UK.gov: Who wants £25m... *cheers*... to trial 5G? *crickets chirping* The British government is looking for places to chuck £25m it has set aside for 5G trials. Under the plans, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is asking interested parties across the UK to submit proposals for match-funded grants of up to £5m. It reckons the technology will enable speeds of up to 10Gbps, …
Will they come with the stupidly low data allowances
Probably, yes. Large numbers of people all hanging off relatively few masts with limited radio frequencies available all mean that sharing the bandwidth is essential. That means dissuading punters from downloading too much.
Leastwise that's the current state of play. But if the backroom boys can get beam shaping out of the home and out to the cell things might improve. That ought to allow the mast to partition the cell into 'sub cells' which means less need for sharing. It's basically Wifi's MIMO on a larger scale.
Being a victim of stupidly low data allowance IMO is Steve Jobs final gift to the world. He has managed to engineer out the previous paradigm of paying for voice by the minute at stupidly low rates into paying for data by volume at stupidly high rates.
It has always baffled me as to why I can't have unlimited data on my mobile service. Are they worried that their vast warehouses full of fresh data will run out? There is no logical reason to limit your punters' usage other than you'd be missing out on an opportunity to gouge them for more cash.
No, the issue is that <insert telco> didn't invest in high enough capacity backhaul, therefore they have to limit usage but rather than choose the obvious - limit the bandwidth available - because that doesn't win shiny advertising awards, they limit volume. Enter gouging, where here in Australia it is customary to charge $10/GB extra. on a 10GB/Mth usage.
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It has always baffled me as to why I can't have unlimited data on my mobile service.
It's a combination of factors:
* There is only so much data that can be carried over a given range of radio frequencies.
* There is a finite range of radio frequencies available to us.
* A lot of other things are using radio frequencies.
* Adjacent transmitters have to avoid each other's frequencies or Bad Things(TM) happen.
What this means is that hundreds (sometimes thousands) of users are all trying to talk to the same mast at the same time and the laws of physics mean there is not enough bandwidth for them. To minimise the problem the operators ration the bandwidth to encourage people not to 'hog the airwaves'. The smaller your allowance the less time you will spend downloading and the more time that leaves for other users.
This is what's known as contention and it can occur at various points of any network. However the problem with wireless communication is that we are up against the laws of physics. If a telephone exchange is congested another fibre can be lit. But the radio bandwidth we have is all we have.
Beam forming is a possible solution because it allows us to only transmit where it's needed. Thus even though you and I might be connecting to the same mast if we're far enough apart our signals don't interfere so there is no contention. It's almost as if we have our own masts.
The point is a positive press release - ministerial announcement that the Government is "determined to be one of the first countries in the world to use <insert sexy buzzword here>".
It is the service seen by the customer that counts, not how sexy the back end technology is.
Perhaps a threat to invest £25m in investigating the tax compliance of whichever mobile phone company is found to have the shittiest coverage in six months time would be better value.
I'd rather my money was spent on healthcare or education to be honest. Really don't understand what tangible benefit HMG expect to derive from a trial.
Will the technology work? Yes
Will those planning to deploy it know how to make it work? Yes
Do we need to be at the forefront of 5G technology R&D? It's a nice to have but not a core industry
Really it's just a vanity spend to show "Britain is (still, just about) open for business"
The constraints to 5G deployment are:
1) the fact consumers won't pay a penny more for it
2) the vast cost of deploying a much higher density of cell sites (across multiple countries, not just Britain)
3) cost of upgrading the backhaul to carry more data traffic
4) fibre to the tower not being a primary allowed use for PIA/ DPA, because apparently it's not broadband enough
5) mobile operators not working very closely together on cell site selection, and to some extent still thinking they can afford to build the fronthaul themselves
6) some regulatory/ spectrum concerns for some parties
none of which will be addressed by a £25m trial. If HMG really cared about leading 5G deployment, they might consider trying to make it easier and cheaper to deploy than their European neighbours
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