
The 'Race to 5G' Is Lobbyist Nonsense - rahuldottech
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200116/08134343743/race-to-5g-is-giant-pile-lobbyist-nonsense.shtml
======
Animats
The article is on point. 5G has an advantage in only a few situations:

\- Very crowded areas, where you need lots of microcells so everyone can watch
streaming video at once. Like stadiums. Verizon is making a lot of noise about
5G in NFL stadiums. Amusingly, latency for sports video is a big deal,
because, in sports bars, not all the screens have the same amount of buffering
in the path. So some people are cheering while others are waiting for their
feed to catch up, and they feel left out and alone.

\- Moderately remote areas where the capability to drop to the VHF bands will
provide some service far from towers. That's actually useful.

Claims involving public safety and remote surgery are fantasy.

Besides, once it's going, it will probably be overloaded, and there will be
rate caps and data caps. But the capped service will be called "unlimited".

~~~
culturestate
> in sports bars, not all the screens have the same amount of buffering in the
> path

Assuming we aren't talking about personal devices, could this be solved at
install time by ensuring same-length cable runs the same way you would for
e.g. HFT tenants in a datacenter? Or is this a different kind of problem?

~~~
thakoppno
It is essentially the same problem. A sports bar may have some tvs hooked up
via Comcast and some via DirectTV with noticeably different physical layer
lengths.

Additionally, the modern OTT services resemble personal devices and trade
synchronicity for scalability.

~~~
culturestate
That makes sense.

Assuming a bar probably maintains multiple subscriptions because they need
access to both local and national broadcasts, I wonder if there's space to
build a platform designed specifically to aggregate video content across
providers and distribute it to commercial customers.

I'm imagining an OTT service that specifically bids for (or sublicenses)
public performance rights for e.g. sports and sells only to public venues,
with hardware designed for this purpose.

Thinking about it, this seems like the kind of thing that probably already
exists in some specific niche.

------
soylentcola
Just think if this level of marketing, lobbying, and energy was channeled into
something like a national fiber broadband utility available to everyone.

"But," you may ask, "why would industry groups ever push something like that?
Such a thing would cost loads of money and put market dominance at risk!"

And then maybe you start to wonder why they're in such a rush to fight for the
subsidies, investment, and contracts for "more wireless, but faster and more
G's!"

~~~
rayiner
> Just think if this level of marketing, lobbying, and energy was channeled
> into something like a national fiber broadband utility available to
> everyone.

I mean this is pretty much exactly why the government shouldn’t be in charge
of deciding how to allocate this investment.

Fiber is far less useful than fast wireless. 60% of Maryland has access to
fiber. It hasn’t been revolutionary in the least. Most people don’t even
subscribe to it, even in high income suburbs. Meanwhile, over 15% of high
income households are “mobile only.”

I think it’s fair to say that if you are computing using a tablet, you’re
probably not benefitting much from fiber. Well, global PC sales peaked in
2010:
[https://images.app.goo.gl/4jwgmheZhp1S39EZ6](https://images.app.goo.gl/4jwgmheZhp1S39EZ6).
Desktop PC sales globally are about the same as they were in _2001_. The
percentage of people using a computing device that can take advantage of fiber
continues to shrink.

~~~
AdrianB1
What is the cost for residential fiber there? In my country (Europe) it is
about $9 per month for 1 Gbps, minimum guaranteed speed of 100 Mbps. For
working from home it is way more than enough and much more reliable than
"mobile only".

~~~
rayiner
Verizon charges about $80 for gigabit fiber. But to put that into context,
most of the states in Verizon’s footprint, like Maryland, New Jersey, and
Virginia, are richer than Switzerland:
[https://images.app.goo.gl/PeQYfKDsLkHoJ3787](https://images.app.goo.gl/PeQYfKDsLkHoJ3787).
It looks like prices for gigabit in Switzerland range from $65-140 USD per
month (with the $65 figure being over Zurich’s municipal fiber system.)

At least here in Maryland, its not cost that limits the uptake here, it’s
usefulness. Cable broadband here is very fast. Comcast charges more for
1000/35 cable than Verizon charges for 1000/1000 fiber, even in neighborhoods
that have access to both (which is most of the state outside Baltimore and
very rural areas). People just don’t value the extra upload speeds that highly
compared to Comcast’s better TV packages.

~~~
apexalpha
This is off-topic but I found that the more you dive into the methods used to
compare income on both sides of the Atlantic the weirder it gets.

Average tends to be skewed to America's favour because of an extremely rich
top 5% or so. Median is closer to each other but also seems to favor the US.
But then do you account for the fact that Americans work longer hours? Or not?
In my country the average workweek is 29 hours. In the US it's 38 I think. And
most Western EU countries are in between these two. And European also have
more paid leave on average.

And you can also use disposable income, which is what you can actually spend,
so seems like a fair comparison. Then the US wins again, but on the other hand
Americans also have to use this income for stuff like out of pocket healthcare
costs, education costs, emergency-unemployment fund etc, where in Europe these
things are mostly covered by taxes. But that means your disposable income is
lower.

But on the other hand buying stuff is usually more expensive in EU because of
the VAT system.

------
Traster
I remember being told that 5G wasn't about speed, it was about bandwith and
every car would be transmitting 40Gigs an hour because of all the autonomous
vehicles. That was the bullish picture.

If your bullish picture was "Consumers are going to get nothing and it's going
to enable autonomous vehicles that don't exist" then you're probably in
trouble.

------
madengr
The FCC is screwing hams, as usual, for 5G.

[http://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-formally-adopts-proposals-to-
re...](http://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-formally-adopts-proposals-to-remove-
amateur-3-ghz-band-invites-comments)

~~~
chooseaname
Not to be that guy, but would we really expect anything else from Ajit Pai at
this point? He's so far into Verizon, et al's pockets... it seems.

------
notlukesky
When 3G first came out it was a disaster for most carriers. The phones were
buggy and hard to come by. More importantly there was no compelling reason to
use data from your phone till the iPhone and then Android appeared. The
previous generation of “smartphones” (like Symbian and NTT Docomo imode) tried
to dumb and water down the Internet. 5G will present similar problems in the
early stages. There are not enough compelling applications for the increase in
bandwidth now, but there sure will be later on. So I don’t see a race to it
now. It’s the next evolution in the cycle of faster speed.

~~~
_bxg1
> but there sure will be later on

Like what? I remember having a 3G iPhone and actively looking forward to 4G
because bandwidth actually limited certain tasks. Since 4G has become
widespread, I've never felt that way. The only time I notice my phone's finite
bandwidth is when buildings are blocking my signal, which will only be _more_
prevalent with 5G because millimeter waves can't penetrate materials.

There is literally no media that my device makes use of that it can't download
in a comfortable amount of time. With modern compression technology, even
streaming HD video is basically seamless over cell towers. _Years_ ago I was
able to play online games by tethering my Xbox to my phone. I just don't have
a use for more bandwidth.

~~~
julianozen
I think perhaps being able to replace cable is the biggest benefit. This will
force prices down in certain markets and allow consumers to choose between
more consumer friendly companies then comcast

~~~
gambiting
Cable? As in....TV? At a risk of sounding dismissive - won't TV be dead by
then? I'm 29 and I literally don't know anyone who watches actual live TV
anymore. Well, no, that's not true, my grandparents do. But even my mum and my
wife's parents have already switched to netflix-only situation, regular TV is
just so full of ads and nonsense that it doesn't make any sense to pay for it.

~~~
smabie
I like TV because it tells me what to watch. I don’t have to choose. I think
other people derive a lot of value from this as well. I don’t have TV but I’m
at a hotel right now and watching TV while drinking beer (and typing this I
guess) is pretty damn nice. It’s possible that feeling would wear off if I had
it around regularly, though.

But I bet TV will still be a major thing, say, 30 years in the future. Right
now 75% of households in the US pay for TV, so I think your comment is a
little overblown.

~~~
jedberg
> It’s possible that feeling would wear off if I had it around regularly,
> though.

Over Christmas/New Years I was at my parents place, and they have DirectTV.
The first few days were nice. After that I realized I was just watching for
the sake of watching just to see what came on next, and it was all reruns of
stuff I've already seen.

I am a big fan of curation, but I much prefer the curation of seeing what the
programmers put on in prime time and then watching it on demand, or Netflix's
recommendations.

------
dom2
I'm not familiar with 5G infrastructure at all really, but a friend of mine
brought up that they were worried about China beating the US to 5G deployment
because if China did so, other counties would be more likely to use Chinese
tech to setup their own 5G networks. This in turn would pose security issues
as there seems to be concern over whether or not China could be trusted not to
use their tech as spyware. Is anyone familiar with the issue who can speak
more on this?

~~~
mping
I'm not familiar, but it was US's own NSA that was caught red handed. China
has an aura of non compliance and state sponsored hacking but I trust them as
much as the US.

~~~
henryfjordan
I wouldn't trust the US govt (where I live) with my personal secrets, but I
would trust them to protect the trade secrets of a business based in the US
(yay corporatism!)

I don't think China cares about my personal secrets nearly as much as the US
does, but they are pretty actively engaging in state-sponsored corporate
espionage.

~~~
noja
> I wouldn't trust the US govt with my personal secrets

> I would trust them to protect the trade secrets of a business

Would you trust a US business to protect your personal secrets more than the
US government? Why?

~~~
henryfjordan
You misunderstand a bit. If I were Coca-cola, I would trust that the NSA would
never ever reveal my secret recipe. But at the same time I wouldn't trust them
not to read the private messages of my employees for other juicy stuff.

America cares more about corporate rights than human rights.

~~~
ptx
That's nice for the American company, but why should companies and individuals
in the rest of the world trust this American private/public conglomeration
with their data? Foreigners have no rights under American law, from what I
gather.

~~~
henryfjordan
They shouldn't? I don't think I ever made that point. I was only speaking to
the motivations of each Government. If I don't trust my own gov't to respect
my private data, why would I tell anyone else to trust them?

Foreigners have basically all the same rights as citizens under US law. Maybe
you're thinking of the NSA's mandate to only collect foreign-bound US internet
traffic, not domestic?

~~~
ptx
Ah. Reading more carefully, I see now that you were saying that _as an
American_ it might be better to trust American companies than Chinese ones.
Sure, quite probably.

All I'm saying, and I guess this doesn't contradict what you were saying, is
that for the rest of the world it makes no difference if we choose American or
Chinese equipment since we'll be spied on either way.

------
dougmwne
This article really missed the mark. Yeah, the 5G lobbying is using some
really strange and confusing arguments that don't seem to make sense to DC
outsiders. All you need to need to know is on the media page. Clearly Huawei
is bad for business for the sponsors of this lobbying.

[https://5gactionnow.com/media/](https://5gactionnow.com/media/)

~~~
chooseaname
From the link:

> FOX BUSINESS: 74% of Americans think Huawei should be removed from U.S.,
> poll shows

I don't think 74% of Americans have even _heard_ of Huawei!

~~~
mcv
A couple of years ago a poll showed that 30% of Americans should bomb Agrabah,
the fictional city from Aladdin. Not knowing what it's about has never stopped
people from having an opinion about it.

------
rapjr9
How much carbon will building 5G release? Does climate change make building 5G
a bad idea? (Does climate change make any big new infrastructure project that
isn't just a restoration of existing infrastructure a bad idea?) Also, it
seems obvious that the smaller cell size means there will never be good
coverage in even slightly remote areas, unless 4G also remains operational. In
places like Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine 5G-only would greatly reduce
public safety.

------
anonsivalley652
5G is all about greed: selling more cell-site gear and new phones.

If the goal were to actually improved coverage and spectrum utilization, it
would be designed, engineered and deployed very differently.

From an end-user perspective, 4G is relatively damn good, perhaps too good, so
they have to turnover the apple cart and replace it with something crappier.

PS: And yes, there are way too many conspiracy theories about 5G before it was
even released that distract from the games hardware vendors and carriers
wanted to play.

------
einpoklum
Remind me again why I need even 4G (which I don't have)?

~~~
reaperducer
You're getting downvoted because most people on HN have never experienced
solid, reliable 3G.

There's a town I go to sometimes that has only 3G service. But because it's
not oversubscribed and has the proper telco infrastructure it's faster and
more reliable than the 4G I get at home.

------
PaulHoule
Where is the race to optic fiber?

~~~
mohankumar246
I think the article does a fair work in answering this question - Optic fiber
will not get the $ into the pockets of oem's or carriers. And it's already
there in several metros(even in India)

------
tonylemesmer
Is 5g attractive to vendors because it’s harder to turn off than a plugged in
wire? With landline you can unplug or filter within your premises. With 5g
they can push megabit speeds without any of your own premises equipment.

~~~
perpetualpatzer
It's possible that that would be a "benefit", but I'd expect that it's way
down the list behind:

* infrastructure buildout costs in cities are reduced because you don't need to run a wire into each individual building,

* "fast enough" wireless could capture the usage/spend currently delivered by landlines, but the reverse isn't true because most people like to take their phones out of the house.

------
jinushaun
Can we get 4G in more places first before worrying about 5G?

------
josephd79
Doesn't matter, they'll limit the amount of bandwidth you will be allowed to
use under the "plan" and then charge you crazy for the overages. Which would
make it damn near unusable to begin with. Hell, I read an article that ATT cap
theirs at 15 gb a month plus $10 each gb you go over. I'd burn through that in
1 day, shit maybe 1 afternoon.

Hard to get excited about anything when the prune juice posse creates policies
for this stuff and have no idea how a family uses or consumes data anymore....

------
craftinator
Well, I'd like to take this moment to announce 6G, which on a logarithmic
scale is twice that of 5G. 6G is the future of being a G; it'll be so much
more G-like than current G's, you won't be able to keep from throwing your
money at us. Soon, 6G will be in your home, offices, cars, underware drawers,
lawnmowers, fireplaces, cerebelli, quants, and everywhere else as well. 6G is
the ubiquitous marketing campaign that you didn't know that you both don't
want and can't resist! 6G, coming to a dimension near you soon!

~~~
FlyMoreRockets
Except rural areas.

------
nesky
5G will need it's iPhone moment.

In my opinion that will be gaming, sports and live events in cutting edge
quality VR applications. If consumers can buy a 'digital ticket' and watch the
World Cup, Superbowl, Indy 500, Le Mans, etc. in whatever cutting edge quality
exists at the time in VR you'll have that moment. You'll be able to buy
digital season tickets for the NY Yankees right on the 3rd base line (your
friends will be there next to you represented by their memoji or the like so
you're still watching the game with your buddies), buy a ticket for an Indy
Car race and be able to watch the race in VR as if I was sitting in Alexander
Rossi's seat from start to finish. The next question is how much will I have
to pay to not have commercial breaks...

~~~
gambiting
I just don't understand what that has to do with 5G. You could build such a
thing already just using WiFi, and yet....no one has done so. I mean, where
are people likely to sit and use that VR headset and watch a world cup? On a
sofa in their home where they have fast wi-fi, or on a park bench where they
have to rely on 5G?

~~~
nesky
If you have 1M people around the world checking into a VR camera atop a car
going around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at 200MPH you need bandwidth and
image quality. I want to see what the driver see's in near perfect image
quality and be able to look around when he goes wheel to wheel around a turn.
The entire layer of crap that's fed from whatever service, NBC, ABC, ESPN, etc
will flatten and the consumer will be able to watch the event as if they were
in the action themselves. 5G will help in driving that engagement.

EDIT: Given how crazy America is about football, my guess as well is the NFL
could sell millions of VR related tickets to the Superbowl in a similar
scheme. The hitch in my opinion is commercial breaks will ruin the experience
if commercials as they're broadcasted today happen in VR - people will want to
plug themselves into the action with no obstructions.

~~~
redisman
Again, you're just describing Wifi plus unspecified VR magic. Why do you need
5G for this at home VR thing?

