5G? Be nice if I could get a reliable 3G signal everywhere before the networks move on. And I'm not talking the remote area of Scotland I'm talking big swathes of East Anglia...
Course that may just be down to 02, but you get the idea...
In all the excitement about 5G, it is easy to forget that the most intensive innovations of 2016-2020 will go on in "4.5G" – in Release 13 and 14, of course, but more importantly in the way the carriers and their vendors reinvent their cellular networks with new approaches like virtualization and HetNet, in the desperate bid to …
We got txts a few weeks ago from Vodafone saying there may be some network disruption as they upgraded the masts in the area. Got txt last week to say the work was completed. Still no 3G here and I will lose network on the ground floor in our house. Only a few miles from Birmingham and less that 5 miles from 2 large towns.
Thank you for that. But I suspect that the OP was thinking about the whole article, which seemed to me over-burdened with acronyms and jargon at the expense of clarity. I suspect the content is very good, but it seems the author needs a journalist between him and even reasonably interested lay people.
Can I first have some 3G data that works a few miles out of the city (Cambridge) please ?
It is incredibly patchy. Pretty good in places like Westwick (a hamlet) but Cottenham (nearby large village) and Tesco Milton useless.
The problem with 5G is they're going to rely on even smaller cells.
Sounds great. Any word on security ? Is a single malware going to be able to take over 6000 handsets at that speed ?
No mistake, we are going to need to improve bandwidth, if only because of all the stupid doodads IoT is trying to make us wear (before we grow bored of them). Still, I'd like a modicum of attention paid to keeping things all nice and secure.
REAL 4G is known as LTE Advanced.
What marketing morons call '4G' these days is nothing more than fast 3G. All this chat-chat-chatter about '5G' is merely more marketing hype. That particular technology is YEARS away. Meanwhile, REAL 4G is here; It's been ready to go for YEARS; The lazy ass mobile phone companies haven't bothered to deploy it for gawd knows what reasons. But here they are hyping 5G. Ludicrous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_Advanced
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_devices_with_LTE_Advanced
"The lazy ass mobile phone companies haven't bothered to deploy it for gawd knows what reasons. But here they are hyping 5G. Ludicrous."
I think you'll find it's the equipment vendors who are hyping 5G, the mobile networks are currently happily selling 2G (basic GSM connectivity), 3G (majority of existing handsets and dongles) & 4G (newer handsets).
I like the fact that there is little real agreement as to what 5G actually is other than at the ISS level (ie. much higher than the 10,000ft view), namely it will be a lot faster than what has gone before. So currently, it seems that any cellular network equipment capable of delivering speeds in excess of 4G, using whatever proprietary technology can call itself 5G.
Given the shenanigans over 3G patents - I'm looking at you Qualcomm, I hope that those responsible for defining a 5G standard, do a better job on the IPR front - something like the Sewing Machine Co-operative wouldn't go amiss (ie. all patent holders placed their patents into the pot and users merely obtained a single licence to use from the co-operative).