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Samsung Testing 5G Phones With 1gbps Download Speed
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."
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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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.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
The second article notes that the 5G tests are being conducted on the 28GHz Ka microwave band. They also note that they're using a 64 element antenna array.
While those upper microwave bands are great in that you can get very wide channels (possibly hundreds of megahertz wide), their downfall is that they are incredibly line of sight restricted. This is compounded by significant atmospheric absorption. That's why many broadcasters on the band tend to use highly directional antennas. For omnidirectional use, you're going to have to deploy a lot of picocells.
Also for their tests, are they using the large number of antennas for MIMO beamforming (additive RF amplification), MIMO spacial multiplexing (parallel RF feeds slightly out of phase of each other) or old fashioned directional transmission (or a combi of all three?). How much additional cost is that? Even with fractal antennas on short wavelengths, how many of them can you fit in a handset?
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
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.
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.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
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.
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.
Then perhaps you should stop reading slashdot, and instead go to amazon.com and newegg.com?
Quite. To quote Monty Python ( and show my age) " ...... as long as you realise that "up to" clearly includes the number zero"
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
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yupana
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
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 sell those bigger packages, even though with constant 24/7 downloading it could take a half-year or more to use up 100gb.
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!?
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 side.
I have the hotspot to connect my WiFi tablet and laptop when I'm out on the road or in meetings, especially meetings where the client has a secured wifi and either doesn't know the password or can't grant guest access, etc..
I mean hell, we have a 100MB/s line into our office and we are only tapping a fraction of that on a daily basis.
So 1Gb/s sounds cool, but device and access speed now isn't my problem. Bandwidth cap is the problem.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Of you could move to South Korea and have it now...
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain