
Cheap, fast, wireless connectivity won’t happen without more fiber - mirandak4
https://backchannel.com/the-next-generation-of-wireless-5g-is-all-hype-1790239b8ca8#.oz3rmbyil
======
Artlav
Back at the start of the decade, i followed a certain startup in Moscow
closely [1]. They wanted to provide 4G to the city.

For perspective, back in 2009 there wasn't even 3G in Russia - the frequencies
were all owned by the military, and companies were still trying to wrestle
them.

The most interesting part was the scope of the project - the startup nearly
went broke not for the need to install 4G equipment, but for the need to build
an entire fiber backbone to power that equipment. They invested heavily into
building the network that would carry the mobile traffic to the internet al
large.

They nearly went broke... And then they became the only service provider
giving 4G in a 12 million soul city that knew nothing better than GPRS. It
didn't last long, but for a time they more or less had a license to print
money.

Last time i checked, that backbone they built is still used by every other
provider that built a 3G/4G network since then.

So, yeah. Fiber was the right investment.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yota](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yota)

~~~
jseliger
_It didn 't last long, but for a time they more or less had a license to print
money._

My impression, perhaps wrong, is that most people won't build large, fixed
infrastructure in Russia for fear of it being seized by the state or someone
with state backing (see e.g.
[http://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/3427198/banking...](http://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/3427198/banking-
and-capital-markets-emerging-markets/bill-browder-puts-putin-on-notice-with-
expos-of-corruption.html#/.V60PVI7NATk)).

~~~
rayiner
I wouldn't build a Fiber network in the current U.S. climate for the same
reason.

~~~
foota
Really? While you might be required to lease it at market rate I don't see
where the gov't would allow or help someone to seize it.

~~~
eksu
Isn't that just as bad as it getting seized though?

Is this 'Market Rate' the same 'Market Rate' you get reimbursed when you loose
your place to civil forfeiture?

~~~
Natanael_L
*Eminent domain

------
gst
In the US 5G isn't really too useful for the users, as long as 4G is priced
way too expensive. On my US SIM card I pay $10 per GB. On my Austrian SIM card
I pay 26 Euros a month for a LTE flatrate (without any hidden caps and with
unlimited tethering allowed). Wireless data is so cheap there that many people
cancel their wired connection and only use LTE instead.

Why would I need 5G on a connection where I can't use more than a few GB
because it gets too expensive otherwise?

~~~
slashink
You're not wrong in the sense that 5G isn't actually that much of value for
the users directly, however there are many other reasons that directly benefit
the users.

Telco's pay 2 big costs for running a cellular data network: Infrastructure
and Spectrum licensing. Your cost of data is supposed to cover these two with
an added profit for the telco. What 5G brings to the table is faster data,
which means you are able to transfer you file quicker, which means the average
spectrum usage per "facebook load" is lower since the transmission happens
much faster. Instead of you occupying that spectrum for 30 sec while loading
over GPRS, you instead fetch all the files in less than a second, making the
average potential bandwidth in the network much higher for everyone, thus
lowering the price per gigabyte.

In addition to that, with 5G the phone can fetch data much more fast which
means the radio can enter power-saving mode much faster. If a page on 4G takes
4 seconds to download and on 5G takes 1 second, it might end up being a 4X
reduction (i'm stretching it for the sake of the example) due to the radio not
having to be powered for that long.

So the consumer wins on pricing and battery consumption while the networks can
squeeze more out of the already occupied spectrum.

------
nathcd
I've been guilty lately about getting a little overhyped about 5g, mainly
because of the possibility of p2p connectivity. Device-to-device would
obviously be really useful for IoT applications, which it seems like a lot of
industry research has been focused on. A few links from
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G#Research](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G#Research)
to 5g literature:

[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1503.00674.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1503.00674.pdf)

[https://www.ericsson.com/research-blog/5g/device-device-
comm...](https://www.ericsson.com/research-blog/5g/device-device-
communications/)

[http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?reload=tru...](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?reload=true&tp=&arnumber=6815897)

I'm just talking out of my rear end now, but it'd be so cool if devices could
form 5g mesh connections without connecting to the backbone. I enjoy imagining
what it would be like if we could do for connectivity what bittorrent did for
file hosting.

~~~
awqrre
Adhoc Wi-Fi is not being supported by Google on Android [0]... What makes you
think that they would allow p2p on 5g?

0\.
[https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=82](https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=82)

~~~
nathcd
> What makes you think that they would allow p2p on 5g?

That's a good point. The answer that comes to mind (again, just pulling this
out of my rear end) is that Google would benefit from more people having more
ubiquitous and cheap internet access. As long as at least one device somewhere
in a given mesh is connected to the backbone, so is the whole mesh, and then
more Google ads can be seen. In other words, for similar reasons as Google
Fiber.

And then I'd think Android Wear/TV/Auto devices could benefit from better p2p
connectivity as well.

------
zw123456
When Verizon talks about "wireless fiber" they are talking about fiber to the
corner or fiber to the curb and then using mm-wave the last "100 Meters" so to
speak. FiOS has been tremendously successful but one of the more difficult
aspects is getting the fiber that last little bit into homes and offices.
Getting fiber up and down the streets is no cake walk either but once done,
the second part is extending it the rest of the way. The idea of using mm-wave
technology to get it from the corner or curb to your living room is a great
idea. If it can be made to work, it can deliver 3-5Gbps without having to have
your yard torn up.

5G is a marketing term, but not necessarily a totally bad one. It generally
refers to converged network technology that will more seamlessly integrate
more aspect such as traditional BB, IoT, Mobility and so on. That is a pretty
long term goal of course. Using 5G fixed wireless to provide BB to your home
without extending fiber all the way into your house is just one aspect of 5G,
one small application, but probably one of the more immediately possible and
potentially profitable ones.

~~~
massysett
If Fios has been so successful, why aren't they building any more of it?

~~~
tw04
Because of the profit margin on wireless, and the ability to artificially
increase profits are so much greater. People wouldn't stand for per GB pricing
on FIOS because they're used to unlimited. The wireless industry has managed
to perpetuate this idea that bandwidth on wireless is an extremely limited
resource and they abuse it to no end.

~~~
rayiner
> Because of the profit margin on wireless, and the ability to artificially
> increase profits are so much greater.

How is the ability to "artificially increase profits" "so much greater" in a
market where everyone has 3-4 options than in a market where you're almost
guaranteed to be the only game in town?

Verizon charges - and people pay - $10/GB for extra data for the same reason
Apple charges $100 to for a few extra $$ of flash memory. It's classic price
discrimination. You sell the minimum 90% of people are okay with, then charge
a ton more for the price-insensitive customers.

~~~
jlgaddis
> _Verizon charges - and people pay - $10 /GB for extra data for the same
> reason Apple charges $100 for a few extra $$ of flash memory._

Because consumers continue to pay those amounts.

~~~
rayiner
But why can't Verizon just do the same for FiOS? And why don't consumers just
get TMobile unlimited for $70?

~~~
tw04
Because Verizon has created an artificial monopoly by buying up the vast
majority of the most coveted spectrum. The only reason T-Mobile is even in
business still is because of the failed AT&T acquisition which netted them
more valuable spectrum than they had ever or would ever have been able to get
via the government auctions.

AT&T can somewhat compete, but the failed T-Mobile deal hurt them far worse
than anyone seems to be acknowledging.

------
martinko
> Verizon launched its 4G LTE network in the US covering 93% of the population
> it needed about 30,000 towers, each one of which had to have a fiber
> connection

I'm curious whether this is true. Base stations are usually connected to the
backbone network using microwave connections. The average bases station has a
capacity of under 300mbits, so it would really be something if Verizon managed
to connect all its base stations with fiber

------
the_mitsuhiko
Often when people talk fiber it's the idea of going to the home. If all you
need is fiber backhaul to an antenna it's a mucc simpler problem and cheaper.
Aside, you can hook up many antennas with other means of connectivity if need
be.

------
ex3ndr
In Russia, Saint-Petersburg fiber is in every home. In one year (i guess)
government remove old phone and replace it with fiber + router in almost every
apartment in the city. I think doing fiber is not that hard if you need to
make it.

~~~
davidiach
Interesting. Is the fiber placed in the ground or on poles? It makes a huge
difference in terms of cost.

~~~
ex3ndr
Under ground and fiber comes directly to apartment

------
jessaustin
_A leading tech VC in New York, someone who is viewed as a thought leader,
said to me not long ago, “Why do you keep talking about fiber? Everything’s
going wireless.”_

I hope she sent him a link to TFA. Any guesses as to who it is?

~~~
digi_owl
Being a VC i suspect he was talking from the economic point of view. There is
likely to be a higher ROI on wireless than wired networks, as they are usage
billed rather than flat rate.

~~~
sgt101
remember that you pay _significantly_ for handsets; client are carved off from
wired cost in the minds of consumers. Also, no one, god included is making
another bit of capacity for wireless networks (in the shannon limit sense) any
time ever. In cities (where the money is) they are contended and they are
contended at just the times and places you don't want.

------
lwis
This doesn't sound massively practical, but if it succeeds then we'll see a
huge infrastructure boost globally.

------
otoburb
>> _Let’s explore the implications of these two things: the need for a
standard and the need for fiber._

I respect Susan Crawford's writing and am in general agreement with her
consistent drumbeat for fiber upgrades as one of _the_ competitive edges for
any country that can afford the capital costs of deploying last-mile dark
fiber to more homes and buildings.

This particular article misses the history of how every standard ratified by
3GPP has always been characterized by telecommunication providers and vendors
jockeying for influence and position to realize their vision of a standard
that aligns with their own agendas. HTTP/2's ratification building upon
Google's reference SPDY implementation is a more extreme analogy of a single
player seemingly exerting much more influence or contributions to a particular
standard[1]. Crawford acknowledges this reality towards the end of her
article: " _Ericsson is teaming up with SK Telecom to test 5G applications
[...] [and] they’re probably hoping to force the adoption of a global standard
that matches their own commercial plans so that they can get a head start._ "

Carriers will execute plays from the same playbook by generating hype for 5G
devices, while commencing commercial and technical explorations over the next
few years as we get closer to 2020 3GPP 5G standards ratification. As the hype
builds and initial flagship/anchor cell sites/cities come online, data caps
will only be raised gradually, not at all commensurate or proportional to the
increase in speeds that 5G promises (when standing right next to the tower).

"Cheap, fast and ubiquitous" is Crawford's article tagline, but carriers are
for-profit businesses and generally for new technologies exclusively choose
the last two and drop the first since only high-ARPU early adopters with
disposable incomes can afford the new 5G devices that will be released.

One final point is that will help carriers manage 5G tower field deployments
are WiFi offloading. Despite known short-range limitations of higher frequency
spectrum, improved WiFi/cellular handoff technology[2] and convergence of
fixed and wireless assets under single organizational umbrellas will give some
[US] carriers more ammunition to play up the 5G hype while backhaul,
aggregation points, peering and long-term capital outlays become a reality
over the next decade.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP/2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP/2)

[2] [https://www.qualcomm.com/news/snapdragon/2015/01/05/lte-
wi-f...](https://www.qualcomm.com/news/snapdragon/2015/01/05/lte-wi-fi-and-
back-call-continuity-brings-next-generation-calling)

------
bulkan
Tell this to the Australian's who keep voting for the Liberals

