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back to article EE seeks guinea pig millennial hipsters for 5G experiments

Millennials are notoriously fearful of handling raw meat – but EE hopes they'll be less wary fondling experimental radio equipment. Bragging rights for 5G have begun, and EE is targeting the Nathan Barleys, Steve Bongs and hipster millennials around Shoreditch. A trial will permit "five small businesses and five homes in the …

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  1. MyffyW Silver badge

    The Shoreditch Experiment

    The Shoreditch Experiment - I am picturing a 1950s black and white Ealing studios sci-fi film featuring earnest looking middle-class types who (co-incidentally) probably share sartorial similarities with 2018-Shoreditch-Types

    11 0 Reply
  2. AlbertH

    Why don't those inept clowns EE ("Nothing Anywhere") concentrate on getting their basic services to work properly before "rolling out" another worthless speed increase? Roughly 90% of the UK can't even get 4G and almost 60% can't get 3G coverage. You can safely ignore EE's "Coverage Maps" - they're "best guess" rather than actually measured results.

    EE can't get even basic service to work at the tops of hills - a fundamental flaw in digital mobile telephony - because too many conflicting cell sites are "visible" to the handset. This wasn't a problem with NBFM analogue phones - because of "capture effect", strongest always wins.

    Back in the pre-digital days, I was professionally involved with a trial of a digital add-on to the original NBFM cellular system. This had all the benefits of the basic NBFM service, but with the capacity of digital (it used a sort of Time-Division Multiplexing). Back in the late 80s we were getting practical data rates similar to today's 4G.....

    Remember - the UK is the second most expensive place in the world to make a phonecall!

    8 6 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      "EE can't get even basic service to work at the tops of hills"

      Hmm, wonder if that explains my wife's fairly frequent predicament of 'full signal strength and no data to speak of'. My Three phone can usually manage useful data even when the signal is too weak for voice calls.

      4 0 Reply
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      EE still better than O2

      I presume you have never used O2. Unless you live in a large city then the signal is non existent or close to useless at best (At least north of the border). I swear they power their transmitters with 2x1.5AA batteries.

      2 0 Reply
    3. TheVogon
      Reply Icon

      "Why don't those inept clowns EE ("Nothing Anywhere") concentrate on getting their basic services to work properly before "rolling out" another worthless speed increase?"

      Works just fine for me pretty much anywhere. And surveys show EE is on average the fastest provider across the country. So anyone else is likely to be worse.

      "EE can't get even basic service to work at the tops of hills - a fundamental flaw in digital mobile telephony - because too many conflicting cell sites are "visible" to the handset."

      So a firmware issue with the handset and nothing to do with EE then.

      "the UK is the second most expensive place in the world to make a phonecall!"

      No it isnt. Not even close.

      https://www.therichest.com/luxury/most-expensive/countries-with-the-most-expensive-average-cell-phone-bill/

      5 0 Reply
    4. jonfr
      Reply Icon

      You got your basic wrong. In digital system the strongest transmitter is always used. The rest of them can be used to locate your mobile phone if needed since it also reports to them.

      What is most likely the problem is too small cell sites in terms of transmission power being used. Normal transmitter is at the power of 25W (in towns) but can be much smaller or larger depending on location and area were it is located.

      TDMA systems are slow compared to OFDMA. There not a technical possibility that you where getting today's speed in the 1980's.

      5 0 Reply
  3. Lee D Silver badge

    45ms is low-latency?

    Currently on 4G.

    Speedtest - ping 21ms. Jitter 3ms.

    That's on a Giffgaff SIM with a Samsung mobile. At home I have a 4G Huawei box on a Three SIM and get similar.

    You're gonna need a lot less than 45ms to sell that to me as "low-latency".

    5 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Wireless stuff is never 'low latency'

      There's also a risk of losing signal, getting disconnected etc.

      That's why for the serious gamers, they only game on a wired, ethernet connection.

      0 1 Reply
      1. Lee D Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Wireless stuff is never 'low latency'

        Agreed. I ran CS servers for over a decade.

        However, DECENT Wifi, with proper signal strength, QoS, etc. can match cabled latency good enough to enjoy the game, no problem. It would be as good, but the QoS, channel-sharing, downgrading abusive wifi clients, etc. matter much more than "it's wifi".

        When my gf used to watch videos online, my ping went through the roof, even wired. Proper QoS priority on the packets meant she could do what she liked unimpended, and I still got sub-20ms ping.

        People used to accuse me of having an advantage "because it's running off his computer". At which point I'd point out that the server was in France and I'm British. Literally, playing on a gaming laptop, over Wifi, over bog-standard Virgin cable, to France was faster than almost everybody's "gaming" setup. I even got into an argument with some guy who had one of those "killer" network card things.

        With a decent router, 4G or Wifi is more than adequate for most people, and you have to be properly professional to require sub-50ms latency, most people cope quite happily with sub-100ms.

        3 0 Reply
  4. Richard Jones 1
    WTF?

    I Want To Apply

    I'm not in Shoreditch, but I hoped the experiment of new kit that might, just might get a signal just beyond the M25. Sadly I see I shall continue to live in the valley of dead EE promises with no reception at home..

    2 1 Reply
  5. Roger Kynaston

    mind bleach needed

    That picture is just gross.

    I have no idea if 5G will be a good thing either.

    2 0 Reply
  6. Toilet Duk

    Experimenting on hipsters, eh? When do human trials start?

    5 0 Reply
  7. Alistair

    Okay -- I *get* that the place has inherited its name from history, but do no Brits see the astonishing irony of calling a tech development warmfuzzywombhibernautcatapult something that only brings to mind a muddy trench filled with severed fish heads, fish guts and various other excreta?

    That said, someone mentioned TDMA. Kudos. I *still* think that it made better use of the resources.

    5G.

    Dammit, we're still figuring out how to use 4G. We don't have a completed standard and why the sam hell are we letting entities with known histories of vendor lock in monoculture anywhere NEAR a standards council for something they've 0 exposure to in their specialty lines of business.

    2 0 Reply
  8. 89724102371719531892324I9755670349743096734346773478647852349863592355648544996313855148583659264921

    Lasers carving texts into your forehead while you're walking. Welcome to 6G.

    1 0 Reply

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