
Why is the ‘race to 5G’ a race? - takanori
https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/23/18637213/5g-race-us-leadership-china-fcc-lte
======
9nGQluzmnq3M
One data point: FOMA [1] in Japan was the world's first commercial 3G service
to launch. Was it the "winner" of that "war"? No, it was basically an
incompatible fork of UMTS [2] that in the end was used by nobody except NTT
Docomo, who had to retool a few years later at considerable expense to be
compatible with the global standard.

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

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

~~~
qtwhat
This answer and the answers below ignored one simple point: 5G is a global
collaboration (3GPP), not a regional experiment, which includes operators
around the world and vendor around the world (not true, few from American..).
You can basically call 3GPP the dictatorial organization, simply it is the
only organization truely working on the cellular technique.

More importantly, it is getting stronger, and the ecosystem getting more
diversified as more OTT and devices vendors like Google, Tencent, Alibaba,
Apple, all joining in.

Face it, US is being left behind.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
FOMA was an UMTS implementation also shepherded by 3GPP. This didn't stop it
from being incompatible.

Put another way, the W3C is supposed to set global standards for web browsing,
and we all know how compatible browsers are...

~~~
qtwhat
True. But note that in 3G and 4G period, there are a number of systems that
are not compatible to each other, like UMTS vs CDMA, LTE vs WiMAX, while 5G is
the global one.

------
superkuh
5G-NR standard only gives a 15-20% gain in data thoroughput over the same
bandwidth as compared to 4G LTE. The vast majority of the increase in
thoroughput has to come from the millimeter wave bands. Think about
streetlights to get an idea of coverage and propagation. Now think about
running internet fiber to every streetlight. It's quite a task. It'll only be
done (and has only been done so far in the USA) in areas that require high
bits/khz/km^2 like entertainment stadiums.

Additionally, almost no two countries actually have overlapping 5G bands. It's
a mess of competing standards. So it'll be different frontend modules for
controlling the antenna arrays required on the handsets (high power usage and
space requirements) due to the integration required. Handsets are going to
have to get bigger. Unlikably big and specific to region.

And beyond that the 5G setups being implemented now aren't stand alone.
They're both LTE and Non-Standalone (NSA) 5G. The 5G just provides extra
bandwidth and isn't used as a control for the handsets. It more than doubles
the complexity of setups because of the trouble RF designers have to take with
harmonics and intermodulation. All the competing national freq band standards
mean different filtering solutions.

The future will not be evenly distributed.

~~~
emilfihlman
>5G-NR standard only gives a 15-20%

15-25% is _fucking_ _huge_. Even a few percent increase would be worth it for
telcos.

~~~
woah
15%-20% might be huge for Verizon’s CFO and shareholders, but it’s
inconsequential for consumers who are currently being sold some terabit-IoT-
self-driving-car-VR-surgery yarn in an effort to get governments to give
handouts of property and spectrum to anyone waving the magical 5g sauce.

~~~
Cookiesaurusbex
It's also inconsequential for everyone who has a data cap on their phone plan.
Running out of data 20% sooner isn't a win for people who can't afford a
luxury plan.

~~~
emilfihlman
This is absolutely a 100% silly way to look at it. The same amount of data is
used even if you had slow or fast internet.

------
locacorten
Two points:

1\. The article's point is that the "The Race to 5G is BS" and not "5G is BS".
Please adjust.

2\. I can try to offer an answer to the author. History has shown that a novel
piece of technology often leads to innovation. Dial-up led to BBNs and the
Web, broadband led to audio and video content delivery, and so on. Winning the
"race to 5G" means the US will be the first to innovate in systems that take
advantage of faster wireless broadband networks. That's important. IMO.

~~~
Barrin92
>Winning the "race to 5G" means the US will be the first to innovate in
systems that take advantage of faster wireless broadband networks. That's
important. IMO.

I'm not really sure if being the first is important or even beneficial. If
that were true the United Kingdom would still be the world's superpower and
myspace would still reign supreme. Being first is mostly an unthankful job
because you're the one who does the most work while everyone else can copy.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> I'm not really sure if being the first is important or even beneficial. If
> that were true the United Kingdom would still be the world's superpower

Or, you know, Persia, or Akkad. There have been many firsts.

~~~
techer
Industrial Revolution I imagine.

~~~
thaumasiotes
England may have been the first to start powering machines with large-scale
coal mining, but was it the first to start making iron tools? :D

------
mdorazio
Ehhh, my opinion is that 5G is bullshit _for consumer internet_. Actual 4G (as
opposed to whatever your carrier has in your area) is supposed to be capable
of up to gigabit speeds, but that's obviously not happening many places, if
anywhere due to a variety reasons. However, even so, 4G with good
implementation and penetration would be fast enough to stream or download
anything reasonable on mobile devices for quite a few years yet.

5G, however, is not bullshit _for IoT_. If you've ever tried to build an IoT
device that uses 4G, you know it generally sucks. 5G will, if they actually
build to the flashy spec, fix a lot of issues around latency, cost, and power
to send/receive "thing" data.

~~~
sonnyblarney
"5G, however, is not bullshit for IoT"

I humbly disagree because IoT itself is BS.

We've been talking about it for a decade, and I don't have any use for it, nor
do most folks. The ideas are nice, but practicalities are not there.

There's a lack of standards, no consistent 'home hub', not enough use cases
for expensive gear, security problems galore.

The 'beachhead' for IOT has thus been Google/Alexa, which are really Cloud
services and don't integrate very well locally.

Theoretically, I can see my fridge telling me what to order, my microwave
knowing how long to cook etc. etc. but I'm wary that any of it will come to
fruition for a long time. But I'm not that concerned because I don't care.

I think IoT needs a 'killer app' that everyone 'needs' which paves the way for
everything else.

 _Nobody_ was building anything for the data networks when BlackBerry came
along with an addictive product. It was not until BlackBerry was printing
money that Apple and Google took notice and thus justified massive investment
in their mobile offers.

~~~
ImprovedSilence
Yeah, I think IoT is mostly bullshit that doesn't add much/any particular
value. But you know what I do need? Windows in my house that either close
automatically when it rains, or when I tell them all to via an app or
something. Then I can open all 20 of back up when I want. or maybe open them
5%, or 20%, or all the way, or drop half way, and open the bottom halfway.
Know why this will never happen? It's expensive to manufacture & install, the
profit margins are way low, and it needs to be secure, meaning it should never
call home to google. The opportunity cost of doing that is too high vs. just
making some useless gimmick that sends user data back to Big Ad Tech so they
can farm it in their high profit margin ad business... That, and maybe I'm an
old fashioned edge case that just likes fresh air when the weather is nice.
And I live where I could use this for most of the summer, as it's not usually
too hot, and it rains all the fucking time.

~~~
ericd
I’d love to buy something like this. I’d also love window shades that opened
shortly before my phone’s current alarm. These are both projects I have
planned for whenever we end up owning a house, but I’d love to be able to buy
something off the shelf if it had an open api, and preferably didn’t require
an internet connection.

There are a couple window shade options out there, but they didn’t appear to
be very open when I looked briefly. Maybe there’s some older-style zigbee
stuff that I missed.

------
55555
5G boxes will be on "every street" meaning that real-time triangulation of
devices and thus citzens will have exact precision. Whoever wins the race to
5G will be the one who writes the protocol and thus it will be tailored for
their backdoors in the code. The US wants their backdoors in the code, not
China's.

~~~
kalleboo
> Whoever wins the race to 5G will be the one who writes the protocol

A common standard is already decided, the race is just to deployment.

Does the US manufacture any 5G network equipment anyway? I thought it was all
Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei

~~~
Nokinside
The US is completely out from network air interface competition. It's only
Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei and ZTE.

Qualcomm and others manufacture components.

------
shams93
5g just means you can blow your entire data plan in 5 minutes if it even
works. 4g is fast enough where they could actually just lie and sell you 4g
service by labeling it 5g you likely wouldn't notice because YouTube already
runs great on 4g.

~~~
baroffoos
This is the big one imo. 4g is so fast compared to data caps that it might as
well be unlimited speed because downloading anything big enough to make the
speed matter would use your entire months data allowance in minutes.

Until data caps are significantly higher I don't see 5g as anything other than
a marketing name from people who want to sell new phones.

~~~
rayiner
That’s like arguing that improvements in mobile CPUs don’t matter because if
you continuously pegged your CPU, you’d quickly run out of battery. Most
consumer usage is bursty. In the era of single web pages that take up 5-10MB,
going from 30 Mbps to 300 Mbps offers a marked improvement in user experience.

~~~
drivebycomment
Also, the the overall available bandwidth of the system is one of the key
factors behind the data cap, so we can expect the cap to increase in general
when 5G rolls out. That means this line of"current data cap makes 5G useless"
thinking is short-sighted.

~~~
cadence-
So you think wireless companies will spend billions of dollars upgrading their
infrastructure to 5G only to later increase your monthly caps so that you will
be able to pay less monthly? Keep dreaming. The reality is that they will use
5G to increase your monthly payments somehow.

~~~
kalleboo
> increase your monthly caps so that you will be able to pay less monthly

You're not going to pay less monthly because you're going to want to stay on
the higher caps when the experience is better. YouTube will no longer be
capped to 480p so you will use more video streaming bandwidth, etc.

The wireless companies are also looking to eat the wireline companies' lunch.
They want you to cancel Comcast for 5G. For that they'll have to have higher
caps.

~~~
mises
For that, they'll have to get rid of caps. At least for me; I dont have one.
And none of this "first 25gb is fast" nonsense. Wifi is where I dont have to
worry about how much data I use, so I can download my 30gb vm image. By doing
so, I only have to buy a gig of data a month and only use 200mb of that. 5g
has the capability to handle it, or if it doesn't, maybe it's not the future
after all. At least not for home internet.

~~~
kalleboo
For power users like us it will never be a replacement. But I know plenty of
people who already use 4G as their home internet. The complain about
congestion during the evening and hitting their cap at the end of the month,
and some switch to fiber. Going from a 30 GB to a 300 GB cap, they would be
serves perfectly.

------
klondike_
The real end game of the race to 5G is increased unavoidable surveilance on
the general population.

5G won't provide better speeds as much as increased bandwith. Instead of IoT
devices requiring a connection to your WiFi network (and thus your consent) to
phone home, they will send your data over 5G, with sim cards paid for by
selling your data to advertisers.

Ubiquitous internet access has a lot of exciting potential but inevitably it
will make the mass surveillance problem even worse

~~~
tgragnato
I don't understand the value proposition of this from a marketing point of
view. > sim cards paid for by selling your data to advertisers

Are advertisers seriously going to pay for the subscription of the SIM card of
"the shiny new"™ IoT fridge or is this a hope of the telcos? Because if
anybody expects me to pay for the connection of the abovementioned fridge, I'm
out and I'm missing something.

~~~
Jhsto
The recent articles about US telcos selling location data suggest that they
are in on the deal. Thus, telcos might as well make deals with IoT fridge
companies to give them the data plans for free for trading in the data.

------
sumoboy
I'm expecting higher costs for the consumer, increased data plan costs, new
phones, less coverage. All sounds positive to fund these new networks nobody
is asking for.

~~~
kalleboo
Did higher data plan costs happen in the transitions from 2G to 3G and 3G to
4G?

~~~
mises
5g is a massive capex on the part of telcos due to density requirements orders
of magnitude greater than 2,3,4g. Unit on every block kind of density is
significantly cost increase; no way around higher prices.

------
8077628
Oh ho ho. Next you're going to be questioning the "race to AI". It's like you
want to be forced to read articles about raccoons with distemper, instead of
buzzwordy tech FUD pieces, on slow news days. Is this what you want? Is it
possible, dare I say it, that you might even want want us to lose the race to
racing? Why are you rocking the boat?

------
Foivos
5G is not that much for consumers but for industries [1]. There is a number of
industry use cases that are just impossible for anything other than 5G. For
example, self driving cars, virtual /augmented reality, support for huge
numbers of IoT devices (ie. smart city).

Also, 5G is not just higher speed / reduced latency. The core network is way
more flexible than 4G. This can allow it to provide guaranteed service to
specific users, like first responders. That way first responders will be able
to use the way cheaper and feature rich commercial networks instead of
dedicated networks as it is the case now.

The first countries to have 5G infrastructure will be able to have faster
developments on these sectors.

[1] The only major difference for consumers, given how they currently use
their mobile devices, is that now everyone at a live concert will be able to
stream it to instagram. I do not know if it a good thing though.

~~~
dmitrygr
1\. What does 5g have with self driving cars? And specifically what does lack
of 5g do to make them any more or less possible?

2\. NO wireless service provides GUARANTEED anything. To anyone. That's not
how physics works

~~~
marios
Absolutely agree with your second point. If only marketing had gotten the memo
...

Regarding your question, self driving cars have to interact with their
environment. Receiving a message that indicates there is a vehicule of x,y
coordinates may be better than trying to figure it out on your own using
sensors. Getting the message in a timely fashion is essential, otherwise it is
practically useless. 5G could be the communication channel for the message to
transit, given that 5G aims to achieve lower latencies that 4G.

~~~
JohnFen
> Receiving a message that indicates there is a vehicule of x,y coordinates
> may be better than trying to figure it out on your own using sensors.

True, but that only requires the ability to communicate directly with cars
near you. That's 100% doable with even 20th century technology. Something like
5G is not necessary for this at all.

------
ajxs
The one issue at stake that I can think of is the manufacture of the
underlying hardware infrastructure. The risk associated with relying on
hardware manufactured in China for critical infrastructure seems to be of some
concern for the US government. It's probably unlikely in any case, but
importing Chinese-manufactured 5G modems for phone handsets would potentially
pose an issue, so would using Chinese-made hardware for telecom
infrastructure.

I don't think this has any bearing on what telecom companies offer consumers,
or those other aspects of the '5G race'. Nonetheless, falling behind Asia in
developing this technology might have other consequences.

~~~
rswail
The proper answer to losing the technological race for hardware development is
to accelerate your own.

But instead the US government are doing their best to hobble China.

------
SapporoChris
Has anyone found any decent reporting on how the rollout of 5G in USA is
progressing? South Korea has been rolling out 5G and I found a decent article
that highlighted numbers and issues.[1] But for USA all I see is marketing
propaganda from the Telcos.

[1] [https://www.fitchsolutions.com/corporates/telecoms-media-
tec...](https://www.fitchsolutions.com/corporates/telecoms-media-
technology/south-korea-5g-rollout-key-highlights-progress-so-far-24-05-2019)

------
lysp
One of the large Australia carriers is promoting 5g as a "paid add-on".

There is some marketing material saying it'd cost an extra $15 per-month on
top of your normal plan's price. With "first 12 months free" to try it out.
This is a 20-30% premium for average prices.

I can see the uptake of 5g in that case being less than 5%.

4g is already fast enough for most things, so very few will actually need
faster.

I'm not sure if they are completely clueless thinking people will pay extra,
or they are trying to discourage large uptake.

~~~
Creationer
Pricing like this is not designed so that people actually pay for it.

Instead it creates 'value' which is given away with some other product. For
example: Free 5G for all business customers, all customers on an $80 plan or
above, etc.

It also helps smooth demand - I don't think Telstra have invested a lot in 5G.

------
frankc
This title does not match what is in the article at all. It's about the race
to first, not the technology in general.

------
sonnyblarney
The author has a point to suggest that 5G is overhyped.

Increasing data vastly will be nice, but it won't change anything
fundamentally. I suspect usage will go up, caps will go up - but I don't
suspect any new lines of business to come out of this.

A 'quicker 5G rollout' will not make any economy more competitive, or given
them an advantage.

5G will require different tower configs and will be a pain for carriers.

I'm buying a new device right now and for the first time I'm looking to
_downgrade_. I hardly use my data, and I could care less about all these
stupid apps bothering me. I want a cheaper, simpler option.

5G will probably make 'dongles for your laptop' more in consumer range for
prices, in which we may see people shift away from cable, that will be nice.
And using that or pumping Netflix from my mobile to the screen might be nice.

~~~
SapporoChris
Sorry, 'I don't suspect any new lines of business to come out of this.' is
akin to '640K of memory should be enough for anybody' (falsely attributed to
Gates)

There's a lot of speculation of what new lines of business and evolving lines
of business spring from 5G capabilities.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-16/south-
kor...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-16/south-korea-s-
embrace-of-5g-may-usher-in-an-era-of-robot-friends)

Other areas just off top of my head: Mobile gaming including Mobile VR,
Autonomous Vehicles where lower latency promised by 5G is critical, and
replacement of wired data services with wireless.

~~~
sonnyblarney
Mobile gaming and autonomous vehicles are already developing industries and
will develop irrespective of the availability of 5G.

We're already not close to utilizing the full bandwidth power of LTE for
example.

~~~
fsiefken
My Oculus Quest might well be soon saturating my 4G with h.265 or h.264
encoded VR streams; teleporting me and others all over.

------
madengr
It’s really no different than winning the supercomputer race; there is no
finish line and no end.

I’d rather have the USA take its time and develop mmWave 5G hardware than the
lower frequency stuff Huawei is developing, as mmWave is far more interesting,
technically.

~~~
kingosticks
But which US companies would be working on developing that tech?

~~~
madengr
Anokiwave and Qualcomm, off the top of my head. TI has a mmWave in CMOS
process, so I can see them getting in on it.

~~~
kingosticks
I'd never heard of that first one. Is it supposed to be an anagram of Nokia,
are they related?!

~~~
madengr
No relation that I know of; it’s a US company making IC for sub array
beamforming.

------
Pulletwee12549
Not even a full finished roll out in LTE in rural areas. Telecoms don’t want
to lower prices for us, so 5G is going to sell at a premium to consumers. This
race about "who control 5G controls the world" is ridiculous.

~~~
Nokinside
Rural areas will benefit from Low-band FDD 5G.

------
IlegCowcat
The ironic part is that mobile 5G is basically pointless. Fixed 5G could
provide competition to cable companies if it actually works, but mobile 5G’s
range is so short that anywhere with mobile 5G will be getting several hundred
mbps on 4G from the same site and fiber improvements necessary for 5G that 5G
itself is pointless. The upside is that the areas that get a dense small-cell
buildout for 5G will have way better 4G service as a result that virtually
everyone can use as soon as the cells go up and the fiber is lit up for them.

------
Nokinside
Home markets are important for new technologies and services that build on the
top of the new infrastructure. US companies and startups are not going be
first to innovate 5G technologies and services if their home market is behind.

The US tech sector is already out from the main 4G/LTE/5G air infrastructure
business except for components and mobile phones. There is only Eriksson,
Nokia, Huawei and ZTE, Samsung is #5 with very tiny market share.

~~~
JohnFen
> US companies and startups are not going be first to innovate 5G technologies
> and services if their home market is behind.

That answer is really just begging the question. Why is that so important as
to require such a huge push as a "race" implies?

------
agsamek
This is similar to new car sales being an early indicator of a recession.
Government answer in the wake of a coming recession? Subsidize cars.

Winning 5g race is an indication of technological leadership. But you cannot
help win it forcefully. You should just watch it respectfully and draw forward
looking conclusions.

Of course some people can use it instrumentally to get benefits or desired
decisions.

Anyway - congrats to the winner.

------
nraynaud
[https://theamphour.com/430-shahriar-
discusses-5g/](https://theamphour.com/430-shahriar-discusses-5g/)

I am a bit confused, according to the preceding link, 5G can’t be at all used
like 4G, in particular it can’t be used from a base station to a mobile phone.
Can someone explain a bit more?

------
Causality1
Being able to burn through Verizon's 22GB "secret" data cap on my "unlimited"
plan in ten minutes instead of 70 minutes at normal 4G speeds is not an
upgrade in any way. Meanwhile I still can't send a text message or check my
email when visiting my parents' house out in the boonies. 5G is a scam.

------
hestefisk
Isn’t parts of the US network still on CDMA? The reason Europe has had lower
prices is because we have been better at infra-carrier standards and co-
opetition / lowering transaction costs. Perhaps before that the Nordic Mobile
Telephone (NMT) is a great example for others to lead by.

------
JohnFen
It's not really a race. It's more like a scam.

The telecoms and equipment manufacturers want to make it seem like a race in
an effort to make people demand 5G, to increase the amount of subsidies as
much as possible.

------
Epopeehief54
Not even a full finished roll out in LTE in rural areas. Telecoms don’t want
to lower prices for us, so 5G is going to sell at a premium to consumers. This
race about "who control 5G controls the world" is ridiculous.

------
takanori
I’ve read L5 autonomous cars are contingent on 5G and others say it’s not a
factor. What’s the consensus here?

~~~
javagram
Sounds like there isn’t a consensus according to your own statement.

Waymo is running on public roads right now without 5G.

IMO: if 5G is required for an “autonomous” car it can’t qualify as L5. That’s
a remote controlled car not an autonomous car...

------
kristianov
Sadly I see only one killer feature in all 5G phones: foldable screens.

~~~
cududa
What on earth does one have to do with the other

------
mises
I've seen "millimeter wave" in tsa and heard it takes a picture of you without
clothes, though they now supposedly obscure it. Creepy as all get-out. Anyway,
could a hijacked 5g unit do this? Seems like a serious concern.

~~~
JohnFen
> could a hijacked 5g unit do this?

No, for two reasons. First, the mmwave scanners require more power than 5G
cell sites will provide. Second, the transmission of the radio signals is only
half of the equation for this sort of thing. The other half is the
sophisticated receiving systems that are required, and that 5G cell sites
won't have.

