Slashdot Mirror
5G Is On Its Way, But Approaching Slowly
New submitter CarlottaHapsburg writes: Ericsson and Nokia are leading the pack when it comes to developing 5G, but there are some major complicating factors: flexible architecture, functioning key standards, the U.S.'s lethargy in expanding mmWave, and even the definition of what 5G is and can do. It'll get here, but not soon: "5G networks are widely expected to start to roll out by 2020, with a few early debuts at such global events as the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. It is an ambitious deadline given what is expected from 5G -- no less than the disruption of the communications market in general, and telecom in particular, as well as related sectors such as test equipment." The FCC's Tom Wheeler says 5G is different for every manufacturer, like a Picasso painting. It should be an exciting five years of further developments and definitions — and, hopefully, American preparedness.
The bandwidth caps are so low that at 5G speeds you'd blow through your monthly allotment in seconds.
If the carriers want to impress anyone, then increase capacity enough that you can raise the caps or remove them entirely and offer unlimited wireless internet... at speeds you can handle.
5G? They're not really letting people enjoy 4G as it is.
And on top of that, you have google's announcement that they're going to be offering a Wifi cellphone that connects through the wifi when possible to make phone calls... where only cellular service even costs... ANYTHING. And they're contracting with all the cell phone carriers to provide coverage.
YEARLY fees for some people might drop as low as 5 dollars per YEAR under a system like that.
Now... you like your wireless internet? But how much do you like it? First off, you can't buy most smartphones from most carriers unless you have a data plan. They literally won't let you connect unless you sign up for data as well. And for those that say "well that's just because the data plan pays for the reduced price you paid for the phone."... Nope. Because they won't even let you bring your own phone or buy the phone outright and then not have the data plan. They don't care. You have a smartphone? You must have data.
I've currently got my MONTHLY cell phone bill down to about 8 dollars per month. The price of that was that I do not have data on my phone. Which you would think sucks, only people don't appreciate how ubiquitous free wifi is everywhere. When I want data, I turn on my wifi and connect to any number of free wifi hotspots that are everywhere. The only place it could suck would be on the road but my actual needs to connect to the internet on the freeway are pretty limited. I use a map program on my phone that stores the maps in internal memory. And I have plenty of space left over for music, movies, and games.
Don't get me wrong... internet would be nice... but what am I willing to pay for it? 20 dollars a month? Literally tripling my monthly rate... for that? No. I don't care that much.
I like paying 8 bucks a month. And I look forward to paying 5 bucks a year.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Why are they already promising us 5G? Wouldn't it be a good idea to actually work on roll out of a real 4G standard first? No, not the abomination that they are calling 4G now! I mean an offering that is real 4G according to the standard.
The FCC's Tom Wheeler says 5G is different for every manufacturer, like a Picasso painting.
I hope you liked vendor-locked phones before...
Just tell me how fast it is -- give me the stationary and moving data rates. With every other marketable metric I can think of, there's at least some idea of what to expect (DPI, storage capacity, home internet service speed, etc.)
sig: sauer
...there's nothing new here.
"5G networks are widely expected to start to roll out by 2020, with a few early debuts at such global events as the 2018 Winter Olympics"
Which means that there won't be consumer equipment able to use it in 2018. What's the point?
"The FCC's Tom Wheeler says 5G is different for every manufacturer"
Facepalm. Hell, double facepalm.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
why does my tv say its a 42" when its only 41.5" really wtf? is this just a us thing?
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
It's not possible for a single phone to support every possible LTE band simultaneously (read: no such cellular radio exists). As such, manufacturers have to pick the most common bands in a given region. It's not due to lack of standardization.
Aren't these the two Android holdouts? Who uses these things?
"Android holdouts" as in "not making Android phones"?
Ericsson doesn't make any phones. They used to, but put that into a joint venture with Sony, and that's now just Sony Mobile, who make Android phones. What they do make is infrastructure hardware for telephony, including mobile telephony.
Nokia doesn't make any phones, either. They used to, but they sold that to some company in the Seattle area, Microsomethingorother if I remember correctly. What they do make is infrastructure for mobile telephony.
Nokia do make mobile phones. At the moment they don't make small tablet computers with a GSM/CDMA voice stage like the Lumias, Samsung Androids or iPhones. They're called featurephones. You'll find them for sale in out-of-the-way stores like Amazon with options like dual-SIM, basic social networking support and the like for twenty or thirty bucks, no contract.
Measuring in inches?
Yes. That's largely only an American thing.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
When you're apping apps with the AIDE app, 5G helps you get your app up to version control and your QA crew faster.
Faster apps!
Battery life and wider coverage are more important (to me) than higher bandwidth.
that's like those people that go to football games and then bring a little TV with them so they can sit AT THE GAME and watch the game on a tiny portable tv.
It depends on what kind of football you're talking about. For a stop-and-go sport like baseball or gridiron football, it's helpful to look up and watch the game in real time, and then look down and watch the last play repeated from different angles. But I'll grant that it's not so helpful for a continuous sport like soccer or all but the last two minutes of a basketball game.
They're not calling it 4G; they're calling it 4G Lite. Unfortunately, the announcer keeps forgetting the i.
so are tvs advertised as 107cm actually only 105.73cm where you live or do you actually get what you pay for?
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
It's fast, I get unlimited bandwidth (when I'm not tethering). I download high def movies with it.
Since we just got 4G LTE in the US and it's awesome enough, I don't expect to see a 5g rollout for decades.
the wikipedia article makes it clear that 5g is pure vaporware. It's not even a specific technology it's the expectation that new technologies will be invented.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/co...
They're measured using the CEO's penis
Yep. "Real" 4G was supposed to provide mobile download speeds up to 100 Mb/sec, and none of the US cellular providers have come close to actually providing that speed.
Nokia do make mobile phones.
By this, do you mean "the corporation named Nokia manufactures, in addition to mobile telephony infrastructure equipment, mobile phones", or "there are mobile phones that happen to be sold by Nokia", or "the corporation named Nokia makes mobile phones that they sell"?
If the former, are you referring to the phones made by Nokia's Indian manufacturing facilities? Those were one of the parts of the Devices and Services business not sold to Microsoft, as part of the deal selling most of that business to Microsoft, due to them being "subject to an asset freeze by the Indian tax authorities as a result of ongoing tax proceedings"? If so, that press release says that Nokia will use them to "produce mobile devices for Microsoft", so that they're Nokia-made but not Nokia-sold. I.e., Nokia is just acting as a contract manufacturer for Microsoft here, so they make phones in the same sense that, say, Foxconn makes phones; it's not clear that they have a long-term interest in being in the featurephone business. (Yes, I am familiar with the term "featurephone".)
Microsoft appear, at least for the short term, to still be interested in making featurephones, so, if, as, and when the tax issues are resolved, Nokia may sell the Indian facilities to Microsoft as well, finishing the job of getting rid of their mobile phone handset business.
There are the Asha model Nokia phones which are intended for the Indian market but there are also other cheap featurephones like the 105, 120 etc. which are sold here in the UK from Amazon and other sources either SIM-free or locked to carriers as PAYG. They are branded Nokia and, I presume, built by them.
The Lumia smartphones are being rebranded as MS devices with the Nokia name being deprecated although a lot of sales listings still refers to them as Nokia Lumia.
The rumours suggest Nokia want to get (back) into smartphones after the non-compete agreement with MS runs out in 2016. We'll see.
I don't know if they have the authority, but the FCC should mandate carrier level interoperability.
There are the Asha model Nokia phones which are intended for the Indian market but there are also other cheap featurephones like the 105, 120 etc. which are sold here in the UK from Amazon and other sources either SIM-free or locked to carriers as PAYG. They are branded Nokia and, I presume, built by them.
"Sold here in the UK" does not necessarily imply "not built in India". The current 105 is another fine Microsoft product. I suspect it's built by Nokia at the aforementioned Indian facility; if not, it's probably built by Microsoft at one of the factories that Nokia did sell them.
Maybe I'm paranoid, but since the WHO has declared even non-ionizing radiation as a "possible human carcinogen"...
Here's your problem. The WHO declaring something doesn't make it true.
Also, the WHO thing you're looking at doesn't say what you think it does.