Mobile industry looks ahead to 6G as 5G evolution continues
www.theregister.com
5G networks won't have the capacity to cope by end of the decade
  • Capt. Wolf@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    10 months ago

    He added that it takes about three to five years to fully roll out a new mobile generation.

    It’s been 5 years already. I’m sitting in my office right now at 36mbps and 200ms latency on 5g+. Meanwhile, if you go a mile north of me, you drop down to 4g and doing anything on the internet becomes impossible.

    I’m pretty sure AT&T just changed the numbers from 4g to 5g and called it a day.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      10 months ago

      That’s actually kind of what happened…

      The threshold for a new generation is something that was supposed to be standardized long ago.

      But cell companies couldn’t develop it as fast as they wanted to sell new phones.

      That’s why there was a bunch of 4Gs, and then they all agreed to call something 5g when it didn’t meet the thresholds for a new generation.

      There’s still a huge increase in speed for early adopters, but only because the new one isn’t full of people yet.

      So everyone is tricked into thinking the upgrade is worth it, but within a few months it’s the same speed as the last one.

      It’s really something that needs more regulation. Unfortunately those companies make a lot of donations to both parties to prevent that sort of thing.

      • Capt. Wolf@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        10 months ago

        I’m not surprised at all. They were already doing it with 4g too…

        Hopefully, now that the FCC no longer has that gelded fuckwad running it, maybe they can bring these assholes to heel again.

        Doubtful, but maybe.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          10 months ago

          Well, the new head of FCC is the person who was the head a decade ago when the fuckery with 4g started…

          So I’d be surprised if she stops it now

          I hope she does, I’d just be surprised

    • grayman@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      There’s control plane sms data plane. You can upgrade the control plane without the data plane. That’s what every carrier did. You had to before you could get the data plane improvements. Those improvements turned out to be expensive, so they didn’t happen in most areas.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    2·
    10 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    It was touted as delivering not just a dramatic shift in download speeds, but was expected to enable a host of new applications such as extended reality (XR) and usher in a new era of connected devices.

    Gartner analyst Bill Menezes told us at the time: “As the carriers continue updating their networks for 5G Standalone technology, users will increasingly experience the promised improvements in speed and reliability.”

    Nokia is advocating for 6G spectrum just above the current mid band range for 5G (1-6 GHz) because that will allow for deployment from existing cell sites, he added, and this will call for large-scale antenna arrays that can better direct the electromagnetic energy.

    Nokia has built a proof of concept, using an existing 5G base station hacked to operate as a radar, and researchers were able localize people and detect movement within an accuracy of less than a meter, Vetter claimed.

    Overall, the concepts for 6G so far seem to center on mobile networks becoming more pervasive and creating capacity and performance for demanding applications like telepresence, as well as connecting myriad sensors and devices beyond phones.

    And here comes the rub: That position may prove untenable as operators feel pressure to keep investing for fear of falling behind rivals - the same dynamics as in previous rollouts in the mobile network industry.

    The original article contains 1,521 words, the summary contains 222 words. Saved 85%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!