5g

[RWebb]

revolutionary whatever

or

faster foobars?

[wildthing]

From what I read, the fast 5G speeds only work if you have line of sight to the antenna. But I'm a software guy, not a network guy so...

[onewhippedpuppy]

Not available in a lot of places yet too. Faster is better, so I guess eventually it will be good.

[greglepore]

5g will enable a greater "internet of things" fwiw. Its almost mandatory for the real spread of autonomous vehicles. It is very short range and will take a long while to deploy outside of urbanity.

[GH85Carrera]

With all the completely crazy conspiracy theories aroud about 5G I am not surprised it is taking so long to implement.

You know 5G is just to track all of us, and it interconnects to the smart electric meter at your house to monitor you at all times, and listen to your phone calls, monitor text messages and email, and it can even modify your thinking with subliminal suggestions. It was all invented by the extraterrestrial lizard people that love to eat human babies as a gourmet meal, and they are really running the country. Most of Congress and the supreme court are all lizard people. We are doomed.

[stealthn]

Faster is always better, I am more pleased with the new wifi standards than 5G

[red-beard]

There are different 5G technologies.

The Primary system is one that is "4G LTE super", in a lower band, that gives about 100 Mbps. T-Mobile has an extensive network of this. And for most of us, this is the 5G and it is pretty good.

The "millimeter wave", aka microwave system is very short ranged. ~600 feet/200 meters clear line. It does NOT work well in buildings as the walls absorb the signal. But with the ultra high frequencies, it is capable of 1Gbps speed.

MW is only going to be in big cities. And the idea is that when you are "inside" you are connected to a WiFi network.

The "problem" many are encountering with 5G is the handoff. If the signal is weak, you keep switching between 5G and 4G, which causes both voice signal problems and weak data.

My 4G Galaxy S10 had better rural signal capability than my 5G Galaxy S20+

[beepbeep]

5G is basically tweaked 4G with one exceptional extra option not available in 4G: a very fast line-of-sight hi-frequency mode (that is likely only to be available in hi density city parts).

Tweaks are not so much about speed as about using existing bandwidth better as shared resource. Expect no major revolution, but as for 3G > 4G transition, it will get slightly faster.

[flatbutt]

On a tangent note. My iphone 6s is always running low on storage so upgrading to even 4G is not happening. Have any of you used a wireless streamer as storage for a cell phone?

[peppy]

5G my ass! I would be happy with 2 bars of service!