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UK and Germany To Collaborate On 5G

Posted by samzenpus on from the working-it-out dept.

First time accepted submitter Niranjan Nallapothula writes in with news of an agreement between the UK and Germany to develop 5G technology, as well as boost momentum for the Internet of Things. "Britain and Germany will team up to work on developing the next super-fast mobile network, 5G, United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron told the opening of the world's biggest high-tech fair. Cameron said the initiative is one of three areas that he wants Britain and Germany to collaborate on to "pool ideas, share data, innovate, and to lead on the next big ideas" in what he dubbed as being 'a world on fast forward.'"

54 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. 5? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Shouldn't we concentrate on developing 4G first?

    1. Re:5? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      It's one louder

    2. Re:5? by kthreadd · · Score: 1

      Shouldn't we concentrate on developing 4G first?

      Why? It's been in deployment since 2009. 5G is the next natural step.

    3. Re:5? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      He's referring to the actual 4G standards, which still have not been met anywhere. The lax 4G advertising standard was accepted because every cell provider unanimously agreed that the existent 4G standards were impossible.

      This will just end up another advertising standard, I doubt there will be any change in speed beyond what you can expect with a slightly better data stream compression (which will use up more battery life to decode).

    4. Re:5? by Carewolf · · Score: 4, Insightful

      4G is LTE. What some carriers in the US did was sell HSDPA as 4G, but in Europe that has mostly been advertised as 3.5G.

    5. Re:5? by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      Yup, I'm on a 3G contract (specifically not 4G) and I can get HSDPA, so its definitely not considered 4G here.

    6. Re:5? by gdr · · Score: 1

      LTE-A is the 4G we were promised. LTE is "ITU-R folded to the network operators 4G" that we currently have.

    7. Re:5? by Existential+Wombat · · Score: 1

      It's one louder

      I’m waiting for 11G.

    8. Re:5? by mjwx · · Score: 1

      4G is LTE. What some carriers in the US did was sell HSDPA as 4G, but in Europe that has mostly been advertised as 3.5G.

      LTE is 3.9G.

      What the carriers did was declare it 4G. LTE Advanced was going to be the first 4th Generation mobile technolgy but thanks to marketers co-opting the term, the generation numbers are now meaningless. I may as well announce my farts now produce 6G speed. It would be just as accurate.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  2. Spectrum is what we will need for 5G by bobbied · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I suppose there is always a place for more bandwidth, but the limiting factor is going to be spectrum space here. 5G is most likely going to increase bandwidth performance, but at what cost? Using 4G you can stream HD video now, what more do we actually need? For mobile devices, I'm not so sure there is much more necessary.

    As always, the issue really is spectrum space. Where will it come from *this* time? Cell spectrum is generally well used (at least in urban areas) so there will be a huge push to find something else. Problem is that all the available spectrum is way up there, where solid state devices start having serious design issues and the power required is huge. You thought your 4G phone battery died quick...

    Research is great, I'm just not thinking there is much practical that will come of this.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    1. Re:Spectrum is what we will need for 5G by Chrisq · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I suppose there is always a place for more bandwidth, but the limiting factor is going to be spectrum space here. 5G is most likely going to increase bandwidth performance, but at what cost? Using 4G you can stream HD video now, what more do we actually need? For mobile devices, I'm not so sure there is much more necessary.

      As always, the issue really is spectrum space. Where will it come from *this* time? Cell spectrum is generally well used (at least in urban areas) so there will be a huge push to find something else. Problem is that all the available spectrum is way up there, where solid state devices start having serious design issues and the power required is huge. You thought your 4G phone battery died quick...

      Research is great, I'm just not thinking there is much practical that will come of this.

      Well with 4G you can use your monthly data cap in five minutes. Many people look forward to the time when it will only take seconds.

    2. Re:Spectrum is what we will need for 5G by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      Especially on batteries, you hit diminishing returns pretty quickly as you increase data speed for any single device(a few oddballs with better power supplies and historical options that basically came down to 'bring an entire damn satellite uplink truck' probably do want realtime 4K streaming back to the studio...)

      However, if the techniques used are suitably clever, technology that can be used to demonstrate impressive-but-irrelevant peak speeds is likely also of use to provide endurable speeds to ever more devices in the same area(and may specifically include, in addition to pure advances in signal-wrangling, more explicit definition and standardization of latency critical endpoints(voice mostly) vs. latency sensitive (cellular data cards) and lowest-cost latency insensitive (embedded sensor widgets dumping a chunk of data to HQ)).

    3. Re:Spectrum is what we will need for 5G by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      God forbid you Google it.

      "If 5G appears, and reflects these prognoses, the major difference from a user point of view between 4G and 5G techniques must be something else than increased peak bit rate; for example higher number of simultaneously connected devices, higher system spectral efficiency (data volume per area unit), lower battery consumption, lower outage probability (better coverage), high bit rates in larger portions of the coverage area, lower latencies, higher number of supported devices, lower infrastructure deployment costs, higher versatility and scalability or higher reliability of communications. Those are the objectives in several of the research papers and projects below."

      [Wikipedia]

      Since anyone in a major city is actually very often unable to stream HD video, or even use Google Maps with reasonable latency, the per-user performance on heavily subscribed masts is going to be a pretty important factor.

    4. Re:Spectrum is what we will need for 5G by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      > Research is great, I'm just not thinking there is much practical that will come of this.

      I have a suspicion this is not about mobile phones. The german goverment has plans to deliver "Broadband" to the largets part of the population. But they shy away from the cost of digging trenches for cables for every little town and village in rural areas and then also connect each house with fibre or at least awesome-quality copper.
      Therefore, I assume they plan on doing it via mobile technology and hope they can one day just attach the new 5G technology to existing mobile phone masts and people then can attach some receiver to their PCs (and/or WLAN access points) and therefore we reach a coverage of 90+% of the population with what they will call "broadband" (10+ to maybe 100+ Mbit per user).

      I have no idea that is the plan but it sounds like a decent idea. Even if it is not what they plan it's still something very practical might from this (yes, the ping won't be that good for playing Battlefield or whatever online, but it'd be a very decent downstream).

    5. Re:Spectrum is what we will need for 5G by Kokuyo · · Score: 1

      What is this "monthly data cap" of which you're speaking?

    6. Re:Spectrum is what we will need for 5G by skids · · Score: 1

      God forbid you Google it

      God forbid you google "5G wireless" and not know the difference between the cellular definition of 5G and WiFi 5GHz, often referred to as 5G.

      Saw that namespace collision coming a mile away. It's going to be one of those things that causes confusion with PHBs for the next decade. They should have added another letter or something e.g. 5GX.

      --
      Someone had to do it.
    7. Re:Spectrum is what we will need for 5G by mlts · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't mind seeing 5G add additional security. Since it would likely require a new type of SIM card, now is the time to a couple security features:

      1: Ability to store data on a SIM card in a secure manner. For storing Google Authenticator info, PGP/gpg private keys, tetetc... a SIM card would be perfect because it has protection against brute force built in (PIN/PUK). If changing phones, I'd not have to worry about backing up or generating new authenticator codes.

      2: Similar to #1, except allow SD-like card storage. Since a lot of devices do not have a MicroSD card, a SIM that also functions as a SDxD card can come in handy as secondary storage.

    8. Re:Spectrum is what we will need for 5G by Aryden · · Score: 1

      Because, you know, we never ever actually create new things that are larger and need more bandwidth to transfer. re: standard definition vs high definition. If the market creates a capability, there will be someone or something that will seek to fill that capability.

    9. Re:Spectrum is what we will need for 5G by bobbied · · Score: 1

      Because, you know, we never ever actually create new things that are larger and need more bandwidth to transfer. re: standard definition vs high definition. If the market creates a capability, there will be someone or something that will seek to fill that capability.

      You can stream HD video now over 4G, how much more bandwidth can you sell and for what?

      Latency improvements might be a good thing, but by my reading 5G is targeting 100X the bandwidth of 4G. Even if they manage 10X, I'm here to tell you that they are going to have to find spectrum space for this. Physics require it. The only spectrum available that makes sense is higher frequencies than where we are now with cell phones. But the reason we don't use this spectrum now is because solid state devices that work at these frequencies are incredibly difficult to engineer (and thus produce) and suffer from huge power requirements.

      Mobile devices just *don't* have that much of a need for more bandwidth beyond an HD video stream. It's a hand held device running on battery power. What we need is low power consumption and enough bandwidth to do what you need. I don't see 5G's targets making much progress in the practical world.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    10. Re:Spectrum is what we will need for 5G by Aryden · · Score: 1

      but again, we aren't looking at individual devices needing that much bandwidth, we're looking at a tower piping out the bandwidth to be shared by 100s if not 1000s of users. But then, we can also look at the business application here where instead of running lines into a business, you can get 5g physical receivers.

    11. Re:Spectrum is what we will need for 5G by currently_awake · · Score: 1

      If you use directional "point to point" radio communications then bandwidth isn't shared, so everyone can use as much as they want. It's only because of our wasteful omnidirectional radio usage that we've got spectrum shortages. You can have a hundred road side billboards operating at the same time in the same area on the same frequency (visible) without issues.

    12. Re:Spectrum is what we will need for 5G by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      While it is "technically" possible, chances are, you (yes you) cannot. Congestion, distance from Cell Tower, slow network/choke points etc.

      I'm a Network administrator and we run (currently) a 5000 node network across a Gig link, and only average something like 25% network saturation, during PEAK hours. While we have spike traffic that hits the max bandwidth, they are very very temporary. Chances are, you'll never hit a server capable of filling your gig link.

      The closest thing I've seen filling the link is a misconfigured Torrent Server. And it was not even close to filling the whole link.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    13. Re:Spectrum is what we will need for 5G by bobbied · · Score: 1

      For ground based devices that don't move, fiber is cheaper and faster.

      Trust me on this, 5G is largely useless if the only point is bandwidth... Not saying they won't try to sell it, but the bandwidth required for 10X 4G will put you into spectrum you simply cannot afford in mobile devices due to power budgets and semiconductor costs.

      So it's really about the spectrum space being unavailable and what they can get being expensive to use.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    14. Re:Spectrum is what we will need for 5G by bobbied · · Score: 1

      I beg to differ. We have highly directional antennas being used in urban areas now and cell sizes that are getting pretty small around congested areas. So we are already doing what you say will fix this. Putting in more cell towers and antennas does help, but in urban areas where 5G would likely be put first is already subdivided pretty small.

      But when you up the data rates, you have to increase the bandwidth and/or power. Physics demands it. So if you are already maxing out your licensed spectrum doing 4G (and they are) you will need more spectrum. Then if you consider the fact that 4G devices will need to be serviced too while 5G is rolled out, you will see that it's not going to work to do what you say. (Not to mention that RF exposure safety limits may start being a problem here too..)

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    15. Re:Spectrum is what we will need for 5G by Smerta · · Score: 1

      Are you talking about something like the Artemis pCell system?

      Their claim is that every device essentially gets its own 5/10/20 MHz of spectrum. Will be interesting to see if it actually works as well as it's being hyped.

    16. Re:Spectrum is what we will need for 5G by skids · · Score: 1

      5GHz WiFi should *never* have been called 5G by anyone

      But it was, and not because of marketing, just because it was convenient.

      The people writing mobile wifi standards should never have used "G" in the first place. It's a bullshit marketing name no matter which camp uses it.
      It stands for "Generation" without even telling you what its a generation of. It's a particularly retarded form of devolutionary e-bonics.

      5G for mobile phone data connections will win this naming war.

      That we can agree on. They like to spend lots of money on advertisements, and it will work, because nobody cares that much about defending it for 5GHz. Not even me, really.

      --
      Someone had to do it.
  3. Ethernet syndrome by spectrokid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For a cabled connection to your desktop, GB ethernet is probably more than you will ever need. How many HD movies can you see at the same time anyway? Is 5G not going to hit the same barrier? Sure there will be some niche applications, but John Doe doesn't need to be able to download an entire movie in 10 seconds. He definitely doesn't need to be able to use his "unlimited data" for a whole month in under a minute.

    --

    10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then

    1. Re:Ethernet syndrome by Zuriel · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but wireless spectrum gets shared between users. You don't need to download an entire movie in 10 seconds, but what about streaming bluray quality video to 100 people from a single cell tower in the city?

    2. Re:Ethernet syndrome by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sure there will be some niche applications,

      Feeding the last mile is not a niche application.

      In cities, it's reasonable to wire everyone up. In bumfuck, not so much. I live in bumfuck. I have three ISP options available to me, all of the WISPs. All of them crap. I am now on the one which is least crap. A notable percentage of Americans are in the same boat, or one which is indistinguishable from a distance. Population density is low enough and sectored antennas directional enough for wireless to be a last-mile solution for the USA.

      On the other hand, it'll still require microcells...

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Ethernet syndrome by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      The one major difference between (contemporary) ethernet and wireless scenarios is that, now that switches have pretty much 100% replaced hubs, 'shared media' issues tend to occur only between a computer and its switch, so there really isn't as much pressure for research on elegant coexistence. Yeah, a bit of QoS algorithm tweaking; but 'How can we allow 1Gb, 100Mb, 10Mb, and 4800bps transmissions to coexist on a single hub and set of cables?' just isn't a relevant question. Everybody hates shared media, and switching got cheap, so we just skipped it.

      With wireless, ye olde luminiferous aether is all you get, barring waveguides which are unlikely to be a big hit in the mobile device market. It isn't so much that Joe User's cellphone needs to be able to download super l33t fast, it's that there is a strong incentive to wring as much total bandwidth out of the spectrum available as we possibly can, not primarily to support silly stunts by single devices; but to get more devices with moderate performance running in the same area without falling in a screaming heap.

    4. Re:Ethernet syndrome by dkf · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For a cabled connection to your desktop, GB ethernet is probably more than you will ever need.

      No, it's just more than you can currently envisage using. What about streaming 3D interactive entertainment? The bandwidth requirements of such things are rather high, beyond what is practical now (and we also don't have all the other hardware required yet) but it's still reasonable to consider how to provide that.

      Expanding capacity has an additional benefit in urban areas: sharing of capacity between multiple users becomes easier. Maybe you live out in the sticks, but lots of people don't, and lots of them want fast internet.

      --
      "Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
    5. Re:Ethernet syndrome by jittles · · Score: 1

      For a cabled connection to your desktop, GB ethernet is probably more than you will ever need. How many HD movies can you see at the same time anyway? Is 5G not going to hit the same barrier? Sure there will be some niche applications, but John Doe doesn't need to be able to download an entire movie in 10 seconds. He definitely doesn't need to be able to use his "unlimited data" for a whole month in under a minute.

      Home Ethernet will be fast enough when it can keep up with my 10 disk RAID 0. I may not transfer large volumes of data over my Ethernet on a regular basis, but when I do, I want it done ASAP.

    6. Re:Ethernet syndrome by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      "GB ethernet is probably more than you will ever need. "

      I've heard this line before. On 10MB, 100MB, and now 1000MB connections. Yeah, we'll be filling int 10GB networks soon enough. If you build it, they will fill it.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  4. Re:dont do it.... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Informative

    Germany would be better off going it alone, unless they want NSA and GCHQ fingerprints all over it.

    They probably do want NSA fingerprints all over it. You don't think that they let us run the "Dagger Complex" right there in the open because they are still just that terrified of the commies, or their economy is desperately dependent on our foreign aid or something?

  5. Mod parent down! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Mod parent down, for he is shortsighted and hates technology. Bigot!

    1. Re:Mod parent down! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Absolutely! If we only did things based on "need", life would blow.

  6. True innovators on Slashdot... by frnic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It seems a significant number of the readers here would rather say "64kb is all the memory anyone will ever need", because they are too lazy to try and think rather than just knock any and every innovation mentioned on Slashdot.

    As far as 5G - "why" the answer is use (consumption) will always expand to fill capacity. The question is not WHY the question that needs to be answered is how can we put that additional capacity to use.

    1. Re:True innovators on Slashdot... by ledow · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Why" should we invest in a technology that we don't know "how" to put to use?

      And, believe me, it's us that are investing in it. My mobile service provider keeps telling me about 4G. Says it's wonderful. Say's I'm ready to go. Except I don't have a 4G handset and have no intention of really getting one. Because it costs a lot more and does nothing that mine doesn't already do, just slightly faster (in theory). Coverage isn't there. Cost is too much (still measured in fucking megabytes). No real advantage over 3G at the moment.

      So my question is not "how" at all - I can name a million ways we *could* use 5G. Like I could name a million ways we *could* use 4G. Or 3G. Or EDGE, GPRS or any number of other technologies before it. Fact is, we still don't really do them.

      The problem is not "how". My question is "why". Why would I touch something that's likely to be commercially exploited to the hilt to my disadvantage and which I, honestly, hardly ever use?

      Sure it's cool to check GMail on the go. I've RDP'd in and fixed servers from a smartphone. It's useful. But it's not a killer application of the technology because I've been able to do that (maybe not quite so fast) since the GPRS days.

      And yes, you "can" video-stream etc. now Fact is, it all costs money and not everyone will pay you to watch Gravity in 4K on their 2" mobile screen (especially not if they're already paying £40 a month for 4G, and you want more for 5G to recoup your investment costs).

      Why deploy a technology "just because" it's supposed-progress? Isn't that what left us with all kinds of dead-end hardware and initiatives / technologies that never really took off (3DTV)? Why not use what we've got and get the most out of even 3G as it stands (because, ultimately, we certainly don't do that in the UK)?

      Let's use what we have to its limits, and be clever, and get better value out of those BILLIONS of pounds worth of 3G/4G licenses before we start jumping on the 5G bandwagon "just because". Hell, I'd infinitely rather have 3G everywhere at the max capable speed (which is surprisingly high!) than even a single base station with 5G.

      And if consumption expands to fill capacity, the opposite is true - we will squeeze every byte we can out of technologies if they are the upper limit.

    2. Re:True innovators on Slashdot... by Pascoea · · Score: 1

      No real advantage over 3G at the moment.

      Should I get off your lawn now, or can I wait till later?

      Hell, I'd infinitely rather have 3G everywhere at the max capable speed (which is surprisingly high!) than even a single base station with 5G.

      Replace 3G in this sentence with 4G and I'd be happy to agree with you. In my experience 3G wasn't fast enough. It wasn't fast enough when they first turned it on, it wasn't fast enough when they started replacing it with LTE.

    3. Re:True innovators on Slashdot... by Shatrat · · Score: 1

      still measured in fucking megabytes

      Storage is measured in megabytes, network is measured in megabits/second. In real-world usage mbps still plenty for most activities, assuming you are actually getting it. 10mbps is enough for an office full of people to use for email, web, voip, et cetera without noticing any issues. The problem is oversubscription of the wireless network so that although you can theoretically get hundreds of mbps, you are actually getting hundreds of kbps, and then only in bursts.

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    4. Re:True innovators on Slashdot... by ledow · · Score: 1

      Obviously don't know that UK mobile providers put a data cap on - in Megabytes Per Month.

      You can have all the speed in the world, but it's useless if you can go over your limit (especially if you go to another European country) in a matter of seconds.

    5. Re:True innovators on Slashdot... by Shatrat · · Score: 1

      Obviously you don't know that all retail services measure caps in megabytes and that they have nothing at all to do with technology. It's like complaining about other people having fast cars because you live on a dirt road.

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  7. Too soon! by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    Did you have to say "collaborate"?

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  8. We need HD Voice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Great, so I can have 4K video instead of wimpy 1080p, but voice calls will still be barely intelligible.

  9. Re:Not fast forward. by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 2

    I shall dub this network "The world barely keeping up with demand."

    More like "demand barely keeping up with offering".

    The truth is, consumers don't want to upgrade to the latest and greatest shit every 6 months in an economic slump.

    It's like super high definition TV or Blue-Ray discs: people aren't finished investing in the previous generation technology that a new one comes along. Not to mention, the contents - movies and TV shows - are still shit, and people aren't interested in high definition shit anymore than they want low def shit.

    In the case of 4G - and now 5G - it's even worse, because the price of data traffic over these networks hasn't come down nearly as fast as the available bandwidth has increased: it still costs a testicle per gigabyte, only with 4G, you lose a testicle in seconds instead of minutes. No thanks.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  10. Priortize latency and power consumption by richtopia · · Score: 1

    By all means increase speed, however if gains can be made on power consumption, connection latency, call clarity, cost of implementation, ect. I would suspect these items would be more beneficial than raw speed increases. Particularly with the internet of things concept, if it can cost pennies and miliamps to connect your toaster to the internet wirelessly then lets connect everything.

  11. Re:If they could do for 5G what they promised for by alex67500 · · Score: 1

    Who are they?

  12. ahem 5g by beefoot · · Score: 1

    My amazing 4G implemented by the telco here got me 10-20mbps. 5G? I can assure you my telco's 5G will have the speed of 15-25mbps.

  13. Re:If they could do for 5G what they promised for by gsslay · · Score: 1

    Them there.

  14. Cameron's Spectrum Auction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    David Cameron couldn't give a shit about 5G.

    All he cares about is that sweet, sweet spectrum auction money for his government to spend.

  15. Huh by fisted · · Score: 1

    Wasn't 4G considered "Long Term Evolution"? What a crap. *strokes his GSM phone*

    --
    CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
  16. By then Sprint will be up to smoke signals by gelfling · · Score: 1

    I mean seriously, compared to the rest of the world, we in the US may as well be reading about quantum teleportation.

  17. Lol by rockingsindi · · Score: 1

    I wasn't aware that we have proper 4G service too. And we r talking about 5G Wow...

  18. Re:Not fast forward. by currently_awake · · Score: 1

    If they don't come out with something new, then the old stuff becomes a cheap commodity. Their business plan requires them to be selling a premium product so we must have a new standard. Also I doubt they will upgrade their network to handle the extra capacity of the towers, they'll just kick off the highest 10% data hogs like they do now.