Verizon Completes Its Radio Specs for 5G, Pushing Its Agenda For Global Standard Down the Line (cnet.com) 44
Roger Cheng, reporting for CNET: The reality of 5G, wireless connectivity that's faster than our speediest home internet service, is years away. But that isn't stopping Verizon from making its presence felt now. The nation's largest wireless carrier said Monday it has worked out the radio specifications for its 5G deployment with its vendor partners, providing a common blueprint for everyone regarding the network infrastructure, processors and devices. It's a significant step on the path to 5G. And by moving quickly now, Verizon hopes to set the agenda for how the standards look, a similar strategy it took with its 4G LTE deployment. Setting the specifications not only speeds the process for its own vendors, but may influence the international community when players around the world finally begin hammering out a global standard, expected in 2020. The Federal Communications Commission is also working to free up resources to drive 5G in the US. [...] Verizon said it will begin commercially deploying its service next year.
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Verizon still allows unlimited data to exist which is much nicer than what sprint did imho. (IIRC you got canceled outright or switched to a metered plan and billed overage)
Verizon also appears to allow new unlimited lines on enterprise accounts
although grandfathered voice/data and data only plans are much cheaper.
Att also has some true unlimited plans that still exist (the ipad unlimited plans)
AFAIK there are no true unlimited plans in existence on any other providers.
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I have T-mobile, I can't speak to how "true unlimited" my plan is, but I regularly break 10Gb, and have broken 20 (new phone, updated all of my audio content, and watched some movies on vacation).
I can only tether a few Gb though, so in that sense I guess it's not true.
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Well i'm pretty sure verizons grandfathered plans are true unlimited as the mifi i'm using to post this is sitting at 76GB and the one I use for internet at home is sitting at 330GB and the bill doesn't reset until the 13th
With that kind of usage I'm pretty sure i'd have gotten a phone call or at the very least a stern letter if it wasn't unlimited.
last I checked tmobile didn't offer unlimited plans for mifi's and even if they did most places have a cap or throttle after 20GB or so iirc tmobile hits you at
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I do not believe any tethering is allowed as unlimited with Tmobile.
Only for phone plans on the phone itself.
and clearly I'm nowhere near in usage to where you are...
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Re:2020? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why does it take years to draft a standard?
It takes years because each vendor wants a "standard" established which gives them a competitive advantage over the other vendors. Even if their preferred "standard" is technically inferior - like, oh I don't know let's make something up... not being able to handle both voice and data traffic at the same time.
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oh I don't know let's make something up... not being able to handle both voice and data traffic at the same time.
I don't think that existed ever. Some systems allowed that to happen by having two separate radios in the phone, not all phones had two radios, so not all phones upported data and voice at the same time.
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Why does it take years to draft a standard?
Because the ITU made a plan how to get to the new G5 standard:
http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/study-groups/rsg5/rwp5d/imt-2020/Pages/default.aspx [itu.int]
Temporal Anomaly (Score:2)
Either Verizon is managed by Time Lords or the company is going to deploy 5G technology before global standards are agreed.
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What's the use? (Score:3)
What good does extra speed do when there are very low data caps, at least here in the US?
Right now the typical account gievs you 1 - 3 GB per month. Pretty easy to burn though in no time watching a few videos.
Their new account tier 'adjustments' announced a few days ago change nothing.
If higher speeds are to be useful, and mobile streaming is to be useful, they need to do away with the data caps again. Right now we're starting to see a very non-neutrality focusd solution where certain companies streaming services are exempt from the data count. This is a problem when the little indie streaming station I want to listen to is not included. Listener supported indie radio outlets like somaFM.com and Radio Paradise are left out in the cold, shutting out diversity. I can't listen to them in my car, only at home.
Many people feel that data caps are strictly a business decision, and not a technical issue. Which means that there is not enough competition in the cellular wireless sphere. The barrier to entry in this market is very high so it's not surprising.
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Well since they are showing speeds in the Gbps so you could technically blow your data cap in less than a minute.
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Um, "overage" costs the same as the normal data cost on Verizon. Not sure what you have been exposed to, but I don't think $10/GB is terribly expensive, as it is the same rate at least with Google Fi.
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Plug for Google fi: $0.01/MB flat data rate, no minimums, no caps - use no data, pay nothing for data, otherwise pay for what you use. If you're really sucking more than 10GB per month, every month, through your phone, I suppose unlimited data at $100/month makes sense, otherwise... why?
I really don't want to hear about 5G in marketing, I will actively ridicule any company that "markets" an up-coming 5G network when they can't even deliver reliable 3G data service to so many (populated) areas of the contin
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Like Every Other Advance We Take For Granted Now (Score:2)
Lads, this is the free market at work. Verizon is using stockholder investments to hire people to scope out the next sector. So long as they have competition, they will raise data caps to account for the new bandwidth (unless it's a total fail - no one finds it adds value, and the stock will drop). All the analog spectrum formerly used to send TV shows like "Beverly Hillbillies" and "Gilligan's Island" could perhaps be better managed, but probably not better managed by cantankerous commenters who see eve
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I don't think anybody's too worried about the 1% getting better bandwidth... would be interesting if there were a commercial avenue to tap into unused _military_ spectrum for better coverage.
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>I'm not sure what the "agenda for global standard" stuff is about.
Global spectrum harmonization. Well actually not. This will do nothing to promote global spectrum harmonization.
Don't use verizon (Score:1)
Who cares? They are one of the most corrupt companies in the world and will gouge the shit out of this.
"You can now download at 1gbps on your phone!! but be careful not to go over your 2gb data plan"
T-mobile 4 life
Deciding things. (Score:2)
Deciding what the specs are before they are internationally standardized is the most effective way of ending up out of step with the rest of the world. The US has proved very, very effective at that over the years.
Verizon and international standards. Ha! (Score:2)
CDMA (Score:2)
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