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Communications

5G Not Enough? Telecom Companies Look to 5.5G (wsj.com) 64

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
5G technology has brought faster connections, better gadgets -- and a measure of disappointment from people with expectations of something closer to world-changing technology. But just wait, mobile companies are saying: The next upgrade will gin up enthusiasm for advances still to come. From a report: This next iteration of 5G, which the mobile companies are calling "5G Advanced" or "5.5G," is expected to be rolled out by around 2025. For consumers, the upgrades may bring faster connection speeds -- something that many parts of the world need. But everyday users may not see many more applications than that, say experts and industry officials. The real advance is that the technology will finally help facilitate more of the far-fetched business applications that 5G initially promised, like self-driving cars, autonomous drones and self-operating factories.

The forthcoming upgrades underscore a reality for many 5G users so far: Beyond faster connection speeds, it hasn't made a huge difference in their day-to-day lives. 5.5G may not either. With 5.5G, "for you or me using their phone, you won't necessarily notice a huge difference," says Patrick Filkins, a research manager at International Data Corp. who tracks the internet-of-things and telecommunications-infrastructure markets.
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5G Not Enough? Telecom Companies Look to 5.5G More

5G Not Enough? Telecom Companies Look to 5.5G

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  • It doesn't matter what the product is, this is technology so there's always R&D going on.

    When you have a product released to manufacturing it is already a month or two behind the curve, because of the time for verifications and certifications. By the time one tech has reached the market the research team is already looking at solving problems they didn't have time or resources to resolve, and the next edition is well underway. By the time it becomes widely adopted there are always flaws or defects or n

    • To the extent that there is a competitive enough environment to prevent investors from sitting on their money machine and redirecting that R&D to themselves. In the US, it isn't really that clear to me that competition amongst wireless carriers is that strong, outside of dense urban areas. Even in my suburb, you can feel the lack of attention from the two major brands when it comes to actually deploying this stuff.

    • Except for NEMA 1-15, which is so ubiquitous that nobody even bothers to know the name for it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rahmrh ( 939610 )

        You mean Nema 5-15P (Nema 1-15 was 2 blades no ground, pretty rare now). And some houses will at least some 5-20P outlets.

  • The hyper around 5G was embarrassing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Oryan Quest ( 10291375 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @12:47PM (#63478176)

    Most people would be perfectly happy on a solid 3G connection as long as they saw that 5G on their phones. I was so happy when 5G finally rolled out so everyone could be disappointed when their lives changes not at all and I wouldn’t need to hear about it from the kind of people who don’t know the difference between a bit and a byte.

    • Re:The hyper around 5G was embarrassing (Score:5, Informative)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @12:58PM (#63478232)
      I guess they have to advertise top speeds, but the real benefit of 5g is increasing how often you get that "solid," uncongested connection. Does having smarter traffic signals and more on/offramps increase how fast you can drive when the road is clear? No. But those features increase the throughput so more people can travel along at a good speed more often. And usage data [cyberreef.com] shows that mobile data usage has been enabled to keep skyrocketing, through whatever combination of denser infrastructure and the signaling protocol (5g) to efficiently support it.

      • Yeah 5g does have benefits beyond higher speeds but the sort of people who were excited would never understand. I don’t know that I fully trust your source there but will concede the general trend is probably real.

        Thing is most of that data is probably not important to the end users, they live streamed at 4k, they watched netflix at 4k because they could but they’d never know the difference if they did it at 1080p. Plus it also reflects the fact that apps are practically streaming telemetry da

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rahmrh ( 939610 )

        An area I go now has 5g coverge...that seems to mean even larger deadspots that before because the cells are smaller and they did a half-assed job rolling it out and have not added the new towers to fix the coverage. So the hype should have been "now with bigger deadspots".

    • I was massively disappointed that 5G did not make me taller and more attractive. :) All it did was speed up my data connection (where it was available).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Potor ( 658520 )
      I recently replaced my old 3g phone with a 5g phone, and although it hardly the most important thing in my life, I was shocked how quickly apps downloaded compared to my previous phone. Were I not forced to upgrade (I use GSM on T-Mobile), I would not have. But the speed is noticeable, and nice.

      • I do totally believe you saw an improvement. Just I saw so many people who couldn’t tell they were watching sd on their hd tvs, and people vastly overestimating what it takes to stream a video. Those people would be fine with good 3g connections and 4g by itself would have met their imaginary needs. 5g will of course let them watch real 4k video with no problems but they’d never know the difference.

        Downloading apps is one of the times having a really fast connection pays off.

        • Apps have changed significantly to the point where you don't even realize how much faster cell networks have become. Were it not for faster speeds with less power apps like TikTok for better or worse couldn't exist. Even older apps like Twitter and Facebook have evolved to use their more ready access to connectivity.

          Same goes for navigation, over 3G its a non-starter. 4G was fast enough for basic turn by turn but 5G allows you to keep up with road hazards and speed traps in additional to real-time traffic.

      • 3G was kinda sluggish so you'd notice moving off that, but the tech had matured at 4G. Like 3D TVs and a pile of other stuff no-one cares about, 5G and 5.5G and 5.51G and 5.51G SP1 and 5.52G+ are just manufacturers trying to synthesise new markets for something that's gone about as far as it can go on its own merits.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by mcarp ( 409487 )
      no way, 3g was crap, 4g has been good if its actually 3+ bars but i still get no 5g service

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by stripes ( 3681 )

      Most people would be perfectly happy on a solid 3G connection as long as they saw that 5G on their phones.

      I kind of doubt it.

      3G was noticeably slow for a lot of things, and really wasn't fast enough for anything but very compressed video. It is noticeably slow sending high quality compressed still photos. 4G on the other hand was "fast enough" for what most people do on a phone or even a "real" computer most of the time.

      So while I disagree that 3G would pass the "Folgers' crystals" test, I'm thinking

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      My 3G had better connections than 4G LTE and 5G in rural areas. :(

  • Bigger is always better. I have a ladder to get into my pickup truck, it uses 50 gallons/per mile. I'm also 400 pounds and could eat two horses without burping.

    Go big or go home. I'm holding out for 105.5G.

  • It's like with anything else...bigger is better, higher numbers are better. 4GLTE is WAY enough fast for my use.

  • self-driving cars should not need an network to run
    the last thing we need is them dieing in a dead zone in death valley.
    coming to an stop an tunnels / mountain area as they lose the network
    fringe roaming leading to an big roaming bill and or no network an plan that blocks roaming data.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by stripes ( 3681 )

      Ding! Ding! Ding!

      Absolutely! "more speed" is always nice, as is "less latency", but they don't always unlock new applications. Mostly you can tell when another bump up will because you've been just barely managing before using special hacks to make the most of inadequate bandwidth or latency that is actually too high. On the next bump the special hacks can go away, or they may need to stay but it brings you from "just barely but mostly kind of possible" to "hey it works nice!"

      EVDO, and EDGE had a t

    • Self driving cars are almost as big of scam as carrier network technology is. I would prefer to be on the road without someone’s experimental self driving tech risking my life.

  • my 3.5D VR headset almost made me go blind. I still see double.

  • 5.5G will probably spread kuru or something. Oh the humanity!

    • 6G is Peking Duck at my favorite China restaurant.

      I guess it's gonna spread another strain of bird flu. It's a code, I tell you, a code!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z80a ( 971949 )

      The 5G signal is so powerful it can get in you and cause you to have covid somehow and its no way so easy to block that an umbrella or the hand of a canadian youtuber twink can easily do it.

  • We need higher data caps rather than higher speeds (Score:4)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @01:07PM (#63478260)
    I'd rather use capless 4g rather than 5.5G.

    • Pretty much this. What good is a Ferrari if you only have gas for half a mile?

    • IDK what carrier or location you're using, but in the US T-Mobile is truly unlimited at full speed. The only exception is if you're connected to a specific congested tower, and then as soon as the tower is not congested or you switch towers you get full speed back.

      I also don't know why anyone needs that much more speed on mobile devices. I already get 150Mbps from 5G around here, and I can download entire huge games and linux distros while in the car in not much more time than an office's network connect

  • Couldn't I just get another COVID booster? (Score:5, Funny)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @01:09PM (#63478262)
    And what am I supposed to do with all these magnets sticking to me? Sure, the essential oils I rub all over help, but adding another .5 will just make me even stickier...

  • Diminishing returns (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rekoil ( 168689 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @01:10PM (#63478268)

    The analyst's comment tracks - we're reaching the point where incremental increases in bandwidth really don't affect most consumer use cases. The only time I really notice the my phone being on 5G vs my home Wifi is when I'm downloading a large app or OS update. Virtually every other operation - streaming, Facetime, etc, is a identical experience to me. I see this as a bigger boon to the industry than users.

  • Some companies advertise 10G already! They're way, way, wayyyyyyy beyond that speed!

  • Sez you! (Score:3)

    by buss_error ( 142273 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @01:31PM (#63478376) Homepage Journal

    5G technology has brought faster connections, better gadgets
    It brought me a more expensive phone, about the same download speeds, and the loss of two apps I can't load on the new phone, which, aside from a land line being impossible or too expensive to obtain, was the only reason I permitted a cell phone at all in my home.
    I am not anti-technology, I'm anti-who-the-hell-is-in-my-device.

    -- and a measure of disappointment from people with expectations of something closer to world-changing technology.
    5G promised the world, and when 3G was shut off, people noticed for the most part zero difference from 3G other than their cell phone rates increased and they got a new cute little "5G!" icon.

    But just wait, mobile companies are saying: The next upgrade will gin up enthusiasm for advances still to come.
    And Lucy Van Pelt sure won't jerk the football away this time!

  • This was known since before 5G was ratified (Score:5, Informative)

    by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @01:37PM (#63478392)

    We Telco nerds knew that the use case of 5G was convenient for Telcos and PROFESSIONAL IoT things, like smart Factories, sensor networks (like weather, seismic, air quality, pipeline and grid monitoring etc), smart meters (electricity, water, natural gas, etc), self driving cars, etc... and we knew this in ~2017 long before 5G was ratified and the trials even started... We telco nerds also knew that celular phone end users (you know, people answering emails, spotifying or using the web on their phones) would not see a big change from using the technology and, save for a very few and not very notheworty things, 5G would not bring much to the table of said users.

    5G Advanced will be no different. And unlike LTE-advanced (and all the other x.5G technologies), provisions for 5G Advanced were in the cards when 5G was being designed, so the process will be more orderly than with GSM (GPRS & EDGE), UMTS (HSDPA, HSUPA), or LTE (Advanced)...

    So, nothing to worry about. This time around all of this is normal and planned....

    Having said that... Marketeers did what Marketing do, and 5G was hyped beyond belief, no matter what we engineers said or sugested... And 5.5G (and 6G) will also be hyped beyond belief.

    This is a news forn Nerds site, so many of you knew this already. To you, sorry I restated the obvious.

    Yet, there are other types of nerds here, like Chemistry nerds, History nerds, etc, and henceforth this clarification...

  • I live in an area that gets only 4G LTE signal, occasionally falling back down to 3G. I would definitely be helped by future versions. Maybe by the time 5.5 or whatever is available, I'll finally get C band.

  • How about focusing on better coverage! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @01:47PM (#63478446) Homepage

    I live in suburban Houston, in the middle of a subdivision with more than 2,000 homes. With T-Mobile and Verizon, I get between 0 and 1 bars of signal strength. AT&T is a bit better, with 2-3 bars. What good is 5G or 5.5G, if the best I can get is a crappy connection?

    Out in the country, particularly in the western US, there are still vast swaths of land that never even got 3G, much less 4G or 5G.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by mcarp ( 409487 )
      this. i live west at atlanta with a congestion of houses growing ever more dense yet have holes in 4g coverage, its very good in some places and crap very near by even if i can see a tower its no guarantee i can get data, and outside the 5g map very sadly i can see it just a few uncaring miles away but verizon was very hasty to sell me a 5g "upgrade" phone that ditched the stereo speaker, thanks verizon get to work you rich greedy bastards

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by stripes ( 3681 )

      I live in suburban Houston, in the middle of a subdivision with more than 2,000 homes. With T-Mobile and Verizon, I get between 0 and 1 bars of signal strength. AT&T is a bit better, with 2-3 bars. What good is 5G or 5.5G, if the best I can get is a crappy connection?

      One of the things 5G is actually good at is being able to have a larger footprint for a given cell, and better penetration (5G not 5G UW, UW is dramatically worse then prior cell technologies for range and penetration, think of UW more like

    • On the other hand, on a recent trip I was surprised to discover that there was excellent coverage along secondary highways in places like the middle of the Nevada desert with the closest gas station 40 miles away.

  • ... by getting rid of your idiotic data caps. All of them. And at the same time ditch your lame excuses for higher rates, as if you're not already richer than Croesus.

  • Sure, large parts of the world need faster connection speeds. Will 5.5G actually be available in those spots, though, or do they need faster connection speeds because they're in spots with crappy coverage already for whatever reasons?

  • Overall, new additions are a good thing. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Working to revise a protocol for not just speed (although speed is important, so a car's cameras can upload from all onboard in real time to the car maker in real time), but dealing with congestion (for example, apps needing to constantly upload that necessary metadata and telemetry 24/7 from phones, headsets, tablets, and any other electronic gizmos, even if there is just one cell tower handling an entire stadium of people.)

    Secondary speed is also important, perhaps a network like Amazon Sidewalk, so if on

  • Self-operating factories (Score:3)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @02:25PM (#63478594)

    Nope. Not on your silly-assed wireless network. My factory is going to be hard wired, Ethernet or fiber. I'm not going to damage a few million dollar machine tool because someone fired up a leaky microwave oven in the lunch room.

    autonomous drones

    It's not really autonomous if it needs a comms link from somewhere.

    • It's not really autonomous if it needs a comms link from somewhere.

      Even if the drone acts on its own, it's still nice to have monitoring over where it is, how far along in its planned operation it is, and if anything goes wrong. Drones also often have a purpose of transmitting back surveillance data, video, radio, whatever.

      There's also something to be said for being able to remotely shut down an autonomous device. Skynet shouldn't become a real thing.

  • I'm guessing 5.5G probably isn't fast enough for Sammy Hagar [wikipedia.org].

  • 5.5g so what, ive got a 5g phone with no 5g service, criminey, get to it already!!
  • It would help if carriers would stop using LTE for uploads. Syncing photos and videos with the cloud is still a pain with "5G" devices because of LTE uploads.
  • I would bet most users disappointed with 5G aren't on T-Mobile. T-Mobile's exclusive use of 600 MHz has provided much higher speed, broader coverage, and better penetration of building infrastructures.

    • I was quite disappointed with T-Mobile's 5G, but the problem was unrelated to the frequency, buildings, etc..

      The backhaul to the tower nearest my house simply did not have enough bandwidth. I could stand just across the street from the antennas and get poor speeds (poor by today's standards). Then they upgraded the backhaul going to the tower and now the speeds are excellent. I doubt that I am unique with this experience.

  • They do themselves no credit by promoting 5G as being needed for bullshit reasons, the most common of which is self-driving cars. In this article they add the bullshit reasons autonomous drones and self-operating factories. None of those should need a 5G connection. If they do they are designed wrong and not be allowed to operate.

    Moving wireless connections need to be designed to handle signal losses so can not be a must have when safety is involved. Therefore 5G can not be a requirement to make self

  • That way there won't be all the protocol confusion with proprietary new schemes. The communication specs have to be registered with the respective regulatory agencies and then they are assigned a letter. The regulatory agency should have minimum standards for the numbers. There could even be 5.5 but it would not be the protocol but rather the spec. The letter would then describe the protocol. So 5.5a. Lowercase letters mean proprietary. And uppercase mean standardized. Have a trademark to go along with it s

  • They were JUST talking about 6G, so why the fuck are they going slightly backwards?! Life is a trip!
  • I wish these guys would stop the marketing scams. Today if you are in a place that had great LTE signal then you are likely in a place with great 5G and likely notice no real difference from before. And if you are in an area that had lousy LTE service, you either still have lousy LTE service or now lousy 5G service that is not much different than what you already had. Mobile carriers really have no customer focused ethics at all, they will exaggerate whatever their latest capabilities are and those capabili
  • Didn't buy the hype and deliberately avoided it as a feature I sought for a long time. Bought a new phone with 5G. Now my reception is consistently shittier and it's always when I'm on 5G. What a crock of shit.
  • How about no? Industrial control systems should have zero internet connectivity, especially not wireless connectivity. Industry is vulnerable enough without cramming cell phones into the hardware.

  • The only purpose of increasing G is to squeeze more money out of people.

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