back to article If 4G isn’t working, why stick to the same approach for 5G?

The start of 2015 is sure to bring an even greater intensity of interest in what "5G" might be. After all, some operators are saying they will start commercial deployments in 2020, and a five-year time-scale is short enough to induce panic attacks. LTE has set a strong precedent here. The specifications that became LTE were …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just be nice to get 3G in some areas never mind 5G.

    1. Extra spicey vindaloo

      5G , 4G, 3G

      I would just like a decent Edge connection at work.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Combination of NIMBYs and lack of demand in some areas?

      1. dogged

        Nah, just the usual thieving bastardy.

        See, you can flog a 4G sub to a punter who can barely get 2G in his house and most of them won't even complain. On the rare occassion they notice their phone say "4G" (visiting London, probably) they'll be surprised but not angry because everyone is used to all telecommunications in the UK being a big bag of shit.

        In the meantime, you make money. You could spend it on actually giving the customer what they paid for or you could just have your PR department make up some shit about lack of demand and keep on pocketing it. Guess which happens?

        1. dogged

          I see somebody here works for EE. Or O2. Or Vodafone.

          (Three aren't usually so bad. And for the record, I'm on O2 who are exactly as bad).

        2. stuff and nonesense

          Up in the north east of Scotland I get 4G in town and at home even through the granite walls.

          5 miles away I get GSM...

          Come on O2!

  2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    some operators are saying they will start commercial deployments in 2020, and a five-year time-scale is short enough to induce panic attacks

    ....because this projet needs to survive at least one economic readjustment, possibly the biggest in human history ever, and a tactical nuke exchange with Russia?

    1. Alistair
      Windows

      "survive at least one economic readjustment, possibly the biggest in human history ever, and a tactical nuke exchange"

      The issue here is the order of operations. If the Nuke Exchange happens *after* the economic readjustment, then a) Anonymous will have hacked the launch codes and b) some gypsies will have stolen the rocket fuel (on *both* sides) so that nuke exchange will be horribly dull.

      Of course, if the Nuke exchange happens *before* the economic adjustment, then the economists win, since they can blame the adjustment on the Nuke exchange.

      Sadly I suspect that I know which will happen first.

      (again wearing the cynical old bastard outfit)

  3. Professor Clifton Shallot

    Priorities

    " Is it more important to slash power consumption than push further increases in data rate?"

    Yes. Yes, it is.

    Better battery life is more important than:

    - Increased data rates compared with 4G

    - Thinner phones

    - Screen resolution

    - Loud speakers

    - Pinkness, glitter, gold, or rhinestones

    Ta.

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: Priorities

      I agree with your priorities, I would like to add impact / water resistance and sunlight visibility to a list of things that are actually useful.

      More pixels are not required on a little palmtop device, thank you.

      Trouble is, Joe Thicky Public can easily be convinced that he needs the pixels by the marketeers who like to sell things by having bigger numbers.

      1. P. Lee

        Re: Priorities

        >More pixels are not required on a little palmtop device, thank you.

        While I agree, I'm still hoping the tech will quickly reach the stage of docking with a high-res desktop KVM setup and allow a light-weight desktop OS. In that case, 2560x1440 is a good idea.

        I also agree about battery life, but at this stage I'm a bit used to frequent charging and I might swap more battery life for a properly secured multi-user OS rather than the useful abomination which is Android.

        1. Annihilator

          Re: Priorities

          "While I agree, I'm still hoping the tech will quickly reach the stage of docking with a high-res desktop KVM setup and allow a light-weight desktop OS. In that case, 2560x1440 is a good idea."

          Yes but if you're docking with a KVM, why do you care about the size of the screen on the mobile device.

          Ability to drive a high res screen doesn't necessitate an actual high res screen on the device.

    2. Grant 5

      Re: Priorities

      Agreed. I was very exited about the Nexus 6, it's a little on the big side but other than that it was nearly the ideal phone for me BUT wht the insane pixel density? A decent 1080p screen would have given it far better battery life, this is the one feature that everyone wants, whay the bloody obsession with ever thinner phones every year, just keep it the same and add a bigger battery = happy punters.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Priorities

      Out of interest, what has 5G got to do with screen resolution, thinner phone, etc? The article was to do with 5G (which will reduce power consumption) but has nothing to do with the aesthetics of the device!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Strangled by vested interests

    There's a bloodbath coming, and the telco industry knows it:

    - IMS is a decade old...but CSMA still hangs on, because revenues have plummeted and the standards bodies, ably helped by the major vendors, made IMS incredibly complex

    - in that decade, a whole generation of mobile users have grown up seeing the phone as a small computer that they use to send tweets, snapchats and facebook messages - not to send revenue-generating things like SMS and calls.

    - the mobile industry's attempt to respond, RCS, was so complex they had to come up with a new statndard, RCS-e, which no-one has implemented yet. Meanwhile the OTT juggernaut rolls on.

    - building a new mobile network is bloody expensive, and politically painful. If you want to feel the pain of the latter, go along to a public planning meeting for a new cell tower. Everyone wants five bars of signal strength but no one wants a cell tower anywhere in their field of vision. It's a sad fact of human nature.

    Net-net: Cellphones as phones are almost dead. Cellphones as computers are thriving. There's no money to be made for the carriers in the latter.

    By 2020 I think we'll look back at the cellular network and shake our heads.

    1. BristolBachelor Gold badge

      Re: Strangled by vested interests

      "Cellphones as computers are thriving. There's no money to be made for the carriers in the latter."

      Why not? How is it different to voice calls and SMS?

      Build a network that costs X. Run the network, costing Y per month. Sell data connections costing Z, so that Z pays off Y and a proportion of X to amortise the capital invested.

      1. annodomini2

        Re: Strangled by vested interests

        Where's A-W that marketing/top management need to justify their existence and charge you that bit extra?

        There are 0 growth opportunities in your proposal which some investor can use to bump up the share price and cream off the top.

      2. Hugh McIntyre

        @BristolBachelor, Re: Strangled by vested interests

        Indeed. All the new plans around here seem to be unlimited voice and SMS and only varying cost depending on how much data you use, which implies the carriers have noticed this.

    2. ToddR

      Re: Strangled by vested interests

      Metropolitan Wifi everywhere solves the problems.

  5. Tac Eht Xilef

    "Already, 4G is showing its limitations for the business models of the modern carrier."

    That quote tells you everything to need to know...

    1. Kunari

      It's a pain in the a** to get a 4G signal where I live. At work I get good signal but drive a few miles down the road and it's lucky if you get a 3G signal.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cellphone should remain as cellphone

    If I want internet, I will go through my controlled laptop and desktop. I will never use carriers airwaves to access the net. Most phone network firmware can be updated by the very companies. This can makes them a bug in your pocket. Smartphone is bad for society. I will love to have a phone that is such a dumb device with 4g,5g, etc. But no, they want profit from shit like "smartphone" which do everything wrong. That's Samsung today's dream. Ohh yes, LoT is a stupid concept !

  7. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Marketing, marketing, marketing

    LTE had one aim: improve data performance by moving to an IP-based stack. Speed improvements were largely achieved using 3G technology.

    5G has started as a marketing term: we've got WCDMA and TCDMA and multibeam. So far, no one has come up with a new way to squeeze more data bandwidth (there's a reason for the name) into constant physical bandwidth in the same time and with the same power at the same distance. I think I've got all the constraints but I'm not a radio engineer so please correct me if I'm wrong.

    The LTE business model is no better than the 3G one: free WiFi acts as a break on price expectations and open the door for OTT. If the networks hadn't wanted to charge $$$ for video or international calls but had just made it available, OTT would never have stood a chance. The US was able to charge a premium for LTE because the market is dysfunctional but Verizon's noises are a sign of a long-overdue correction.

    There is money to be made from mobile networks, not least by concentrating on the basics: providing reliable voice calls anywhere.

  8. bminish

    Pesky Claude Shannon

    We are very close to the Shannon theorem theoretical limits in terms of spectrum efficiency, From here (LTE) significant gains in terms of throughput for a given amount of spectrum can only come from making cell sizes much smaller for better frequency reuse.

    This would also allow under some circumstances for less attractive but less congested spectrum above 3.5Ghz to be used, where block sizes tend to be bigger too so making more spectrum available ( but far less desirable in terms of coverage.). This is further complicated by trying to fit global standards in around national spectrum availability, this is already a real headache for LTE globally.

    Small cells only make sense where there's enough profitable usage to justify the costs of building and maintaining a much denser site deployment.

    As long as operators can continue to meter for usage then the easy and familiar lever will be volume based pricing combined with the minimum density required to deliver basic coverage. Get the headline speeds up but ration usage, it's the option that will best satisfy the shareholders.

    Not a pretty future..

    1. P. Lee

      Re: Pesky Claude Shannon

      >Small cells only make sense where there's enough profitable usage to justify the costs of building and maintaining a much denser site deployment.

      This is why I have no idea why ISPs don't get into the business. Form an MVNO or partner with a telco and converge the ISP wifi box with a cell base station. The telco gets good coverage and some backbone from the ISP, some offload from the larger towers. The ISP gets some marketing funds to help with the base-station costs, perhaps some call-cost slice. They both get some lock-in as moving ISP means losing good mobile coverage too. Bundle with DECT and put SIP in the box for landline revenues too.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Pesky Claude Shannon

        "Form an MVNO or partner with a telco and converge the ISP wifi box with a cell base station. "

        The other thing they could with smaller cells is share physical infrastructure with non-telco operators. There's a bit of that going on (eg mastheads on water towers or office buildings) but with smaller cell size you'd (presumably) have less need for quite such height, and you could then use taller lamp posts, electricity distribution poles and the like?

        I'm sure the owners of those assets could invent a millions reasons as to why it couldn't work, but if the MNOs want to one day make mobile connectivity more than a lie in an advert, then they need to start thinking this way.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    in my small village in italy

    my new iPad is getting 26Mbps down and 7Mbps up with 4G 'Gold Priority' LTE in the tiniest of villages, 100's of kilometres from Milan. (Contract seemed nice value at £100 for a year with 7GB/month 4G)

    1. tony2heads

      Re: in my small village in italy

      I have only ever seen 3G inside conurbations; how the hell does any telco run 4G inside a tiny italian village?

      What is the economic justification?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: in my small village in italy

        I don't know, I was shocked myself!

        http://rete.vodafone.it/la-rete-vodafone/strumenti/verifica-la-copertura/

        the voda map of northern italy shows 4G BTS everywhere, and I guessed that it was an 'aspirational' marketing map, but when I powered my 4G device with 4G sim up it was full strength. I haven't done any serious 'war-driving' yet to profile the area.

        I'd previously seen a whiff of 4G last year in central Milan, but on recent visits only 3G BTS - I guess that's because my 4G capable/ 4G enabled phone is now deliberately telco downgraded due to having a '3G only' sim, perhaps, it was 4G when I bought it, but looks like I have to buy it again!

        maybe voda will make enough profit on the 3G->4G €10 sim swapover cost & their model to give 4G data only for supplemental monthly payment? I've done Speedtests & 4G in my village is currently twenty times faster than 3G, until everyone unwraps their samsung phablets next week maybe!

    2. BristolBachelor Gold badge

      Re: in my small village in italy

      Hmmm In Spain I pay 178€/year and get 20MB a day of "full speed" and then it drops to about 128bps and most attemps to do anything just time out. Thank god for internet kiosks.

      Next year I'm going to try to negotiate paying for a dedicated fibre from the exchange - the exchange has ethernet so is set up for it, and is only 6km away. That will be my carrot. The stick is that othetwise I will force the legal requirement for them to provide me with a copper pair - and all the pairs within Kms are used.

  10. roger stillick
    Joke

    Waited 6 years for 7Mb service on copper... Done.

    Joke Alert= Here in the USA some telco's have finally discovered that aerial fiber to the hub is infinately cheaper than any copper pair lash up CO to customer... those hubs could also serve any lash up of cell tower wireless, currently being fed on short haul, point to point, digital microwave (subject to loss of siginal due to weather or solar storms)... Verizon and AT&T seem to be unwilling to lease facilities from local Telcos (FCC law allows it)... we continue to have areas of our country that actually have NO internet service due to lack of even useable dial-up service. It is simply Satellite internet or nothing.

    IMHO= TV ads show great coverage areas for wireless services... Areas of Coverage does NOT equal being able to actually use wireless due to overloaded facilites due to overselling service.

    Caveiat= My nephiew lives 50 miles from a major Hydro power dam in NE Washington state, his one and only dial-up local ISP has a 2Mb monthly data cap... he barely gets email (uses text only browser) and there is no cell service (next to Collville Indian Reservation)...so we all correspond by USB Data Sticks in the mail (visions of C-64 and mailing floppies worldwide 30 years ago)...RS.

  11. DerekCurrie
    Facepalm

    How about REAL 4G First?

    This is now so old and boring. We're being scammed by marketing.

    1) "4G" out in public is just a marketing term for high end actual 3G technology.

    2) REAL 4G is called 'LTE Advanced' and isn't available anywhere yet. Apparently, the companies are too lazy to implement it, having gotten away with the fake 4G marketing scam.

    3) ALL the chatter about "5G" is just more marketing scam. It's only a proposal. It doesn't exist. How about REAL 4G first? Or maybe the marketing morons are going to call REAL 4G "5G". Utter silliness.

    Just make cell phone technology WORK and make it FASTER already. Sheesh. :-P

    1. Phil Koenig

      Re: How about REAL 4G First?

      @DerekCurrie

      Actually there are some actual real deployments of LTE Advanced already in certain parts of the world, but not to my knowledge in the UK or USA yet.

  12. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    US does have LTE-A to some extent actually.

    Anyway, I can tell ya why the might Verizon Wireless is not gaining revenue -- overcharging! If you look at the coverage map for 4G, you'll be quite enraged compared to UK coverage, they have essentially 100% of their network 4G and a very large fraction of the country covered. But... They had a nice $30 unlimited data plan, which was a great bargain. Now? They want $10+ per GB for data ($15/GB for lower plans) -- but, you can't JUST buy data, it's bundled up with a $40+ voice/text plan. And it's not just $10 per GB, it's like these "packages" of data so you cant' get anything below like $30 (which is for just 2GB), in other words over $70 due to the forced bundling with a voice plan. You CAN get data without voice for aircards or mifis, but they then make sure it costs at least $50 for those same 2GB anyway. You want something more reasonable like 5 or 10GB? Well that's going to be like $100-150, enjoy. Oh, with $10-$20/GB overage rates, no option to just buy a package and not worry about it because you'll just be throttled. Oh, and they have shared data plans, but (even though you are ALREADY paying for each and every GB of data) they then double-dip by deciding that *shared* data should somehow cost more than it would cost otherwise, AND triple-dip by charging a per-line fee to "access" the data you're already paying more for. Well, it genuinely did come as a surprise to them when people were unwilling to pay this much, but it shouldn't have.

    The competition has lower per-GB rates, unlimited plans (albeit like $70-100 unlike the $30 it used to cost), and on limited T-Mo has throttle overages rather than cash overages. And STILL better 4G coverage than the UK carriers 8-). So no kidding VZW's sales are slagging.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like