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AT&T Says LTE Can Still Offer Speeds Up To 1 Gbps (dslreports.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the still-in-the-race dept.

An anonymous reader writes from a report via DSL Reports: ATT CTO Andre Fuetsch said at a telecom conference last week that the company's existing LTE network should be able to reach speeds of 1 Gbps before the standard ultimately gets overshadowed by faster 5G tech. The new 5G technology isn't expected to arrive until 2020 at the earliest, so LTE has a lot of time left as the predominant wireless connectivity. "There's a lot of focus on 5G -- but don't discount LTE," Fuetsch said. "LTE is still here. And LTE will be around for a long time. And LTE has also enormous potential in that, you'll be capable of supporting 1 gigabit speeds as well." 5G will help move past 1 Gbps speeds, while also providing significantly lower latency. "You'll see us sharing more about the trial activity we're doing," said Fuetsch. "Everything that's being [tested] right now is not standard, it's all sort of proprietary. But this is an important process to go through because this is how you learn and how it helps define standards."

25 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. That just means by DougOtto · · Score: 1

    So now, they can start throttling even sooner!

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    1. Re:That just means by dgatwood · · Score: 2

      With a 3 GB data plan, gigabit data is good for what... 24 seconds? Awesome!

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    2. Re:That just means by The-Ixian · · Score: 2

      Assuming that your phone's hardware could keep up with it and that it could be delivered to you that fast by the sending end's infrastructure and everything in between... yes.

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    3. Re:That just means by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

      Throttling speed is worse than throttling bandwidth. Let's say you have 1TB of data you need transferred.

      Your ISP might throttle your speed to 10mbps for $30/month.
      1MB/s * 60s/min * 60min/hr * 24hr/day * 30days/month = 2.5TB/Month cap but you have to wait a month to transfer that 2.5TB.

      If you have 2.5TB to transfer it's far better from a user standpoint to have a 1000mbps connection where the transfer is completed in 8 hours overnight.

      Both are effectively 2.5TB caps, one objectively though is superior since it does the exact same job in a fraction of the time.

    4. Re:That just means by Apharmd · · Score: 1

      So now, they can start throttling even sooner!

      Yes, but they'll sell you additional blocks of 18 seconds at $20 per... so that's a win for everyone! Except the consumer, of course.

    5. Re:That just means by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      The wireless companies are really dropping the ball. Perhaps they are still trying to regain some of their wired business?
      But if we can get quality unlimited and unmetered speed at a good price. We would drop our cable isp for the more convenient wireless.

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    6. Re:That just means by stdarg · · Score: 1

      Google Fiber is thinking about trying a wireless last mile approach in some cities so you may get your wish.

    7. Re:That just means by citizenr · · Score: 1

      this sound nice in theory, but doesnt exist in reality
      Do you know ANY network with data caps that has a cap close to 2.5TB? Its usually something pathetic like 300GB. This is why people prefer 10MBit with no caps.

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  2. The speeds are good enough! by sims+2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now we just need to work on the price per GB.

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    1. Re:The speeds are good enough! by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

      I'd rather have a consistent 5Mb/s speed that's truly unlimited and not throttled.

      Really? What if the throttle is at 0.5MB/s * 60s * 60m * 24hr * 30 days = 1.2TB?

      I would rather for most applications have high burst potential to decide where and when I want my data than to arbitrarily spread the transfer out over days or hours.

      All else being equal faster is better. And I would very much be interested in uncapping for bursts by the MB like Amazon AWS.

    2. Re:The speeds are good enough! by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      So its 1Gbps and then 5Mbps after the first 5GB? I could live with that.

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    3. Re:The speeds are good enough! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Ads would then be streamed in uncompressed 4k format.

    4. Re:The speeds are good enough! by tepples · · Score: 1

      Solution: Make a browser extension that pauses the Internet connection after each 1 MB until "Continue" is pressed.

    5. Re:The speeds are good enough! by tepples · · Score: 1

      More speed means more data can be transferred means an amount of data transferred is less valuable.

      More data can be transferred means more customers, not more data per customer.

  3. Imaginary 5g by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I like how they are talking about 5g like it is a technology instead of just a marketing moniker...

    1. Re:Imaginary 5g by supremebob · · Score: 2

      Hey... it didn't stop AT&T from calling their old HSPA+ network "4G" before they finally upgraded their towers to LTE.

      I guess that we can expect them to start promoting their "5G" "LTE+" network the next time they upgrade the backhaul on a few of their existing towers.

  4. Re:Who cares? by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

    All this speed doesn't mean anything with data caps.

    Limited speed *is* a data cap. It's just a datacap that forces you to somewhat arbitrarily spread out your usage. If you want to download a BluRay quality film that is 50GB then you have to wait 50,000MB / 10mbps = 14 hours of downloading before it finishes. Or you have volume capped gigabit of 100GB/day and you only have to wait 8 minutes before it's finished downloading.

    You can't say "doesn't mean anything" as long as the data caps are reasonable. Sure there is something to be said for a 10mbps connection which gives you 2.5TB of transfer per month. But there's also something to be said for a 1000mbps connection where you can only transfer 200GB. It's safe to say that there is no way to argue that a 2.5TB capped gigabit connection is worse than a 10mbps (2.5TB/month at max speed) connection of equal price.
       

  5. So LTE is the sweet spot for profits? by swb · · Score: 1

    Fast enough that it's highly usable for more than mobile "data light", so it has inherent value to data consumers, allowing both the carriers to charge for it and for consumers to consume it fast enough that they will pay high fees for large consumption tiers, fat overages when they exhaust their allocation or both.

    If 5G pans out anything like the hype, carriers will have to change their pricing strategies. As most Slashdot posters note, you'd burn through current allocations ridiculously fast.

    But as much as people like data, there's also a limit as to how much they will consume. I wonder if AT&T is worried that the pricing changes likely necessary with 5G speeds will cross some line on a chart that causes data to be less profitable. A lot of people will end up staying within their plan or find lower end plans usable.

  6. They *can* by jxander · · Score: 3

    ATT can offer speeds up to 1Gbps.

    They won't, obviously... but they can

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  7. Re:Who cares? by sims+2 · · Score: 1

    2.5TB seems reasonable for $70mo at 1Gbps. Although for $9.30 I can have a virtual server with 5TB of transfer at 1Gbps.

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  8. Re:Who cares? by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

    Where can you get 5TB of transfer for $9.30? I just did a cloud to cloud backup using a virtual server and it was about $50/TB.

  9. Re:Who cares? by guruevi · · Score: 2

    Real servers in real datacenters have no data counters. You pay for your peering and perhaps a minimum bandwidth and a burstable bandwidth. The "cloud" and consumer data services use the metric of data transfer limits and they are purely artificial intended to milk the consumer. You can't buy a 50GB/mo line because that's just not how the hardware works, you buy a line with a bandwidth measured in Mbps and most providers will then oversell that to their customers and if they run out, they buy more lines (or upgrade the hardware). You can't just upgrade a line from 500TB/mo to 1000TB/mo simply by giving money.

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  10. What's in a G... by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

    Thanks for admitting 4G, 5G, nG is all marketing hype and people are not getting the super fast speeds you claim.

    1. Re:What's in a G... by guruevi · · Score: 1

      There is a standard that has set the speeds for 2G/3G/4G/5G. What providers in the US sell is really (still) 3G (20Mbps) and when your phone says 3G it's really 2G. 4G should give you ultimately 1G down/500M up.

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  11. Re:Who cares? by sims+2 · · Score: 1

    Hetzner cx20

    I was talking about bandwidth transfer not storage

    Even if we were talking about storage $50/TB is still too high.

    Without bothering to google anything
    They also offer a box with 10tb storage and 20tb transfer. something like $54/mo

    If you just need the files backed up and not a full hd image I would go with something like backblaze $50/yr. per machine unlimited storage and transfer but no accessibility.

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