AT&T's Confusing 5G Plus Expansion Confirms T-Mobile Was Right All Along (theverge.com) 26
AT&T's new 5G Plus expansion gives T-Mobile the perfect "I told you so" moment. From a report: AT&T currently offers two "flavors" of 5G: 5G Plus over the high-band mmWave spectrum and regular 5G, which is comparable to 4G LTE. Now, a blog post details that AT&T is bolstering 5G Plus with the mid-band C-band spectrum in 2022 -- a concept that T-Mobile has been preaching for years. Former T-Mobile CEO John Legere slammed AT&T for not having a mid-band spectrum in 2019, stating that 5G needs a low-band, mid-band, and high-band spectrum to work efficiently. This is because that high-band mmWave 5G offers the fastest speeds over shorter distances, making it best for highly concentrated areas. Conversely, low-band 5G provides the bare minimum for speed over wider areas. Offering 5G service with no in-between isn't ideal -- a mid-band range serves as the median between both spectrums.
It's kind of sad.... (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe I'm an old pissy boomer...
However, these people deploying new cell phone technologies don't seem to be very aware of the practical considerations involved in local radio propagation.
Cell phone and cell data service both suck. Period. Telegraph was more reliable, as was two way radio, landline phone service, or even yelling at your neighbor from across the street.
Though you have to hand it to the marketing people- they have successfully sold a revolution which doesn't work and has little hope of becoming really useful for at least a decade.
Re:It's kind of sad.... (Score:4)
Cell phone and cell data service both suck. Period. Telegraph was more reliable, as was two way radio, landline phone service, or even yelling at your neighbor from across the street.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless device.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah... no...
Debian Linux 10 in a Virtual Box VM running on a Lenovo dektop,
The VM is actually my pen test station. My work is done today...
Re: (Score:2)
==== the joke ====>
your head
Whoosh.
Re: (Score:2)
Aim lower next time... yeesh.
Re: (Score:2)
As in, smartphones won't become useful for at least a decade?
They know their business. The evident conclusion is that leasing spectrum and maintaining towers to provide good coverage in rural areas is simply not economically justified.
Re: (Score:2)
OTOH, these days I get better, and more reliable service over 5G on my phone tethered to my laptop compared to the WiFi I get in a hotel that hasn't moved past 802.11b.
Re: (Score:1)
I wish they offered an "enhanced" mode for when calls are important and you don't want gaps, even if you pay a bit more for those. It could use multiple simultaneous bands using diverse frequencies where one serves as a back-up of the other(s).
Re: (Score:1)
I switched to 5G home Internet service because it was more reliable for me than DSL. The telco switching station is a couple blocks down the street from me!
Re: (Score:2)
However, these people deploying new cell phone technologies don't seem to be very aware of the practical considerations involved in local radio propagation.
How so?
Cell phone and cell data service both suck. Period. Telegraph was more reliable, as was two way radio, landline phone service, or even yelling at your neighbor from across the street.
*Telegraph*? Just how old are you? I can ride in a vehicle and access content on-demand the whole way, news, discussions. I can make phone calls and people can call me without even knowing I'm taking a trip.
Though you have to hand it to the marketing people- they have successfully sold a revolution which doesn't work and has little hope of becoming really useful for at least a decade.
Either way you interpet it, this seems off the mark. Cell phones are massively useful today and have been for quite a few years now. If you mean 5G, the throughput is available and a practical improvement already. I suppose one angle is that 5G is, ultimately, a "boring" speed bump when a lot
Re: (Score:2)
Cell phone and cell data service both suck. Period. Telegraph was more reliable
Yeah, but having to drive a truck around paying out a spool of cable, and having to make sure that everyone went home in reverse order so the cables wouldn't get tangled was a huge hassle, so it was probably a good idea to move to wireless.
If only there were a standards body... (Score:1)
or some other entity that could set specific requirements you need to meet to use various 4G, 4.5G, 5G labels instead of allowing the marketing suits throw around terms and repurpose them as they see fit....
Re: (Score:2)
But how would AT&T market their network, if they couldn't retread the last generation of technology as a current technology by changing a status bar icon in phone firmware and buying airtime for the TV spots?
What's confusing is ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Time to shutdown the marketdroids. (Score:2)
Honestly, bullshit marketing has gotten out of hand. It's time to shutdown the marketdroids.
Re: (Score:2)
I see where Verizon and AT&T are hot for mmWave, they love the urban high-density markets. mmWave works there, the technical challenges are surmountable, it's just capital expense. Not that any of the big three ignore suburban or rural areas, just that urban spaces can take advantage of mmWave.
TMO however has its sights set also on rural and lower density spaces, partly because of their TV ambitions, real or not. Their mid band buys are paying off for that.
Marketing hype kicks in hard when they try to
Re: Time to shutdown the marketdroids. (Score:2)
This doesn't make sense to me. I had TMobile for years, and the one consistent thing wherever I went was that it often times didn't work in rural areas where Verizon worked fine, but I got much faster speeds in the city where I spend most of my time than with Verizon. I always thought of Verizon as the rural provider.
Re: Time to shutdown the marketdroids. (Score:2)
The most common complaints about coverage focus on small areas. I've had the experience of using Cingular (merged with AT&T) across the Northeast, and service back in the analog days isn't comparable to today. But I still get back to that region, and TMO has some interesting problem spots, usually rural still. In Florida and Massachusetts, much less, but more populated.
Hard to compete then and now, and also hard to compare limited experience. But yes, none are perfect.
Re: (Score:2)
The one use that I'm looking forward to for mmWave service is when I'm in a stadium for a concert or a sporting event, and there are 45,000 other radios in close proximity all trying to use the same 1 or 2 towers, and those towers are melting down under the load. In theory, mmWave solves that nicely if the networks can put some equipment into the stadium.
Other than that, it's pretty useless in comparison to tried-and-true LTE.
5G e (Score:2)
ATT is dying (Score:2)