Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

5G Network Speed Defined As 20 Gbps By the International Telecommunication Union

Posted by timothy on from the twenty-twenty's-only-average dept.

An anonymous reader writes with a report at Mobipicker (linking to a Korea Times story) that a 12-member committee from the International Telecommunication Union has hashed out a formal definition of the speed requirements for 5G mobile networking; the result has been designated IMT-2020, and it specifies that 5G networks should provide data speeds of up to 20Gbps -- 20 times faster than 4G. From the Korea Times story: The 5G network will also have a capacity to provide more than 100 megabits-per-second average data transmission to over one million Internet of Things devices within 1 square kilometer. Video content services, including ones that use holography technology, will also be available thanks to the expanded data transmit capacity, the ministry said. ... The union also decided to target commercializing the 5G network worldwide by 2020. To do so, it will start receiving applications for technology which can be candidates to become the standard for the new network. Consequently, the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games will be the world's first international event to showcase and demonstrate 5G technology.

59 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. caps by Lehk228 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    so, fast enough to exhaust my data plan in 100ms.

    --
    Snowden and Manning are heroes.
    1. Re:caps by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 1

      By the way, is it just me, or does Slashdot's newly modified layout make it impossible for everybody else to read the end of the headline as well?

    2. Re:caps by glsunder · · Score: 1

      It does if you're zoomed in with chrome.

    3. Re:caps by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 1

      I'm at the normal zoom level. Same with IE and Firefox where it also does it.

    4. Re:caps by Krojack · · Score: 1

      Appears fine to me...

    5. Re:caps by Lehk228 · · Score: 1

      i have noscript blocking almost everything, i have not seen such an effect

      --
      Snowden and Manning are heroes.
  2. So here in the USA by burtosis · · Score: 2

    5g will actually be around 2-3Gbps in every day use then. I wonder when companies in the USA will pull their heads outta their asses and we will have an infrastructure nearly as good as the top half of developed countries.

    1. Re:So here in the USA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I don't want 2-3Gps. I have to pay $10 per gigabyte. I don't want to lose thousands of dollars a few minutes of some app going haywire.

    2. Re:So here in the USA by geekmux · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't want 2-3Gps. I have to pay $10 per gigabyte. I don't want to lose thousands of dollars a few minutes of some app going haywire.

      Well, thank you for pointing out the two main issues here. Greedy providers that abuse caps for revenue, and apps that suck your data plan dry not by going "haywire" but by design.

      This is also why competition is absolutely essential, and enough of it. Otherwise, you merely end up with a price fixing consortium hell-bent on raping every consumer.

    3. Re:So here in the USA by flargleblarg · · Score: 1

      Well, thank you for pointing out the two main issues here. Greedy providers that abuse caps for revenue, and apps that suck your data plan dry not by going "haywire" but by design.

      The 5G Network Speed Funding Bill is passed. The system goes online August 4, 2015. Human decisions are removed from strategic communications. 5G begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Easter time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

    4. Re:So here in the USA by Bengie · · Score: 1

      Your cellphone would go dead is no time at full rate. The main benefit is your phone can do quick bursts of wifi and conserve battery life by going back into a low power state quickly.

    5. Re:So here in the USA by davester666 · · Score: 1

      Hm, my carrier updated their software so 5G is displayed on my phone...

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    6. Re:So here in the USA by Forbman · · Score: 1

      Well, look at Verizon. Sure, not exactly the same as Verizon Wireless, but bear with me.
      They started building out FiOS. Putting money where their mouth is.
      But some MBA along the line figures that the expected ROI on it is beyond some arbitrary, magic number, and the FiOS rollout just stops.
      Then, Verizon sells most of FiOS to Frontier. Is Frontier building out any more FiOS? Not in the area I live in.
      At least in Beaverton, OR, you have neighborhoods or blocks with FiOS, and right across the street, nada. Lucky to have Comcast service of awesome.

    7. Re:So here in the USA by mgcarley · · Score: 1

      2-3gbps? Dream on.

      4G was *supposed* to be 1gbit/s and average speeds are 20-40mbit/s if you're lucky.

      Using similar math, I'd expect maybe 1gbit/s by the time marketing gets done with it and 500mbit/s in real life.

      --
      Founder & COO, Hayai India (hayai.in) / USA (hayaibroadband.com) // t: @mgcarley
    8. Re:So here in the USA by eWarz · · Score: 1

      "Then, Verizon sells most of FiOS to Frontier" umm, no. "Most of FIOS" is in the northeast. Verizon never did have a substantial deployment out west. Verizon still owns the majority of the FIOS network that they built.

  3. Up to by asylumx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    it specifies that 5G networks should provide data speeds of up to 20Gbps -- 20 times faster than 4G

    I just get so sick of marketing speak. "Up to" could mean anything here -- setting an upper limit of 20gbps is useless. Tell me what the average speed I can expect will be, at least then I can have some idea what I'll actually get.

    1. Re:Up to by v1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "up to", that means "as long as our system is theoretically capable of 20gps, we can give you 1gbps without breaking any of the rules. enjoy your bits through our straw!"

      That's one thing I'd change if I had the authority... new consumer protection law... "when advertising, you're not allowed to state any maximum possible customer value without also stating the minimum possible value using equal authority"

      --
      I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
    2. Re:Up to by guruevi · · Score: 1

      100kbps before you're throttled, 9600bps afterwards?

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    3. Re:Up to by asylumx · · Score: 1

      That would be fine with me, too! Anything that can help me determine what to actually expect.

  4. "Up To..." by JohnPerkins · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Up To" is a weasel word/expression. It doesn't actually mean anything, or at least nothing useful to the consumer. It means marketing can claim pretty much whatever they like. I can have a store with thousands of items, with a single item that is 90% off, and I can truthfully say that my products are "up to 90% off." A carrier can offer terrible data speed accept for a customer standing right next to one of their towers and marketing can still truthfully say "up to 20 Gbps." It's only meaningful/useful if it's "At Least..." instead of "Up To..."

    But then a competitor would only have to find one place, anywhere, just on the outer edge of a carrier's range, where the data connection is intermittent, dipping under 20 Gbps, then the competitor could show that the carrier does not offer at least 20 Gbps.

    1. Re:"Up To..." by TeknoHog · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "Up To" is a weasel word/expression. It doesn't actually mean anything, or at least nothing useful to the consumer.

      To a mathematician, knowing that something is "up to" a number is very valuable. Not only does it guarantee that a value is bounded, it also gives an explicit upper bound. In this case, when the rate of bits per second is bounded, we know that the amount of data as a function of time is Lipschitz continuous, which enables all kinds of cool theora to be applied. So while it may not seem much to a mere mortal consumer, mathematicians all over the world are overjoyed.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    2. Re:"Up To..." by sjames · · Score: 1

      To the consumer, knowing that the monthly bill is bounded would be nice, but that, apparently, has no meaningful upper limit.

    3. Re:"Up To..." by guruevi · · Score: 1

      Also, 20Gbps seems to be an aggregate of all connections in a given geographical area. It is just the amount of bandwidth the radio waves make available before all the demux and filtering has been done. No way in hell, anyone in the US is going to outfit a cell tower with a 1Gbps connection, let alone 10 or 20.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  5. and I define by rossdee · · Score: 1

    5G as accelerating at 19.0303 metres per second per second

  6. Up to 20Gbps by bistromath007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, it's not a fucking requirement then, is it? A standard needs to specify a MINIMUM.

    1. Re:Up to 20Gbps by SumDog · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well minimum could be 0 if the conditions are bad. Usually the maximum include "ideal conditions" which may or may not be defined.

      To set a minimum, you need to set a range, conditions and if the devices are in line of sight....plus probably other things I'm missing.

    2. Re:Up to 20Gbps by del_diablo · · Score: 1

      But thats wrong.
      Assuming you get signal on 5G, what would the MINIMUM bandwith you get be?
      Thats important information, because otherwise we might as well build long 2G for phones.

    3. Re:Up to 20Gbps by mgcarley · · Score: 1

      IMHO this is the wrong type of thinking. Setting minimums doesn't give anything to aspire to, it doesn't give anyone any incentive to push the technology to what it can do.

      Instead providers focus on providing "good enough to meet the minimum".

      And this doesn't just apply to the US.

      --
      Founder & COO, Hayai India (hayai.in) / USA (hayaibroadband.com) // t: @mgcarley
  7. What Protocols? by SumDog · · Score: 1

    So what protocols at this point are even candidates?

  8. Theora is like MPEG-4 ASP (DivX) by tepples · · Score: 1

    enables all kinds of cool theora to be applied.

    I'd prefer cooler vp8 or even cooler vp9 because they soundly beat theora in rate/distortion.

    (Did you mean "theorems"?)

    1. Re:Theora is like MPEG-4 ASP (DivX) by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      I'd prefer cooler vp8 or even cooler vp9 because they soundly beat theora in rate/distortion.

      (Did you mean "theorems"?)

      I'm aware of the Theora codec. "Theora" is also a fancy Latin-like plural for "theorem", though probably not technically correct in English (cf. virus/viri).

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  9. 4G x 5G = 20Gbps by hduff · · Score: 3, Funny

    Simple maths, really.

    --
    "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
    1. Re:4G x 5G = 20Gbps by Archimonde · · Score: 2

      Should't that be 20G^2 ?;)

      --
      Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
  10. They think they will have it working by 2020? by sims+2 · · Score: 2

    Bwahahahaaha no freaking way they get this figured out in 5 years. my entire town only has about 2gbps of backhaul to it

    the fiber isp here offering 50/50mbps service only has a 500mbps link to the net

    --
    Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    1. Re:They think they will have it working by 2020? by msauve · · Score: 1

      "my entire town only has about 2gbps of backhaul to it" - sims 2

      Dear Sims 2,
      Maybe you can get the player who's running your town to buy an expansion pack which allows more bandwidth.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    2. Re:They think they will have it working by 2020? by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      Thank you for that i always thought my nick would get lots of comments on it but thats only the second time anyone has ever mentioned it and ive been using it online since 2002.
      I really miss playing that game.

      And replying to the one above no I dont live in korea but you can't buy anything even close to those up to speed in any type of wireless gear right now that i'm aware of in any country

      I hunted down the meeting agenda for the isp in town they are paying about $7,000/mo for a 500mbps (dual 250mbps feeds) connection if i'm reading it correctly keep in mind thats shared among somewhere over 1,500 subscribers with a minimum connection of 10mbps afaik thats only enough for 100 people to run 1080p netflix assuming 5mbps for each.

      It looks like there was some discussion to buy even more last month but i haven't been able to find how much or at what cost yet!

      pretty cool the info is public tho!

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    3. Re:They think they will have it working by 2020? by mgcarley · · Score: 1

      $7k for 500mbit/s? That sounds a bit expensive, even in a rural-ish area. I can get over 1 gbps (with SLA) for a little less than that in a town with under 30k people in the midwest.

      Your ISP is probably getting ripped off possibly by a term contract that doesn't account for automatic bandwidth upgrades for the same amount of money.

      --
      Founder & COO, Hayai India (hayai.in) / USA (hayaibroadband.com) // t: @mgcarley
    4. Re:They think they will have it working by 2020? by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      I apologize--my information was out of date--after further research, I found that one of the contracts was changed back in April; a new 5-year term was negotiated with Dobson.

      As of 2013 Sallisaw had a population of 8,623. I don't know of any other towns as small as ours running fiber, and all plans are unmetered.

      Back in 2005 their equipment limited them to "500MB to any individual subscriber," but they don't offer anything over 50mbps today; so they are still quite a way off from the limits of 10-year-old equipment.

      !!pdf warning!!
      http://appanet.cms-plus.com/fi...

      The current backhaul amounts to 1,350GB
      at a cost of $13,030/mo.
      It was also announced on their website, apparently.
      http://www.diamondnetok.com/Ci...

      I have included links to the meeting agendas, which include the contracts.

      The first contract is with Dobson Technologies.
      It is a 5-year contract for 1000MB for $5,250.

      !!pdf warning!!
      http://ok-sallisaw2.civicplus....

      The second contract is with Newroads Telecom.
      This one has also been changed, but I can't seem to find when. It was 250MB with a 3-year contract; but as shown in the above meeting agenda, as of March 9, 2015, they were paying $5,250 for 350MB through Newroads.

      !!pdf warning!!
      http://www.sallisawok.org/Arch...

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    5. Re:They think they will have it working by 2020? by mgcarley · · Score: 1

      That sounds more like it... although Newroads themselves are probably getting reamed too, based on their upstream.

      --
      Founder & COO, Hayai India (hayai.in) / USA (hayaibroadband.com) // t: @mgcarley
  11. Who cares about faster speeds? by jetkust · · Score: 1

    Being that you can already stream 4k video in under 20Mbps per second (1000x slower than 5g). Maybe they should be concentrating more on the fact that people are paying $10 per gig of data per month.

    1. Re:Who cares about faster speeds? by ILongForDarkness · · Score: 1

      Exactly and at least at the moment your flash can't write the data anywhere's near that fast (though it will be faster in 5 years to be sure). So you can't consume it, and you can' store it: what good is it? Also, I realize things are different in different countries but very few people where I live stream content on their phones. We have no unlimited data plans and the best you can do is about 5GB a month and ~$10 per GB afterwards. Streaming netflix say for an hour a day: that would cost you hundreds of dollars a month. Instead you use your home internet and save the content to your device. I don't see the need for these extreme speeds on cellular networks other than if they want to start offering in home internet and a price that is competitive with dsl/cable but if they do that they'll have an even harder time justifying the gang rape that is their overages charges for the mobile plans.

    2. Re:Who cares about faster speeds? by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      How do you save netflix movies/shows to your device?

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    3. Re:Who cares about faster speeds? by ILongForDarkness · · Score: 1

      I don't. Because our bandwidth caps are so low on our phones netflix dossn't make a lot of sense (also a much smaller selection than in the US, talking maybe 10 new movies a month, most 6mths-years old). So you "acquire" things in different ways.

    4. Re:Who cares about faster speeds? by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      Back when verizon wireless had most of their towers upgraded to lte i thought they might have more bandwidth to go around and lower prices nooo they kept exactly the same caps and prices for years.

      Its just now started to come down a bit.
      their lowest priced data plan afaik is the 30GB for $120 for their lte internet home plans
      which compares poorly now that hughesnet is offering
      50GB/mo for $90.

      They are not keeping up well imho.

      Excede sattilite internet bumped their speed up to 12mbps from 1.5mbps and kept the caps the same size they do charge more for it however.

      Why couldn't we have just had 6mbps with twice the cap?
      I would use the full 30GBmo with just 1.5mbps what good is 12mbps going to do me?

      Now if we could just convince the mpaa and the like that preventing people from saving videos so they play without stuttering or to avoid caps actually encurages piracy we could get something that works (other than piracy).

      Back when the interview came out I bought it on youtube/google play come to find out no streaming device I owned (wii, ipad2, ipad4 and 4 bluray players) would allow me to watch it on my tv so I gave up and got it off of 4shared that worked fine on my bluray player even though the youtube app wouldn't play it even while logged in I still paid for it I just wasn't able to watch the particular copy I paid for

      Why do they insist on making it so difficult to do the right thing?

      I mean I don't mind paying for it but when I do I expect it to frigging work!

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
  12. LTE is not 4G by hypertex · · Score: 2

    Hope the standard doesn't cave to pressure as when 4G was deployed.
    Let's not do this again with 5G

  13. Spec by darkain · · Score: 1

    It doesn't matter WHAT the spec is. Companies will just release whatever the hell they want, with whatever branding they want, and the spec will just be changed to match what the companies are selling. Just go and check the early history of 4G "spec", what the carriers listed as "4G" (because it had to be a number higher than 3G, regardless of what the spec said), and then the spec organization backpedaled to match what the carriers where using in their BS marking.

    1. Re:Spec by guruevi · · Score: 1

      Early 3G was ~200kbps, only double of what the 2G standard could do (128kbps). Back when 1G/2G was available, ~56/128kbps was maintained on the network. The current average for 3G/4G across carriers is 0.5Mbps and 1.5Mbps respectively. It's hard to find actual historical data because after the iPhone, the marketing drones started redefining bandwidth as the amount of GB (the amount of transit, not the amount of bandwidth) you were allowed per month.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    2. Re:Spec by esperto · · Score: 1

      Precisely, 4G was suppose to be up to 1Gbps, cell providers couldn't even get 100Mbps (where I live it goes to maybe 20Mbps in a good day far from downtown) but started advertising as 4G. Anyone want to guess what will happen? they will upgrade to some HSUDPA+++ that will not get to 1Gbps even in a test lab and will still sell it as 5G, will update the data caps to 10Gb, if that much, and will double the price.... and we suckers will buy it because cat videos.

  14. Good enough by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    video on my phone can be 240p and it looks fine. 480p looks like high def to me (I'm old, sue me). Compressed 480p video with 128kbps audio is generally 5 megabytes a minute. What I"m getting at is that these networks are looking like they'll have the capacity to do away with caps. Now if we can just get enough people to believe that and demand their government do something about that. Not sure about Europe but here in America there's so much anti-gov't sentiment that might never happen :(.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  15. Smell Test? by davidshewitt · · Score: 1

    This doesn't pass the smell test. 20Gbps seems way too fast for wireless when wired (or fibered) 10Gpbs switch ports and NICs are so expensive. For example, this 10Gbps NIC is over $400: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...

        I must be missing something here...

  16. Re:proceed with caution by Bengie · · Score: 1

    Lightbulbs are still more dangerous. Much higher frequency with much higher wattage. The main danger of a cell phone is localized heating, more so from heat given off from the battery than the RF.

  17. Re:proceed with caution by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 1

    The ITU have spoken, 20G is the new 5G,

  18. Why the huge jumps? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    What is with the latest trends to require such massive jumps in new standards? Didn't we have a similar problem with 4G and then companies not being able to meet the standard?

    This is wireless. More speed in the same bandwidth is a really difficult problem to solve. More bandwidth is a really expensive problem to solve in existing frequencies. Different frequencies is a really difficult problem to solve.

    Why not have 5G be twice 4G, or even 4x 4G? Why the huge jump?

    1. Re:Why the huge jumps? by ILongForDarkness · · Score: 1

      I suspect there is the huge jump because they need to stay on a standard for a few years to get back the cost of the infrastructure. If we got a 2x bump every 18mths or whatever they'd be constantly having to replace all their equipment so they could market themselves as capable of the new hotness that the next iDevice supports. Similarly you have most people on 2-3 year terms for their devices so even if you updated your network every year it would be 1.5yeas or so on average before your users saw the improvement.

      I think if they actually delivered 4G ie 1Gbps that would be more than enough fo rmost people. That is after all what pretty much every office network is using. If the internet is as fast as your office's fileserver that is "good enough" IMO. That is about 2X the speed of USB 2 which is itself more than fast enough to push 4k content.

    2. Re:Why the huge jumps? by YoopDaDum · · Score: 1

      Telecom engineer here. My personal opinion is that the IMT is now a joke. It used to be the case that the generation definitions were engineering based and quite conservative, and matched reality --- up to 3G. But then new entrants came, who tried to position themselves as technology leaders by pushing much more aggressive targets, which ended-up in the 4G mess. The more reasonable companies had a choice: counter with reasonable numbers, and risk passing as looser who weren't as advanced, or play along with the BS. In the end, everyone played along and we ended up with the perfectly ridiculous notion that 4G is 1 Gbps. With lots of pedants without much of a clue about telecommunications now feeling an urge to climb on their soapbox to tell the world that current LTE is not true 4G. As if anyone with a clue should pay attention to the IMT 4G embarrassment.

      This is so ridiculous that LTE-A (or R10) is technically 4G only because it has a specific category (that defines the possible peak rate) 8 that goes up to ~3 Gbps actually. But it's a paper category that nobody implements. Not practical. An hint about the level of ridicule: Cat7 before is 300 Mbps, and Cat9 after is 450 Mbps peak rates. Spot the odd value!

      Anyway, 5G could still open the door to much higher peak rates. The key is that 5G is supposed to leverage millimeter waves, or the high-end of the spectrum (10-100 GHz roughly). That makes a lot of bandwidth available. But there's still a lot of work to do to get to workable practical implementation that can fit in a pocket and has a reasonable battery life (forget the early 5G demos made in a van powered by a big engine giving lots of power).

      And if anyone cares, here's what I consider as good generation transition points: 1G is analog cellular, 2G is narrow band cellular (both TDM GSM and narrow band CDMA), 3G is wide-band (5 MHz) CDMA, and 4G is wide-band OFDMA (10 MHz or more). This makes WiMAX and LTE 4G from the start IMHO. It doesn't match the IMT definition, but it's certainly a better match for reality. And those steps do represent qualitative changes in user experience too (noticeable higher throughput and lower latency).

      Lastly: the only people caring about peak rates at the network operators are the marketing folks. What's important is really getting a good average throughput, an acceptable worst-case throughput and having the highest capacity (served bits/s/Hz by cell). The later is what makes the system cost effective. It turns out that many (but not all) techniques that increase capacity also increase peak rates, and peak rate is easier to sell. Hence the emphasis on big peak rates numbers in the general press. But what matters most to end user and operators is really what I listed before.

  19. Keyword "of up to"... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That will mean that Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and U.S. Cellular will all tout to having 5G* without modifying their networks at all.
    (Hey, it says "up to" not "minimum" 20Gbps.

  20. Don't worry by Mr.+Freeman · · Score: 1

    Don't worry, they'll be sure to either quietly reduce this requirement, or to approve a 5G-USA spec that will allow telecoms to provide terrible speeds.

    --
    -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
  21. 5G! Wish my provider would get their act together by advocate_one · · Score: 1

    and get 3G working properly...

    --
    Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
  22. 1 square kilometer by Skapare · · Score: 1

    capacity to provide more than 100 megabits-per-second average data transmission to over one million Internet of Things devices within 1 square kilometer

    gotta keep the distances short

    --
    now we need to go OSS in diesel cars