back to article UK's BT Openreach settlement highlights wider issues of 5G convergence

There will be far tighter integration between fixed and wireless connectivity in 5G than ever before. Dense virtualized networks will require huge numbers of high-capacity fixed links; fixed broadband will be delivered over wireless as well as wireline; fixed/mobile convergence for content and service delivery will become table …

  1. Mage Silver badge

    Forget 5G

    1) Nothing to do with real broadband.

    2) 5G is about mobile operator server integration and Mobile Network suppliers selling new kit, not broadband/mobile integration.

    3) 5G will have almost no impact on real mobile, you need x3 to x10 more basestations.

    4) The only significant aspect of 5G for speed is replacing nearly free to use WiFi with 5G femto cells using bands useless for real mobile.

    Fixed broadband needs fibre period. High speed wireless links are well established and nothing to do with 5G, they are where fibre is uneconomic, which now is nearly nowhere as fibre is easily delivered any place that has mains sewerage, or mains water or mains electricity or mains gas.

    Decent speed mobile masts also need fibre.

    This is a nonsense statement

    "far tighter integration between fixed and wireless connectivity in 5G than ever before"

    1. Mage Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Forget 5G

      Actually LESS broadband (=Wifi) to Mobile integration is needed. TEN years ago it was figured how to roam from 3G to WiFi for Data, VOIP and even native 3G voice. But 3G, 4G or 5G femto cells replacing WiFi remove the need for that complex back end software and application / stack on the smart phone as the 3.5GHz 250MBps femto cell functions just like a 800MHz or 2.6GHz 4G mast.

      While we are at it, forbid Mobile from deploying 4G/LTE on WiFi bands. That's just spectrum theft and a way to charge users for use of spectrum that should be WiFi.

    2. Lee D Silver badge

      Re: Forget 5G

      People get confused here.

      A cable, fibre or copper, gives you what's promised, and only tends to get more as time goes on (ADSL->ADSL2->VDSL, DOCSIS->DOCSIS2->DOCSIS3, etc.). You are sharing it with your street, but can be guaranteed a portion of it.

      A speed on wireless / cellular is HIGHLY variable and totally out of your hands and will ONLY get less with time as more people jump on. And the old devices will make your new devices slower. You are sharing the connection with anything in a sphere of a certain radius and there are no guarantees.

      It's a bit like Ethernet - Gigabit to every single machine is easily doable. Gigabit wireless to even half-a-dozen devices is almost impossible to guarantee in any significant way as you're sharing, say, 802.11ac between six before you even start. Adding more points makes more noise too. Whereas adding more cables makes things faster (LACP, etc.).

      I use the rule-of-twenties. It takes one minute to download your network profile on a wired connection? It would take 20 minutes to do the same over wireless. This is why you don't use wireless, especially in crowded environments or for more than web browsing.

      5G would be no different. Technically, it can give amazing speeds. In real life you'll get a pittance just larger than the previous pittance, which will get less as more and more people use it.

  2. JaitcH
    Happy

    It's All Down To Cellco Attitude!

    In Indochina, political history plays a big part in most things today.

    VietNam acts like an adoptive parent to Laos (VN also supplies International InterNet access to this country), VN dislikes Cambodia and hates China. (No Chinese programming is permitted on any VN medium)

    Laos and Cambodia are fine, and China is acting like a sugar-daddy millionaire to both of them, 'giving' them the latest Chinese-made network equipment

    Back in the day, after VN had backed out of Cambodia with it's army, it donated base TV station transmitters to both Laos and Cambodia. VTV (VN) is on one of the channels in every donated system.

    VN has handed much of it's used cell base equipment to Laos, as VN cellco's constantly upgraded, Viettel, owned by the VN military, has huge fibre optic installations in Cambodia along with extensive cell coverage.

    Within VN there is a network of 5-7 cellco operators owned by either the government of private investors. Whilst they compete for customers, the technical cooperation is surprisingly friendly with well-funded government companies often helping their lesser endowed competitors with back-bone access.

    Technically, VNPT (government) is hand-in-glove with Mobiphone (lately a subsidiary of VNPT), but I detect that isolated 'pockets' of coverage, in the more remote areas, by other networks are hosted on VNPT equipment which essentially covers the country,

    Viettel led the way with 4G - concentrated around Ha Noi (capital) whereas VNPT hung back a little but when it's 4G when live, so did it's 'competitors'.

    Likewise with cable companies - they each help the other. I had access to a major cable company's feed (they 'borrowed' space in one of our underground cable ducts, and using a spectrum analyser found that programming for other 'competitors' was also carried on their networks although filters stopped the average subscriber from seeing what was going on.

    There is minimal government intrusion in these arrangements, little coerced cooperation, which demonstrates when carriers get a mature management, with the right attitude, everyone can have a WIN-WIN situation.

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