Ask HN: Why is 4G not enough and what are the use cases of 5G? - xchip
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gt565k
Surprised no one has mentioned IoT yet.

The goal is to have everything connected to the grid. Your door opens: it
pings a server, you walk in through your main entrance: A notification is
sent.

Not just in home automation, but in industrial settings as well.

There's a lot of heavy machinery equipment and industries ripe for disruption
as IoT devices scale into those industry verticals. For example: real-time
access to information about machinery running the supply chain is invaluable.
Whether it is ground, air, or ocean freight, being able to tell when a
shipment is loaded, when the carrier has arrived, etc... helps optimize a
supply chain and allows operators to react in real-time to address supply and
demand. Everything will be tracked whether it's an NFC or RFID sticker, and
IoT devices will pick up these trackers as they flow through a system or
supply chain.

In short 5G enables IoT devices at scale that can feed data into BI systems
can let you find bottlenecks and react in real-time to issues that have a high
impact from a deliverables perspective and might require intervention to
correct an issue in real-time.

4G does not have the bandwidth capacity to enable IoT devices at scale.

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xchip
I've been doing IoT stuff for 5+ years now, I am looking forward knowing what
is that killing use case that needs the requirements you mention.

Also, are you aware that 5G would require people to pay and wifi is free (and
fast enough!)?

I really want to see a specific problem and then look for a solution, not the
other way around.

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throwaway6575
The end goal is to finally kill local storage and have everything as a
service, on the cloud. This way tech companies will finally take back the
control on their users they have so foolishly relinquished in the 70s.

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p49k
5G has extremely low latency, enabling anything that would benefit from that:
gaming, telemedicine, low-latency video calls (could potentially allow live
music collaboration over video chat, for example)

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xchip
Definitely 5G is not solving any problem in gaming. I work for a company that
builds big fat chips for gaming, streaming is a thing but this is the first
time I hear that we need 5G. As for the rest, I am already doing that and all
works quite well!

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Spooky23
The use case is to allow telcos to put cable companies out of business with
millimeter wave antennas to the home. Basically rebuild the bad old AT&T.

5G is critical infrastructure needed to beat the Chinese. Go America. So it
gets to bypass pesky state utility regulation.

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nunez
5G gets us to Gigabit speeds over the air, which 4G couldn't pull off even in
ideal conditions. This introduces an incredible amount of opportunity that was
not previously available (such as TV and internet for the home over cellular
that's actually viable).

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xchip
Do we know at least 3 problems that 5G is solving? Even in my little town
people have internet at full speed via optic fiber.

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Spooky23
The problem is that wireless margins are significantly higher than wire line,
and the government will foot part of the cost.

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zxcvbn4038
I’m invested now, I want to know how many Gs the marketing people are going to
try and pack in there.

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RikNieu
Let me answer by rewriting your question:

Why are stiffy drives not enough and what are the use cases of CD-Roms?

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xchip
CDRoms were solving the problems of storage. So what is the problem 5G is
solving for the world?

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kleer001
Bandwidth and latency.

In my world view of computing there are the two atomic elements of data and
computation. In general people don't care much about computation as its hidden
behind many layers. Mostly people care about data. Getting it quickly and
getting a lot of it.

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xchip
That was too loose and generic, with statements like that you would be kicked
out of any meeting :P

