Slashdot Mirror
Europe Agrees To Agree With Everyone Except US What 5G Should Be
itwbennett writes: Following agreements signed by the EU with South Korea in June 2014 and with Japan in May 2015, the EU and China "have agreed to agree by the end of the year on a working definition for 5G," reports Peter Sayer. "About the only point of agreement so far is that 5G is what we'll all be building or buying after 4G, so any consensus between the EU and China could be significant," says Sayer.
The United States will accept the standard when the rest of the world ditches that stupid metric system and go back to real units.
The US will build their OWN 5G network. With Blackjack. And hookers.
In fact, forget compatibility.
The US will adopt a closed standard, with royalties, that will work only in the US. That'll keep the eurotrash out.
Buzzword.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Since there are not even any actual 4G deployments in the United States yet, it will be a while before 5G even matters, if it ever does.
Yay Capitalism! Yesteryear's technology at outrageous prices.
> "About the only point of agreement so far is that 5G is what we'll all be building or buying after 4G..."
I was going to comment on how obvious and unnecessary the "5G comes after 4G" thing is, but then I remembered Windows 9 and and OS-X "saber-tooth tiger" and realized that with technology, the succession isn't necessarily that obvious.
what do the Euros think it is?
4G cores will be upgraded to server 5G radio networks.
The nice thing about the 3GPP spec is that Packet Cores are an evolution from 3G to 4G and most likely to 5G.
The US will follow the ITU and 3GPP spec because that is what the device manufacturers will be following for the new handsets. Any other prediction is just there for click bait.
Tell that to T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom, or Sprint's parent Softbank (Japan). Or, for that matter, until last year Verizon's 50% owner Vodafone. I don't think Americans are to blame here.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Increased speed is pointless if they keep choking it with ridiculously low caps. "Oh, wow. I can hit my monthly cap in 19.3 seconds."
You make it sound like the EU approached us collectively as a country and we flipped them the bird. Because I don't remember anyone asking me.
Who is "US" in this context? Verizon/AT&T/Sprint/T-Mobile? FCC? Donald Trump?
Nope, the Europeans just decided to do the sensible thing and define a pan-european standard. Hence, they created GSM, which begat 2G, which begat 3G, etc.
Now, they also did the other sensible thing, which is to say to the rest of the world: "There you go, here is our standard, free of charge, this is what we use and it works pretty well for us". Korea, Japan, China, and pretty much everyone else ran with it, and made money hand over fist, selling cheap phones to everyone and their dog.
It's really not rocket science: create a solid standard, with a clear evolution path, and publish it for everyone to use. The only caveat, of course, is that your phone must be GSM-compliant of you want to sell it anywhere in Europe. But that's a 700+ million market, so you know you are going to make money anyway.
In the US, every single phone operator had to have its own little standard, just to f*ck their customers for as much money as possible. Because MURICA, free enterprise, and gouging the customers are all christian values, or something.
Maybe a while ago, Europe and the US would have gotten together and define a common standard, no matter how loud the US operators yelped. That time is long past.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
In other words, two government bodies which have nothing to do with the actual 5G standard have agreed to agree what 5G is (that is, they won't support different standards). The actual standard itself hasn't been set, and the two bodies which actually do make the standard don't plan to set it until 2020.
Was the whole point of this submission to take a shot at the U.S.? Need I remind you that had the U.S. signed up for the GSM standard, CDMA would've been stillborn and we would likely have 50-200 kbps data speeds today. GSM used TDMA, which allocates bandwidth to phones which aren't even using it. CDMA allows all phones to transmit simultaneously, and bandwidth gets distributed evenly between all transmitting phones. CDMA worked so well that by the time 3G rolled around, GSM adopted CDMA (it now uses TDMA only for voice) and nearly every GSM phone in the world also packed a wideband CDMA radio for data. That's right, CDMA won the GSM vs CDMA war. That's why you could talk and use data at the same time on a GMS phone - they had a TDMA radio for voice, a wCDMA radio for data. CDMA phones used the same radio for both, just in different modes.
(And if you're curious, most LTE implementations use OFDMA. Mathematically it's a lot like CDMA, except using orthogonal frequencies instead of orthogonal codes. The orthogonality is what allows you to pick out a specific phone's signal even though all phones are transmitting simultaneously. The transmissions from other phones just increases the noise floor, so a phone that's not transmitting decreases the noise floor, everyone else's signal to noise ratio improves, and the bandwidth the non-transmitting phone would've used is distributed equally among the phones which are transmitting. TDMA is just giving each phone a timeslice, so only one phone can transmit at a time - or not transmit if it didn't actually need the timeslice.)
Would you rather buy a G5 phone Made in the USA(TM) or Made in China? I wonder how long it takes to destroy one's reputation.
I've got terrifying news for you...they are all made in China.
Carriers: The numbers all go to 5G. Look, right across the board, 5G, 5G, 5G and...
Customers: Oh, I see. And most networks go up to 4G?
Carriers: Exactly.
Customers: Does that mean it's faster? Is it any faster?
Carriers: Well, it's one faster, isn't it? It's not 4G. You see, most blokes, you know, will be surfing at 4G. You're on 4G here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on 4G on your phone. Where can you go from there? Where?
Customers: I don't know.
Carriers: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Customers: Put it up to 5G.
Carriers: 5G. Exactly. One faster.
Customers: Why don't you just make 4G faster and make 4G be the top number and make that a little faster?
Carriers: [pause] These go to 5G.
its painful to watch them try to work things out in pounds, ounces and feet.
Well, you are irrelevant. No I do not mean the USA, I mean you. And actually, the guy who sabotaged EU US relationships the most is W. Bush. However, pushing for treaties like TTIP and TiSA is Obamas fault. Stop that shit.
Wouldn't it be simpler and less confusing if you just reported the truth in simple terms: The U.S. telecom industry has decided to continue to screw up standards and make sure that their next generation equipment does not work with the rest of the world and likely not work with each other. Sprint has picked three different incompatible standards and will deploy all three and challenges its customers to guess which will still be supported the following year (while locking them into two year contracts but .phasing out their supported type of supposed 5G in much less time in their area). Prices will go up.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
yup, here in France unlimited voice calls, unlimited VOIP to many countries incl USA / Europe - in your data plan, unlimited texting to many countries, 3GB data on 4G or 3G - throttled after that - , no minimal contract (you can leave anytime), open wifi where available : 22$/month, I'm stunned by your plan (not) - and this is just a random example on the best cellular network coverage, there are cheaper/larger options (28$ for 5G)
Also is $50 the price on the bottom line of the bill or the advertised price? In my experience you add about 30% to whatever the plan rate is in the US for what you are actually going to pay with like $1 of it actually being taxes vs parts of the price the carrier has opted to add as a surcharge so they can advertise a lower price than they charge.
If they don't agree with us, they must be wrong!
Yeah, since when did China and South Korea become 'everybody'? And South Korea - just has a few manufacturing companies - Samsung, LG, Pantech/Curitel, but no standards companies like a Qualcomm or a Nokia. Same deal w/ China - who do they have who'd define such a standard?
We'll have to wait for the Donald to be prez before things like this get made in the US again
So many excuses! Explain the European with lower population densities than the US but with better phone/internet infrastructure? By your pathetic, sniveling, twisted logic that simply can't exist. But whatever makes you feel happy about the US, I guess...
Hey, don't look down under to make you feel better about your expensive plans. For AU$50 my current provider will give you unlimited calls, unlimited text, and 10 gig of data - either 4G or 3G depending on what is available in your area. Unused data can be rolled over to the next month. Now international calls are limited - I think to the countries I would call occasionally the plan includes what works out to about 6 hours talk time a month - but I don't call overseas from my mobile (cell) phone all that often. After we do a currency conversion we get a plan price of about $35 in American money. Even the most overpriced unwieldy telecommunications company in Australia (I think most Australians would know to whom I refer) will give you 7gig and unlimited talk for under the US$50 pricepoint. For only 1gig with unlimited talk and text prices start around AU$30 or US$21.
One more thing, never paid for an incoming text in my life - what is that all about?
So how's your plan compare?
$50/month seems like a lot more than I'd want to pay for phone service. I have a pre-pay SIM and end up paying about £1-2/month. Costs are 3p/minute for calls, 2p/text, 1p/MB of data. If I use more, there are bundles that are cheaper. If I buy a bundle, it also works in any one of the 'feel at home' countries, including the US. For example, for £10 I can get 100 minutes, 3,000 texts, and 500MB of data, which will work in Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Macau, New Zealand, Norway, Ireland, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA (and, of course, the UK). Oh, and I don't pay to receive calls or texts from anywhere in the world, even when I have no credit on my phone.
If I wanted to go onto a contract, there are a lot of options, but since you seem to like spending a lot on the phone we'll pick the most expensive one: unlimited data, unlimited calls, unlimited text, one-month contract is £30/month (around $45/month). And those allowances work in any of the destinations that I listed above. Dropping down to only 4GB of data and 600 minutes lowers it to £19 (about $29) per month. Even the cheapest contract (500MB, 200 minutes, unlimited texts) at £8/month ($12) is a lot more than I spend on a pre-pay plan though, so I'm not really tempted to switch. You need to use the phone a lot for it to be worthwhile.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I have a 7G mobile hanging in my window. That is seven G's! Two more than this 5G and at least THREE MORE than what most people have.
I added a small bell to balance them to eight items. I had used a pre-made mobile ring with eight holes around the circumference and was too lazy to measure and drill seven new ones for the strings. But when the window is open, and the wind catches the G's in the mobile, the bell hanging from the ring rings.
People have asked me if I could also talk into it: of course I can, but I don't see the point.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
The European countries with lower overall population densities than the US are few: Estonia, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Russia, and Iceland.
In Finland for example according to the coverage maps I'm seeing the northern third of the country has spotty coverage if any from all the carriers. The middle third has 3G along highways and 2G elsewhere. The southern third has 4G most places, but some more rural areas are 3G. The whole country is slightly smaller than Montana. The vast majority of Finland's people live near the Baltic and its gulfs, with 20% living in Helsinki alone. The whole country has fewer than 100 towns and cities and a population density overall of about 18 people per square kilometer over a total land area of 338,424 square kilometers with a total population of under 5,500,000 people.
In 1990 about half of US states were lower than Finland in density, and half were higher. Now only 13 states are of lower density. This is because Finland's population is relatively stable. The US birth and immigration rates are higher. The total density of the US is 35 people per square kilometer.
The twenty-fifth most dense US state is Washington, with about 40.5 people per square kilometer, but in 1990 the 25th most dense was Alabama with only 30.7 people per. Alaska has 0.5 people per square kilometer. New Jersey has 467.2 per. Only 13 states have double the density of Finland or more. Fifteen have less than half.
My current state, Texas, is 696,241 square kilometers holding about 28,000,000 people. 40.8 people live per square kilometer, up from just 25 in 1990. Texas has 254 counties. There are 1,216 incorporated cities, only 246 of which are home to more than 10,000 people. Thirty-five cities are home to more than 100,000, with just six cities over half a million in population. Still, nearly one quarter of the population lives in the Houston metro area. Another quarter lives in the Dallas/Forth Worth metro area. Another quarter live in the San Antonio, El Paso, Laredo, Amarillo, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, and Austin metro areas. That means that one quarter or so of the population is spread sporadically throughout an area twice the size of Finland, with fewer in the deserts in the far west of the state. Like Finland, huge population centers are especially well served by a variety of carriers. Some are as cheap as $30 or $35 a month, like Boost Mobile. The most reliable national carriers that don't drop signal driving across the state on highways among the cattle ranches, forests, farm fields, and such are $50 or more.
When I visit friends and family in more rural areas in Missouri and Illinois, where the largest city or town in any direction for a hundred miles is about 50,000 people and my parents live 7 miles from the closest town (of 900 people) and 8 miles from a town of 16,000, I get consistent 4G at their house. I pay $50 a month. I'm okay with that.
The most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau (2007) counted 39,044 general purpose local governments, which includes 19,492 municipal governments, 16,519 township governments and 3,033 county governments. It has a total land area around 9,600,000 square kilometers. Yes, it costs money to build and operate in this kind of environment.
Well, sounds like a great plan except for the fact that you clearly have the details wrong since there is no 5G wireless yet. So thanks, but I'll take my info from someone who is able to give me accurate info.