your flashy CD drives, everything I need fits on a 1.44

 

 

[GoldenLag]

46 minutes ago, mr moose said:

You can keep your flashy CD drives, everything I need fits on a 1.44

 

 

SSDs arent that much faster. And you can only write so much on to them before they die

[LAwLz]

16 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

I say 3 years because I think that's a very reasonable time frame for the network to mature and for them to work out all the kinks. If it takes like 10 years for cities to get good mm 5G coverage then I wouldn't call that a very successful roll out and we would probably have something better by then

I don't think 3 years is a reasonable time frame. 4G is now over 9 years old and I'd say some countries such as the US have only had it be mature in the last couple of years.

mmWave 5G will be an even bigger undertaking to implement (because of more basestations being necessary) so I wouldn't be surprised if we will have to wait upwards of 10 years before it's really polished and working well.

 

 

17 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

you can do the same with wifi and have the same if not better range at this point and you dont need people to have a 5G phone

Sadly you can't.

For the same speed 5G can do, you need WiGig. WiGig operates in the 60Ghz spectrum and has the same range "issues" as 5G mmWave has.

And you do not want long range for high density environments. Long range = more congestion and interference.

 

You want to try and connect a small group of clients to a single radio cell, and then another small group of clients to another radio cell. You want people to be in smaller groups so that they do not cause interference for each other. That's why for example Cisco's high density guidelines shows eight (8) access points inside a single auditorium room. And that's for regular WiFi, not even WiGig, with an expected throughout of around 10 Mbps.

[Sauron]

17 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

but everyone will be able to use it not just people with 5G phones which probably like 10% of people have 5G phones and maybe 40% max if you are really optimistic and it would probably be much cheaper

5g will eventually be commonplace. Using wifi would be an awful idea, it's designed for local networks and doesn't scale. You'd also have waaay too much interference from home networks. Wifi also has a dozen of different standards supported differently (if at all) by each device, you don't want that as an ISP.

[GoldenLag]

16 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

we would probably have something better by then

wouldnt that also take like 10 years to implement?

[Donut417]

48 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

You want to try and connect a small group of clients to a single radio cell, and then another small group of clients to another radio cell. You want people to be in smaller groups so that they do not cause interference for each other. That's why for example Cisco's high density guidelines shows eight (8) access points inside a single auditorium room. And that's for regular WiFi, not even WiGig, with an expected throughout of around 10 Mbps.

Thats where the micro cell sites come in. From what I read many providers are looking to add cell sites to the tops of utility poles. The issue is going to be back haul. I think they were going to set up some kind of mesh network thingy. Where the cell tower in the area talks to the micro cell sites and the people connect to the micro cell sites. 

 

Wiring up these sites would be a pain, becuase not all utility poles have access to data connections, or connections that can be tapped in to. 

[GoldenLag]

4 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Wiring up these sites would be a pain, becuase not all utility poles have access to data connections, or connections that can be tapped in to. 

there is talk of possibly just using 5G to connect to another tower. instead of wiring everything with cables, its just a mesh network with a couple main stations per "avenue" or something.