Operators and vendors agree that Europe is falling behind in 5G Ericsson and Nokia are united on one thing, and that is Europe's failure to take a lead on 5G, a view which is supported by operators too. In a joint statement, six operator and technology associations criticized European Union lawmakers for a "timid approach that will do little to improve Europe's chances of success" and …
If the kit is available then it is down to the Networks to buy the stuff and put it out in the field.
As the seem to be somewhat/very/not this side of 2030 reluctant to deploy said kit then there is SFA that is mere mortals can do about it even if the respective Governments free up the spectum, the networks will have to pay off the national debt to get hold of it and TBH, that ain't gonna happen.
The thing is.. the problem is mostly to get the data in and out of the base stations, and route it afterwards, not between the mobile phones and the base stations.
So while yes, it would be more efficient, it will only solve a minor problem in specific parts of the network.. so it is NOT worth spending so much money.
And cmon, most people have had 4g only for the las 3 years.. with many 800band deployments in 2016, for example... so now, no 5G in europe for quite some time unless the spectrum gets cheaper or they do not require population coverage.
First world issue but will 5G be able to get a signal, preferably with a good data connection in the middle of a building? Will there be no more not spots on the train lines? Will it take up less battery life than 4G or 3G (I could swear that each phone I but has less battery life than the last one when doing the same things)?
5G will enable you to watch 4K video on a 5 inch screen. Yeah! I want it (not).
Having said that, where I live cannot get a cable installed to my house so my home internet is via LTE. So maybe 5G could be useful if it's available before FTTH. But I want FTTH for the TV over fiber.
Not with those HUGE EE Data allowances of 512Mb/month you won't.
I think it is about time that the ASA gave them a slap around the face with a piece of wet fish for stating that 512Mb is a huge data allowance.
Oh wait...
I wonder how much extra £££££ they get in from unsuspecting fools who try to livestream their Netflix shows over 3G/4G?...
They obviously need it all to pay Kevin Bacon to get out of bed to do their adverts.
XP was good enough. it did most things that most people wanted, well enough.
And so with 3G and 4G. Is there really any need for more features, speed, or whatever the hell 5G is supposed to offer?
I can see that from the phone and mobile operators point of view it's a good thing. Hey it's 5! that makes it better than 4 and that is all the marketing people need to know. And it's probably all that they will sell it on, too.
3G coverage is still fairly poor in a lot of places. 4G is becoming more widespread, but is far from ubiquitous in coverage, in contracts or in phones (and still doesn't come close to matching the original definition of 4G). 5G is a vague name that doesn't even have a clearly defined target for them to fail to meet yet. It's a bit hard to fall behind when you don't know what race you're supposed to be running, and haven't actually finished the last one anyway.
Really?
What is MOST needed is not new kit or agreement on what 5G might be or deployment of it. All of that is nearly irrelevant. This really is tired old chestnut now. The only people that will benefit from 5G will be infrastructure equipment sellers. It will have little effect on handset or modem sales.
What is needed is more masts, a single wholesale RAN (would double performance/capacity), and er, more masts.
But better coverage and especially better capacity (smaller cells = more masts) generates almost no extra revenue and probably a drop in profit due to extra operating costs.
What IS needed is more fibre to the home / kerb / premises, not a cabinet 1km to 3km away. Any improvement in mobile needs that anyway to feed all the smaller cells.
Just you wait...
The Samsung Galaxy S8 already contains a modem capable of doing 1GB/sec transfers.
As far as we know at the moment, the iPhone 8 won't get more than 450MB/sec.
Guess who will plaster adverts extolling the higher speed all over the TV, Busses and media in general even though there are no networks outside of South Korea capable of using those speeds and won't be for at least 2-3 years.
People will buy into the S8/S9 because of the higher data rates but will be disappointed when they can't even get a decent 3G rate but Samsung(or whoever) won't care, they'll have the punters/suckers money.
Shiny-shiny-bling, my thing is bigger and better than your thing...
Naturally, no one here would fall into that trap now would they?....
>Only on in Office femto cells and only if no-one else is in.
Well putting aside it's 450Megabit/sec and 1Gigabit/sec...
The real issue is the backhaul (well in-addition to the very limited deployment of LTE-A).
I can connect to my local EE/Orange 4G mast at whatever speed is negotiated, but the real data transfer speed is limited by the 2+ miles of copper from the mast back to the local POP...
most hardline masts are leased line like connections (typically ethernet product so have extra Gigabit speeds mostly at a push of a button), if they want to do LTE-A they can very easily be done after extra line cards and cells have been replaced
unless it repeater masts that use a Microwave dish as its backhaul from another mast that has a hardline then there miy only be enough capacity for normal 4g(150mb)/3g(42mb) per cell on the mast
most masts have 4 cells but can have 8 cells (each 2 is typically 1 sector for MIMO so you can get these higher 450mb speeds but it can be done with 1 cell)
It would seem that China has already made its choice....
Myself, I'll stick with my fibre cable network (nominally 250/100 Mb/s), but then, I'm a troglodyte.... ;-)
Henri
Don't you love journalist's who have no concept of scale other than money:
"China set to build the planet’s largest 5G mobile network for US$180b The mainland's spending on 5G infrastructure will be nearly four times larger than nearest Asian competitor Japan over a seven-year period. ...
It would also surpass spending in Japan, where the total 5G outlay was forecast to hit US$46 billion over the same seven-year mobile technology cycle."
A quick look at a world map and country statistic would show that China is significantly larger than Japan, both in terms of geography and population, so even with all things being equal, the total spend will naturally be much larger.
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