
5G specs announced: 20Gbps download, 1ms latency, 1M devices per square km - sinak
https://arstechnica.co.uk/information-technology/2017/02/5g-imt-2020-specs/
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colemannugent
To me, one of the biggest things here is the focus on lower latency. Sustained
speeds are great, but latency is really the problem with current 4G.

They cite that LTE cells have about 20ms latency. Adding a 20ms overhead to
every connection adds up fast.

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tbrowbdidnso
Bandwidth caps are a far larger issue. 20ms is unnoticeable for websites and
even gaming.

If the data cost dropped I would get rid of my home internet in a heartbeat

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colemannugent
From my home network google.com has about 120ms time-to-first-byte.

If I was on 4G add 20ms for the DNS lookup, 20ms for each part of the SSL
handshake, then another 20ms for the actual page request. If the page requests
additional resources repeat that for every single source and 20ms becomes a
big deal.

For gaming (assuming 20ms latency and a 60fps game) that kind of a delay means
that you are about 2.5 frames behind your opponents. In some games that really
does matter.

I agree though that caps are bad for everyone, but that has nothing to do with
the capability of the infrastructure and everything to do with perpetuating
the illusion that there is a bandwidth scarcity to justify slow connections,
shoddy service, and higher than free-market prices. The specs for 5G will
never change that.

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rsanders
For any game for which 60fps is a relevant measurement, none of those
additional steps are relevant. The relevant measure is just RTT for an IP
packet.

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tomcam
I'd be super thrilled if Comcast or Frontier could reliably deliver 10mbps in
rural Redmond, 3 miles from Microsoft

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petra
Spectral efficiency(bits/hz or bps/hz), a major thing that determines cost, is
similar or just 20% better than 4G.

An alternative is using mmWaves, but those require line of sight, so not sure
how useful are those to mobile phones.

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throwaway40483
Isn't mmWave only useful for connecting backhaul due to the line of sight
requirement?

