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AT&T's Silence on 5G Speeds Screams 'Stay Away For Now' (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader shares a column: AT&T may be meeting its self-imposed deadline to launch "5G" service in 12 cities this week, but based on what the company has said -- and not said -- I can only conclude that its 5G network isn't actually ready for prime time. Yet. The problem is straightforward: As of today, 5G's only benefit over 4G is speed, and AT&T has gone silent on the speed of its 5G network. Verizon promised 300Mbps to 1Gbps speeds before launching its 5G home broadband network in October, then exceeded its minimum guarantees.
By contrast, AT&T made no commitment to network speeds (or latency) in its 5G launch press release, nor does it offer performance estimates in its consumer 5G web pages. Seeking to quantify the network's performance, I reached out to the normally responsive AT&T to ask about a report that its 5G+ network would have real-world speeds of 140Mbps, despite theoretical peak speeds that have alternately been pegged at 979Mbps or 1.2Gbps, depending on source. There was no response.
By contrast, AT&T made no commitment to network speeds (or latency) in its 5G launch press release, nor does it offer performance estimates in its consumer 5G web pages. Seeking to quantify the network's performance, I reached out to the normally responsive AT&T to ask about a report that its 5G+ network would have real-world speeds of 140Mbps, despite theoretical peak speeds that have alternately been pegged at 979Mbps or 1.2Gbps, depending on source. There was no response.
5G is a pipe dream.
Must be a slow news day.
I don't see the point of this article. If you have a 5G handset and you get better speed at 4G, then by all means disable 5G.
The major pull for me for 5G isn't the higher speed, it's the lower latency. Browsing is generally fairly bad at achieving anything close to line speed because there are so many round trips and connections to different domains. Cutting latency helps a lot more than extra bandwidth. If 5G can give me reliable low-latency 50Mbps, I will be a very happy customer.
$70 for 15GB on the other hand is extortion. That needs to come down at least an order of magnitude.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
AT&T: Stay Away
I still remember when they broke up AT&T into the baby bells. It may be time to revisit those actions.
It was only 36 years ago.
The thing that always stops me from relying on my G4 Cell for my primary internet isn't speed, but cost.
Each device with a separate plan or at least extra cost per device. Paying for metered amount, or paying a lot more for unlimited.
If I could have my devices networked with G4 for less then I am paying for Cable Internet with a Wireless Router. It may make it worth it. But G5 extra speed isn't the issue holding me back. It is coverage and price.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
With most plans in US having rather low data caps, and with few grandfathered unlimited caps getting throttled above certain low threshold, how is AT&Ts roll out of 5G in any way relevant?
I think what needs to be focused on more than what the speed is, what is the monthly limit and how long will it take to exceed it.
In other words: "Some of the equipment we bought for new and replacement cell towers is 5G, because hey, we'd have to do it eventually and this gives us some headlines. But we're going to take our own sweet time upgrading the backhaul links, so if you've got a 5G phone you'd better get ready for some throttling."
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
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4G if the cell size isnt overly huge or overly crowded can deliver pretty good speeds 6Mbit or as deployed by the carriers.
Right now even the unlimited plans cap you around 20Gigs and despite what VZW's marketing materials say trying to actually get an unlimited plan on a their home broad band solutions are nearly impossible; the best you can really get is like 15GB and than throttle; and that by the way is only even when its a laughably characterized as companion device to handset on an unlimited plan. Its damn near a bait an switch to get you in the store as near as I can tell.
So 5G will be fast okay; what good is that if you get throttled down after 20Gigs, I can't imagine very many application / situations where burning thru your monthly cap in 10min is useful service. Maybe some remote monitoring station needs to do a bulk data upload once month some place but that is about it. For basically every other customer use case more speed means higher caps have to come with it or its not practical.
Oh and of course 5G cells are tiny by comparison so it more or less means 5G service will only be available in densely populated places where there is probably ground based network and wifi available any way. So I am still wondering who is this for?
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AT&T's Silence on 5G Speeds Screams 'Stay Away For Now'
AT&T's NAME on 5G Screams 'Stay Away, PERIOD.'
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
with an 15GB cap even 25MEG down will push you over fast.
With today's data plans, that's like getting a Ferrari and fuel for half a mile.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Someone likes oxymorons.
Better known as 318230.
A lot of new "small cell" sites have been popping up around here. They all seem to be operated by CrownCastle and basically look like utility poles with a cylindrical antenna module on the top. There's also some on street lights and the like.
So they're definitely in-filling their coverage, most likely to get 5G going. It's a long process, though, so I don't expect solid coverage for a while yet.
what is the monthly limit and how long will it take to exceed it.
I have T-Mobile, and I really like that you can turn on unlimited bandwidth for video if you want, where it will limit video bandwidth to I think something like 720p (actually it varies by provider I believe). This means that caps matter less, because they aren't factored in for the more data heavy use of the network, and the video still looks quite good on a small screen - a good compromise.
People are saying things like "you can hit the cap in two minutes" which while technically true, does not speak to what people actually consume. If you are browsing a website once it's done loading it's not going to be using much data for as long as you are reading. Similarly checking an app for some data might have a burst of data but then it's quiet... realistically people moving to 5G probably will not be using much more data than they are already using today, so the worry about faster speeds hitting a cap sooner seems unfounded to me.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
THERE WILL ALWAYS BE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR LIES NAZI FAGGOT PROPAGANDIST KEN DOLL
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Some folks know to " stay away " from new until it has been released, field tested and reviewed.
Games, cars, gadgets, etc. It all falls into this category.
If you jump onto the new hotness bandwagon on day one and it turns out to be less than spectacular,
the rest of us don't want to hear any whining because we told you so.
The main point of 5G is that it opens up more frequencies at your boring old regular 4G speeds. Helps with congestion in busy places.
The hyped high data rates require high frequencies, which work poorly in the real world. High frequencies require direct line of sight. No walls, no your head being between your phone and the cell tower, no trees, no buildings, no rain or other weather. If something blocks your visible light frequencies between you and the cell tower, it will block the high frequency 5G signal.
For most people, what little advantage 5G gives is due to (1) additional 4G speed radio bands and (2) base stations being linked using fiber optic rather than copper.
You can have high speed 5G if there is a cell tower within 200 meters of your window at direct line of sight, and you glue the antenna of your point-to-point modem on the window. And then pray to Zeus he won't make it rain.
Idiot reporters. Can't be bothered to try to understand a new technology, so they report on it using the only metric they already understand - speed. It's not about max speeds. That's kinda pointless as at 1.2 Gbps you'd blow through a 5 GB data cap in 30 seconds. Even at 140 Mbps you'd blow through 5 GB in less than 5 minutes.
5G isn't about improving your speed in the best case (though that can happen). It's about improving your speed in the worst case - when lots of people are trying to pull data from a tower simultaneously. The higher speed means each person's data download gets completed faster, meaning the tower is handling fewer simultaneous requests, meaning each individual request gets more bandwidth.
In addition, 5G adds MIMO. Rather than using one antenna to transmit and receive omnidirectionally, it uses multiple antennas and software to "aim" the antenna array like a phased array radar. Adding directionality means you can transmit to multiple devices over the same frequencies without the signals interfering because direction of the signal now matters, not just the presence of a signal. It's like communicating with point-to-point lasers instead of a sensor which just detects the total amount of light coming from all directions. Light signals being sent to other devices interfere with the latter, but not with the former.
What that boils down to is that 5G will minimize the impact of other people's use of the tower on the speeds you get. The max speed you experience may not be a substantial improvement over 4G. But the minimum speed you experience when the tower cell is crowded should be substantially better. You remember the iPhone demo which failed because there were too many WiFi users in the room? That's the kind of situation 5G solves.
Screw ideal condition speed that everybody is wailing about. The main benefit is less congestion.
THERE WILL ALWAYS BE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR LIES NAZI FAGGOT PROPAGANDIST KEN DOLL
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING
They can put up a ton of 5G cell phone towers but can't get me better than 4 Mbps download speed on my overpriced home internet connection. How 'bout making your existing network work first before spending a ton of time and money on this!
If you fast speed does not make you use more total data I really question the need for the greater speed in the first place.
More speed is always nice for occasional needs though. For instance, I have downloaded a 4GB update for Xcode when on a Alaskan cruise once because I really needed to test something. I was just lucky whatever town we were near had a great LTE signal because I was able to get that done in the limited time I had to download it...
Yes there are cases where say being able to download video much faster than real time could be useful -grabbing a movie right before you board or a flight for example.
Yes, another excellent example, I've had that happen a number of times.
Most of the rest of the time I might be able to live with throated speeds, as someone else said the real advantage you'd be paying for is not as much greater bandwidth as it would be better latency. That would been more useful over time.
I'm not getting on 5G anytime soon though, will see how it plays out in reality.
I just don't see much to gain from greater speed without greater caps.
Even with diminishing returns I think a lot of people will see some value in it for improving what they do already, which is why I don't think greater caps are totally necessary (though I agree they are a good idea when you are encouraging people to use more data with faster speeds). I think people's consumption habits will tend to naturally increase the amount of data they consume over time, regardless of them having 5G or not, and after a while the caps will naturally increase as the network is updated.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... they probably are lighting their 5g towers with DSL over copper (just like UVerse) and NOT fiber optic
It's just my theory based on past rediculous ATT (cheap-ass) behavior
ATT is still the DeathStar of telecom - just look at their DeathStar logo and compare
So the plans would be like 70 bucks for 15 gigs....what's the point of even adopting 5g? You hit your cap faster? What is the fucking incentive? Snooze fest
Just hitting a website or checking an app for data also don't actually benefit much from the higher speed of 5G.
It probably will not benefit much from the speed, but it does benefit from lower latency. If you are juts opening up an app for a second to check something like weather, it's a lot nicer to get that update to happen more quickly.
Video conferencing or watching a video will certainly benefit,
I don't see the extra speed benefitting either of those activities as LTE is already more than fast enough to provide for HD video streaming.
watching a video that isn't on the zero rating deal will indeed burn up a whole month's cap in a few minutes.
No more than it would have on LTE, as both services would let you watch it. Even "HD" video streams these days are not usually very large. Maybe if you took to watching 4K streams over cellular... but again you could already do that with LTE.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
5G doesn't bring anything to the table over LTE aside from reduced latency. Everything 5G is able to do with faster speeds LTE could do too, if they chose to use it in all that new high frequency spectrum where it will be possible for one device to grab 100s of MHz. Because 5G has EXACTLY the same per bits/Hz efficiency as LTE...
Obviously the hype machine has done a number on you, you really believe it is a major advancement. It is not.
We can use personal virtual cells, created by interference of real cells. It has been demonstrated, a decade ago. This means multipe streams on the *same* band, as long as they are physically apart.
And all the real cells got at least 10Gb/s fiber links. (Remember: their areas wiop be tiny.)