South Korea world’s fastest LTE 1.17Gbps

[mr moose]

But congestion is a problem especially if you go and dump ALL internet usage onto a mobile network. The solution that the article is talking about understands that fact completely. They're making performance better by moving people OFF "mobile" and onto smaller "towers" using WiFi. In terms of what that'd mean for a residential space? Well basically they're running fibre all the way to around 20m from where you are and then having you connect to an access point. Outside of a city basically what that'd involve would be running fibre to the house and using wireless AC.

 

Tech is improving all the time to work with the limitations that exist because of physics. What the tech isn't doing is breaking the laws of physics and coming out with magic. People a few years ago were right. Like it or not fixed line networks aren't going anywhere. We might want to hide away from them and pretend we're "on mobile" with some technical wizardry but ultimately if we want more speed it'll involve moving fibre closer to the end user. End of story. Because physics.

 

Signal quality and performance aren't one and the same when there are multiple users. The bandwidth is shared. It's not unlike how you can have a wireless access point with one user on it hammering it and that one person will get decent speed. But if you had two people hammering the network? Four? Ten? The speed will tank. It's just how wireless tech works whether it's WiFi, LTE or whatever. It's shared.

 

Anyways, for some actual numbers a quick googling and I found this page. If you dig into that page you can see some reports showing what the speeds they had recorded at various points in time. If you dig into it you you are right, South Korea is well and truly in the top spot in terms of 4G coverage. But not for speed, they're in the middle of the pack for speed. Purely because speed is a function of coverage AND the number of users on a tower. Japan appears to be the classic example, second best coverage but well and truly at the other end and more on par with the US for speed.

 

The reason the tech in the OP's article works is because it's all about reducing the size of the "tower" and therefore reducing the number of people sharing it. Smaller, faster towers within the larger network. Not unlike how your wireless access point has 5G for "fast" and 2.4G for "coverage". They've been talking about this tech for years and basically it's just a fancy way to kick people off mobile and onto WiFi.

 

Wifi is still wireless. It's still an advancement of mobile technology.   You're missing the point. In Australia we had people tell us that wireless was not an option at all and that it would NEVER work because it can't handle the sheer volume of users.  The problem with that excuse is that SK already has 20Million people concurrently working on a mobile network and they are developing faster connections (5G etc) for them.    That is more than the current number of active internet users in Australia already in an area half the size of Victoria.  Network congestion is not the issue (at least not the immediate issue) and developments are always being made.

 

Public opinion actually plays a big role in the direction of Australian politics,  so Imagine if our government wanted to save tax payer money and was considering not outsourcing it's IT but developing it's own in house Linux OS.  Then you had some lobby group come along and tell everyone that the government can't do that because Linux only has 1.7% market share and the government will isolate itself from the rest of the world.  (just like saying wireless tech will never support X number of users nor advance).  Both are assumptions made without any evidence and regardless of any grains of truth to the statements.  They swing public opinion away from governments implementing technology that was going to be beneficial long term. With regard to 5g/LTE development in Australia,  well, we are always going to get fibre, it will come eventually, unless they discover how to make wireless compete at a 1:1 Speed and latency that is,  however these lobby groups have successfully thrown mobile advancement back at Telstra and Optus.  Now instead of 5g upgrades being part of the NBN we have to wait for private companies and pay their prices.

 

Now do you understand why I say previous claims regarding wireless technology are crack and bad for our country?

 

Except South Korea is smaller than the state of Kentucky. I'm sure if all (heck even 25%) of American resources (both governmental and private) were competing in Kentucky, we'd have similar if not better broadband.

 

I don't really care about the US or the size of Kentucky.  In Australia we only have 23Million people.  Even when you account for the fact most of us live on the eastern seaboard our population density is 6-7x smaller at least.  If SK can develop wireless tech to deliver faster internet to 20+ Million users then the excuses Lobby groups in Australia used to dismiss whole planning policy is wrong. 

[Aniallation]

Google Fiber? 

[TroubleKlef]

-

I don't really care about the US or the size of Kentucky.  In Australia we only have 23Million people.  Even when you account for the fact most of us live on the eastern seaboard our population density is 6-7x smaller at least.  If SK can develop wireless tech to deliver faster internet to 20+ Million users then the excuses Lobby groups in Australia used to dismiss whole planning policy is wrong. 

 

Good luck funding that

[MetaknightXYZ]

Might as well start torrenting from data rather than on the pc lmao

[mr moose]

Good luck funding that

 

funding what?

[Doobeedoo]

Wow, and here I am with slow wired connection paying a ton for garbage. Lame ISPs can't have gigabit for normal price.

[skywake]

Wifi is still wireless. It's still an advancement of mobile technology.   You're missing the point. In Australia we had people tell us that wireless was not an option at all and that it would NEVER work because it can't handle the sheer volume of users.  The problem with that excuse is that SK already has 20Million people concurrently working on a mobile network and they are developing faster connections (5G etc) for them.    That is more than the current number of active internet users in Australia already in an area half the size of Victoria.  Network congestion is not the issue (at least not the immediate issue) and developments are always being made.

I'm not going to get into the politics of this at all but I will talk about the tech. So how about just stop and think for a second about what we're actually talking about here. In terms of the tech itself it is definitely technically possible to roll out public WiFi across the urban sprawl. You could do that and deliver decent speeds to the end users. Better than what you could do in a high density population area even. But what would be the point of that? Would it not be both better for the end user AND cheaper just to run fibre into the house and get the household to buy their own access point? With the added benefits of not having to compete with all the extra noise on the 2.4G/5G bands added by all those APs you installed on the street.

 

And you're ignoring the key points here but to make the point clear lets do some maths. Lets start by making some assumptions. Lets say that one WiFi AP covers an area of 100x100m. And just for the fun of it lets compare Perth (pop 310/km^2) to Seoul (17,000/km^2) and say that they put a single AP in every 100x100m square (i.e. 100/km^2). Of course it's wouldn't be the exact number they'd deploy if they were to actually do it but it should give us a good ballpark estimate that's easy to comprehend. So getting out excel for a second that'd give us.....

 

Perth: 3.1 people per AP

Seoul: 170 people per AP

 

South Korea does have a much higher population density for sure and they also have world class 4G coverage. But their speeds are lower because of congestion. The reason deploying WiFi in their cities would work there is precisely BECAUSE they have a high population density. There is a far greater potential for a small range AP and it'd be far easier to get a return out of it. It's exactly the reverse of what you say. The reason I doubt they'll deploy this in suburban streets in the west isn't because of some political decisions. Don't let your politics blind you to the fact that this is purely a combination of physics, geography and economics.

 

Outside of places like Seoul, New York, Tokyo and in particular the more population dense parts of those cities? 4G is likely about as good as it'll get for mobile. For those places? We'll continue to get smaller and smaller cell sizes to patch over congestion issues. For fibre however there's no end of the line in sight in terms of speed.

[mr moose]

I'm not going to get into the politics of this at all but I will talk about the tech. So how about just stop and think for a second about what we're actually talking about here. In terms of the tech itself it is definitely technically possible to roll out public WiFi across the urban sprawl. You could do that and deliver decent speeds to the end users. Better than what you could do in a high density population area even. But what would be the point of that? Would it not be both better for the end user AND cheaper just to run fibre into the house and get the household to buy their own access point? With the added benefits of not having to compete with all the extra noise on the 2.4G/5G bands added by all those APs you installed on the street.

 

And you're ignoring the key points here but to make the point clear lets do some maths. Lets start by making some assumptions. Lets say that one WiFi AP covers an area of 100x100m. And just for the fun of it lets compare Perth (pop 310/km^2) to Seoul (17,000/km^2) and say that they put a single AP in every 100x100m square (i.e. 100/km^2). Of course it's wouldn't be the exact number they'd deploy if they were to actually do it but it should give us a good ballpark estimate that's easy to comprehend. So getting out excel for a second that'd give us.....

 

Perth: 3.1 people per AP

Seoul: 170 people per AP

 

South Korea does have a much higher population density for sure and they also have world class 4G coverage. But their speeds are lower because of congestion. The reason deploying WiFi in their cities would work there is precisely BECAUSE they have a high population density. There is a far greater potential for a small range AP and it'd be far easier to get a return out of it. It's exactly the reverse of what you say. The reason I doubt they'll deploy this in suburban streets in the west isn't because of some political decisions. Don't let your politics blind you to the fact that this is purely a combination of physics, geography and economics.

 

Outside of places like Seoul, New York, Tokyo and in particular the more population dense parts of those cities? 4G is likely about as good as it'll get for mobile. For those places? We'll continue to get smaller and smaller cell sizes to patch over congestion issues. For fibre however there's no end of the line in sight in terms of speed.

 

So you agree then?  wireless technology is advancing and if it where to be applied to a country with a much lower population density then speed/congestion is less of an issue and certainly not the impossibility that some people make out?

[skywake]

So you agree then?  wireless technology is advancing and if it where to be applied to a country with a much lower population density then speed/congestion is less of an issue and certainly not the impossibility that some people make out?

Please don't take what I said out of context to make it sound like I'm agreeing with you. It would technically be possible but that doesn't mean that it should be done. I explained why it's a good idea in a place like Seoul and not in the urban sprawl of western suburbia. This is not an alternative to rolling out fixed-line infrastructure. Re-read my post if you want to understand what I'm saying here. If you don't want to understand and instead just want to argue because of the politics of it in I'm not interested. 

[mr moose]

Re-read my post. Don't just take the fact that it would technically be possible to mean that'd be the best option or even economical

I never once said it would be the best option,  I did say that it shouldn't be dismissed on assumptions.  Which is what nearly everyone seems to do.

 

We don't know if it is economical, a good option, feasible or even necessary or not because we have loud mouth lobby groups convincing everyone that it is a dead end technology before it is even looked at.

[slasher0161]

Well the LTE spec is rated at "300Mbps" but if you look it up the real world speeds average something closer to around 15-25Mbps. And as more people get 4G compatible devices that average speed decreases. If you were an early adopter of a 4G compatible device in a small city you probably got to experience quite a bit more speed than what you'll get now. Next year it'll likely be slower than this year.

Compare that to proper fibre infrastructure which can deliver 100s of Mbps to each building. Infrastructure that the tech being talked about here also relies on. And it's then at that point that you put a fancy access point in and connect to that. The whole point of this tech is to use existing infrastucture to bring the wireless "towers" closer to the end user. It's not magic and it's no coincidence that this is being talked about for South Korea and not South Sydney.

As I said earlier, it'd be interesting to see how well it actually performs once its deployed and people start using it. I wouldn't buy too much into the PR speak.

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/944468677

On a HTC one m8 while sitting in a pub.

Be thankful that Sydney at least has that level of infrastructure, there is places up here in cairns that can't get fixed net and constantly bad phone reception regardless of provider.

[skywake]

I never once said it would be the best option,  I did say that it shouldn't be dismissed on assumptions.  Which is what nearly everyone seems to do.

 

We don't know if it is economical, a good option, feasible or even necessary or not because we have loud mouth lobby groups convincing everyone that it is a dead end technology before it is even looked at.

Let me quote what we're actually talking about here from the original article.

 

South Korea’s largest telecommunications firm, KT Corp., said Monday it would commercialize the world’s fastest mobile network, called the GiGA LTE, which combines the current Long Term Evolution networks with Wi-Fi connections. [....] Not to be outdone, South Korea’s largest mobile carrier SK Telecom and LG Uplus also announced on the same day they would commercialize mobile network technologies this month that aggregate LTE and Wi-Fi networks to offer faster mobile services.

 

 

They've been talking about doing this for quite a few years, it's not new a new idea. What they're doing is making it so that when you're in range of one of their WiFi APs you connect to that instead. They're talking about moving people off mobile networks and onto short range WiFi. If you were to deploy this in the streets of subrurbia it'd be a nightmare. You don't need to do a study on it for that to be clear. The only reason it's a good idea in a country like South Korea is because congestion is an issue and the population density is high. In a country like Australia where neither of those things are a true? It's a waste of money. Period.

 

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/944468677

On a HTC one m8 while sitting in a pub.

Be thankful that Sydney at least has that level of infrastructure, there is places up here in cairns that can't get fixed net and constantly bad phone reception regardless of provider.

Average and peak speeds aren't the same. But for sure, I don't necessarily trust that site 100%. So lets post the average mobile speedtest results over the last 30 days for a few countries just to make us all happy. Australia actually does pretty well on this measure

 

Australia: 23Mbps

France: 21Mbps

Canada: 19Mbps

UK: 16Mbps

United States: 14Mbps

Japan: 13Mbps

South Korea: 11Mbps

South Africa: 10Mbps

Brazil: 8Mbps

Egypt: 4Mbps

 

So repeating what I said earlier, speed is a function of coverage AND the number of users on a tower. Part of the problem with trying to get people to understand the physics of it in Australia is that it's not our lived experience. We're one of the only countries in the world where our mobiles run faster than our connections at home. The problem is that mobile doesn't have the capacity to grow so unless you find ways to reduce the number of people using it speeds will go down.

[MrDynamicMan]

Guys, guys, calm down. It's clearly meant for finally being able to stream hentai at 4k. Who wouldn't want to have that?

[skywake]

Guys, guys, calm down. It's clearly meant for finally being able to stream he tag at 4k. Who wouldn't want to have that?

No harm in handing down a good dose of reality check to everyone. Net index has South Korea averaging 60/50Mbps for fixed line BB and 11/5Mbps for mobile. The fact that people are going on about how great SK's mobile network is kinda shits me a bit given I live in a country that has 17/5Mbps for fixed and 23/9Mbps for mobile . I'm bashing my head against my desk here, I don't want people thinking that mobile will magically solve bandwidth problems. We don't need better mobile here, the problems in South Korea and elsewhere are not the same. 

[MrDynamicMan]

No harm in handing down a good dose of reality check to everyone. Net index has South Korea averaging 60/50Mbps for fixed line BB and 11/5Mbps for mobile. The fact that people are going on about how great SK's mobile network is kinda shits me a bit given I live in a country that has 17/5Mbps for fixed and 23/9Mbps for mobile . I'm bashing my head against my desk here, I don't want people thinking that mobile will magically solve bandwidth problems. We don't need better mobile here, the problems in South Korea and elsewhere are not the same.

LOL. Auto correct. Lemme change the post.

[mr moose]

Let me quote what we're actually talking about here from the original article.

 

 

They've been talking about doing this for quite a few years, it's not new a new idea. What they're doing is making it so that when you're in range of one of their WiFi APs you connect to that instead. They're talking about moving people off mobile networks and onto short range WiFi. If you were to deploy this in the streets of subrurbia it'd be a nightmare. You don't need to do a study on it for that to be clear. The only reason it's a good idea in a country like South Korea is because congestion is an issue and the population density is high. In a country like Australia where neither of those things are a true? It's a waste of money. Period.

 

Average and peak speeds aren't the same. But for sure, I don't necessarily trust that site 100%. So lets post the average mobile speedtest results over the last 30 days for a few countries just to make us all happy. Australia actually does pretty well on this measure

 

Australia: 23Mbps

France: 21Mbps

Canada: 19Mbps

UK: 16Mbps

United States: 14Mbps

Japan: 13Mbps

South Korea: 11Mbps

South Africa: 10Mbps

Brazil: 8Mbps

Egypt: 4Mbps

 

So repeating what I said earlier, speed is a function of coverage AND the number of users on a tower. Part of the problem with trying to get people to understand the physics of it in Australia is that it's not our lived experience. We're one of the only countries in the world where our mobiles run faster than our connections at home. The problem is that mobile doesn't have the capacity to grow so unless you find ways to reduce the number of people using it speeds will go down.

 

That has nothing to do with what I am talking about.  I am literally addressing the concept that wireless technology is not and is never going to be good enough due to congestion.  What you have proven with your data there and what this article shows us is that SK with 21 Million mobile users has internet speeds at 11Mb/s (or 6Mb/s slower than the current average total BB speed in Australia. ) and improving on that.  Which proves that the current (and forecast) Australian population is not enough to congest a wireless system and wireless technology is not a dead end technology.

 

I don't know what exactly you are trying to prove, but so far you seem to just be quoting me then posting random facts as if I have said something that is incorrect.

 

Maybe you should read my first post again:

 

And to think people where trying to dismiss wireless as an alternative to broadband because of BS excuses like network congestion and basic narrow minded views of future advancements. South Korea currently have what? 20Million people on mobile internet?

No where in that did I say a loaded network would not be slow, nor did I say wireless is better than land line, or that wireless should replace fibre or DSL.  I did not say it wasn't wifi, or a hybrid wireless technology, I did not say Australia's system need this right now. 

 

What I did say (and insinuate) was that this is living proof that wireless technology is improving and can handle more network users than Australia currently has in mobile users.  Which is in stark contrast to many arguments laid out by lobby groups who want only FTTH and will argue to the detriment of research into other technologies.

[skywake]

 That has nothing to do with what I am talking about.  I am literally addressing the concept that wireless technology is not and is never going to be good enough due to congestion.  What you have proven with your data there and what this article shows us is that SK with 21 Million mobile users has internet speeds at 11Mb/s (or 6Mb/s slower than the current average total BB speed in Australia. ) and improving on that.  Which proves that the current (and forecast) Australian population is not enough to congest a wireless system and wireless technology is not a dead end technology.

 

I don't know what exactly you are trying to prove, but so far you seem to just be quoting me then posting random facts as if I have said something that is incorrect.

I don't see how South Korea getting to the point where they're installing WiFi APs in order to counter congestion supports your beliefs here. I think it's interesting that you're complaining about me posting "random facts" and then you go and compare South Korea's mobile speeds to Australia's fixed line BB speeds. Two entirely unrelated things. Especially given that South Korea's mobile speeds are about half of what the mobile speeds are here in Australia. All you've shown is that you're willing to pretend that congestion isn't a thing just because it doesn't fit into your political beliefs.

 

The fact is that mobile is not and is never going to be good enough due to congestion. It'll stagnate and slow as it has in South Korea even with their world class coverage. The only way they can counter it is to try and get people to stop using it. Get them to move to smaller and smaller cells. As I said before it's the equivalent of saying that you can "solve" the broadband problem with wireless by selling wireless access points. It's not the same thing.

[mr moose]

I don't see how South Korea getting to the point where they're installing WiFi APs in order to counter congestion supports your beliefs here. I think it's interesting that you're complaining about me posting "random facts" and then you go and compare South Korea's mobile speeds to Australia's fixed line BB speeds. Two entirely unrelated things. Especially given that South Korea's mobile speeds are about half of what the mobile speeds are here in Australia. All you've shown is that you're willing to pretend that congestion isn't a thing just because it doesn't fit into your political beliefs.

 

Not too sure what your point is anymore.  You aren't reading what I am saying, just picking up little bits and taking them out of context.

 

I don't really see the point in repeating myself.

[skywake]

Not too sure what your point is anymore.  You aren't reading what I am saying, just picking up little bits and taking them out of context.

My point is that congestion is an issue. The fact that South Korea are resorting to WiFi as a way to reduce the impact of it does not disprove that. It's a bit weird for you to say that it isn't an issue given my "random facts" showing that mobile speeds in South Korea are pretty average, likely due to congestion. And your suggestion that "lobby groups" are holding Australia back because of their belief that congestion is an issue? It's a load of BS. What are you suggesting should be done in Australia other than improving fixed line broadband? How could the tech being talked about here solve any of our problems?

 

We don't have a mobile broadband problem because we aren't hammering our towers as much as other countries. We also have fairly decent coverage. Infact in a lot of those sites that chart speeds we're on the top of the list for mobile. That said we probably would begin to fall quickly if we continue to neglect our fixed line networks encouraging people to do more on mobile. I'm not saying that we shouldn't invest in mobile and I don't think anyone in the whole country has. All that's being said is that the obsession with mobile to the detriment of improving fixed line infrastructure (via FTTH/FTTN) isn't helpful. Is that within context enough for you? Because I feel like you aren't reading what I'm saying and instead are just responding to what you want to hear.

[mr moose]

My point is that congestion is an issue. The fact that South Korea are resorting to WiFi as a way to reduce the impact of it does not disprove that. It's a bit weird for you to say that it isn't an issue given my "random facts" showing that mobile speeds in South Korea are pretty average, likely due to congestion. And your suggestion that "lobby groups" are holding Australia back because of their belief that congestion is an issue? It's a load of BS. What are you suggesting should be done in Australia other than improving fixed line broadband? How could the tech being talked about here solve any of our problems?

 

We don't have a mobile broadband problem because we aren't hammering our towers as much as other countries. We also have fairly decent coverage. Infact in a lot of those sites that chart speeds we're on the top of the list for mobile. That said we probably would begin to fall quickly if we continue to neglect our fixed line networks encouraging people to do more on mobile. I'm not saying that we shouldn't invest in mobile and I don't think anyone in the whole country has. All that's being said is that the obsession with mobile to the detriment of improving fixed line infrastructure (via FTTH/FTTN) isn't helpful. Is that within context enough for you? Because I feel like you aren't reading what I'm saying and instead are just responding to what you want to hear.

 

O.K,  The problem here is I am not talking about the quality of the SK mobile system in regard to how that quality relates to ours, What I am pointing out is that it currently supports 20+million users and maintains an average 10+Mb/s.  Which is something that many people believed was not possible because lobby groups where out telling everyone that mobile networks aren't capable of it let alone mobile networks augmented with wifi.  I remember one in particular was saying that people will not get better than 10Mbp/s if you have more than 100 people connected to any one tower.  I am having trouble finding that page again (I dare say since the average city based mobile connection is above that they have deleted the page) but it would have been nice to show the websites that I am commenting about. 

[1Scotty1]

Here I am, stucked with my pos DSL with 3mbps, any cable company's wanting to charge like $5k for installation. FML. I'd like to live in a universe where NASA's 91Gbps is available in my bathroom to say the least.

This is exactly my position also, 3mbps and I can be happy that I have internet on a rainy day

[skywake]

O.K,  The problem here is I am not talking about the quality of the SK mobile system in regard to how that quality relates to ours, What I am pointing out is that it currently supports 20+million users and maintains an average 10+Mb/s.  Which is something that many people believed was not possible because lobby groups where out telling everyone that mobile networks aren't capable of it let alone mobile networks augmented with wifi.  I remember one in particular was saying that people will not get better than 10Mbp/s if you have more than 100 people connected to any one tower.  I am having trouble finding that page again (I dare say since the average city based mobile connection is above that they have deleted the page) but it would have been nice to show the websites that I am commenting about. 

Well given a good 90% of Australia's internet traffic pre-Netflix was not on mobile? And we're sitting on 20Mbps or so for the average mobile link? There's definitely some truth in that. If you dumped all of that traffic onto the mobile network then the speed would tank and no amount of investing in mobile would save it short of doing what South Korea is doing here. There are limits to large scale wireless networks. There's also some truth in it by your own admission given that South Korea is only averaging around 10Mbps. None of this supports what you're trying to say here but for some reason you seem to think it does.

 

And again, the fact that South Korea has 20million people is irrelevant. The important factor for how wireless perform is the population density. Specifically the density of mobile traffic. It says something that in a country that has fast internet and likely a LOT of really fast free WiFi? They get still have by far one of the worst performing mobile networks in the developed world. Because of congestion. Augmenting it with WiFi is simply a way of forcing people off mobile it doesn't solve the fundamental limitations of the tech.

[Badger906]

and my local towns 3g is less than 0.5Mbps.. lol something tells me England is very very very far behind!

[mr moose]

Well given a good 90% of Australia's internet traffic pre-Netflix was not on mobile? And we're sitting on 20Mbps or so for the average mobile link? There's definitely some truth in that. If you dumped all of that traffic onto the mobile network then the speed would tank and no amount of investing in mobile would save it short of doing what South Korea is doing here. There are limits to large scale wireless networks. There's also some truth in it by your own admission given that South Korea is only averaging around 10Mbps. None of this supports what you're trying to say here but for some reason you seem to think it does.

 

And again, the fact that South Korea has 20million people is irrelevant. The important factor for how wireless perform is the population density. Specifically the density of mobile traffic. It says something that in a country that has fast internet and likely a LOT of really fast free WiFi? They get still have by far one of the worst performing mobile networks in the developed world. Because of congestion. Augmenting it with WiFi is simply a way of forcing people off mobile it doesn't solve the fundamental limitations of the tech.

 

How can you say it doesn't support what I am trying to say when it clearly does.  Again 20 million users in an area half the size of Victoria and they still manage 10+Mb/s.  On top of that there are still developments that will increase that speed.  All I am saying is that we were told that wasn't possible, and in addition to that, their were claims that due to radio spectrum limits it would not be physically capable of going faster,  yet contrary to those beliefs here it is being improved upon and even rolled out.  

 

You keep going back to wifi like it is not a legitimate part of this technology.  You can't exclude wifi augmentation in order to argue wireless technology has fundamental limitations. That's like saying 3.5Ghz and 5Ghz wireless tech is not wireless tech because it doesn't operate on the same 900 and 1800Mhz bands of GSM.

[skywake]

How can you say it doesn't support what I am trying to say when it clearly does.  Again 20 million users in an area half the size of Victoria and they still manage 10+Mb/s.  On top of that there are still developments that will increase that speed.  All I am saying is that we were told that wasn't possible, and in addition to that, their were claims that due to radio spectrum limits it would not be physically capable of going faster,  yet contrary to those beliefs here it is being improved upon and even rolled out.  

 

You keep going back to wifi like it is not a legitimate part of this technology.  You can't exclude wifi augmentation in order to argue wireless technology has fundamental limitations. That's like saying 3.5Ghz and 5Ghz wireless tech is not wireless tech because it doesn't operate on the same 900 and 1800Mhz bands of GSM.

I can say these things and for two reasons: Shannon's Theorem and the physical properties of radio waves. To explain the second part first basically there higher the wavelength the less range you can get out of it. It's why AM radio works all the way out into the bush and why 5Ghz WiFi struggles to go through a wall. It's the main reason why they let the public use 2.4 and 5Ghz in the first place. That's why I don't think WiFi counts because for it to work in Suburbia it'd virtually have to be installed ontop of people's houses. It can be done but what you're effectively saying is that mobile includes literally installing FTTN/FTTH and then putting an access point in people's houses. You can think that counts if you want, I don't think it counts.

 

Secondly there's Shannon's Theorem. Basically it says that there is a direct relationship to the amount of bits per second you can push through a media and the amount of Hz. Because there is only a certain amount of frequency that can be used for wireless there are limits to what it can handle. Even if we get to the point where we're using every single last drop of radio frequency we'll still fall short. Just to illustrate this point from 0-2Ghz is 2Ghz, which would be divided amongst every single person in your area. A fixed line technology like fibre generally isn't shared to the same degree and you get more frequency. They tend to use IR which goes from 300Ghz to around 400Thz or basically around 399Thz of frequency. 2Ghz vs 399700Ghz..... you can see why I'm saying one has serious limits to how far it can be pushed.

 

Or maybe you can't because politics and all that. Who knows.