5G is coming... not in my lifetime

[levi]

At least is seems unlikely in western europe and america for 5G to come any time soon.

The main problem is that to install a 5G mast you really need to connect it to fibre. The fibre line near me runs at the bottom of the valley, and I'm connected now via a copper line to a cabinet there which connects me to the local fibre backbone, but I'm only half way up the valley. My current 2/3/4G mast is on the opposite hilltop, on the outskirts of a small cluster of farm buildings up there.

Now, regarding 5G, reportedly the masts are going to have to be a lot more local, and line of sight over relatively big distances doesn't count for much any more, and more people live closer to the valley bottom than I do, but there is still a decent percentage of the population here that don't, and if you want to get 5G to them, you're going to have to install a hell of a lot more fibre, and dig up farm roads and all sorts to install it.

Presumably in the big flat cities you're still going to have to put the masts on the top of every few buildings along. That seems believable to happen to me, but it's still a long way from the current state of fibre installation, which is still fibre to the cabinet (like I have) in all but a few ambitious new builds on the edges of established cities.

These thoughts were brought to you after I read this: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/03/22/5g_obstacles/

 

[elw3]

Why on earth does anyone care about this shit tech?
My fucking 3G! dongle is fast enough to buffer two youtube videos at the same time, of course that eats up the data plan in 5 minutes so its totally pointless anyway.
Do you have an unlimited Data plan? No? Whats the point then?
What you can expect to happen is that providers charge more money to install a shitload of towers that basically cant penetrate a wallpaper.
Money that is better spend in finishing the previous standart to full covering instead jumping on the bigger number like an ADHD child.

 

[levi]

Yeah, I'm still happy with the time it takes to load a webpage on 3G+HSPA. I've never tried IRC over it though, or anything else that depends on latency. Supposedly, 5G's meant to give us the same sort of latency we get through wired connections and wifi.

 

[elw3]

Dont mix up specifications with implementations.
For example a good usb2 port outperforms a bad usb3 one.
5G just cries for cheap unoptimezed crap cells, cause fuck it there are so many.

I dont get why you think IRC depends on latency, it can handle a ping of seconds just fine. I Used to play sauerbraten on 3G, 80ms when the weather was good, this works almost decent. On bad weather my ping ranges in seconds tho.

 

[levi]

If you don't think certain applications of IRC require low latency, you haven't been playing enough Duckhunt. RIP, duckhunt.

80ms isn't a too bad ping, but I can ping within this country in 15ms, and transcontinental in under 45ms.

 

[FBnil]

Why on earth does anyone care about this shit tech?

Internet of Things, IoT.

Where many e-devices will have a unique ID, an ID to identify themselves, we call it: IDIoT
Where the S stands for Secure, and the U is for Updated and patched.

It costs a lot to put in place, thus, lots of money can be made.

Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, they are removing so many healthy trees, that a webpage has been created to keep track of it. It seems 5G can not penetrate through thick trees. (and they do not want to put them on high poles, because the people will resist them (most probably due to esthetics), putting them on buildings has also a higher cost (they need to pay the building owner); they will be hidden in current poles/traffic light/etc (cheapest option)

What can it be used for? Well, what if your roomba does not have your Wifi password, how is it going to map your house?
What if your phone has GPS disabled? No problem, triangulation with 5G is more precise now.
Or what about smart clothes, that identify themselves to the towers, so that they can display commercials on your fabric (without powersource).

crossing over to the tin-foil hat theories.

The higher 5G frequencies will be able to bring electrical power over the air, powering self-assembling, self-repairing nanobots in our bodies, converting us to Borg. And you know: Resistance is Futile.

Sounds like science fiction... for now...

@Elw3 Here in Netherlands, we have almost saturated towers (but the projection is that it will be insufficient so they keep adding telecom towers). All the kids want unlimited internet on their phones, instead of having local wifi. And there's lots here, check the maps:

https://frankrayal.com/2012/10/09/how-much-wifi-is-out-there/
contrast that to: https://mapsontheweb.zoom-maps.com/post/134457160558/where-are-the-worlds-wifi-networks

coincidentally cancer rate is a little bit higher here (but correlation does not imply causation, for now; you can also blame the milk, for example).

 

[elw3]

coincidentally cancer rate is a little bit higher here (but correlation does not imply causation, for now; you can also blame the milk, for example).

Apparently the milk of european cows raise the chance of gut cancer by 80% they found out recently.

All this "i need wifi!" worries me. Just an remainder that during cold war an US ambassador in berlin found a hidden russian spy gadged because it gave him migraine. To be fair it was the first and probably largest RFID chip system ever created.
But if every little tower gives you a tiny little bit of headache...

 

[FBnil]

All this "i need wifi!" worries me.

It's socially weird also. I mean, sitting with adults and teenagers around a table, all teenagers have their phones there. all the time.
I also think small electrical fields do things to our brain. Especially if it is a continuous attack. For example, we can detect the earth magnetism:

 

[levi]

FWIW that video's about massive unidirectional currents and the resultant polar magnetic effects. It's pretty much the opposite of the millimeter waves we're talking about with respect to 5G installations. Personally I'd be much more concerned about the addictive qualities of modern social medias and the monetisation of modern gaming than the esoteric effects the radios might be having on us.

 

[Binky]

Personally I'd be much more concerned about the addictive qualities of modern social medias and the monetisation of modern gaming than the esoteric effects the radios might be having on us.

I quite agree. The effect of low-power radio/microwave signals on people is small, and the evidence of harm is pretty unconvincing.

However, the psychological impact of carrying a machine which is constantly begging for your attention is incontrovertible and obvious to even the most lay of laypeople. Worse, in my view, is the cultural impact of inserting corporate interests into every waking moment and every human relationship.

 

[elw3]

I am totally OK wih 90% of humankind rotting away in social media and turn to Zombies. They are just trash anyway and i can simply avoid them.

But i cant avoid radio signals, and even if the effect is just small, its still bugging me.

 

[Bernd]

Isn't the frequency of 5G that high, that it is not penetrating walls, windows or skin?
Ive heard a technical podcast (TheAmphour) where one specialist said that the main purpose of 5G is to be used where no glass fiber could be deployed.

And after the new EU-rules which getting voted today, there is no need for fast connections because lack of content.

 

[elw3]

the main purpose of 5G is to be used where no glass fiber could be deployed.

For this towers to work they need to have fiber themself, that plus the limited range...
Its basically just a way to put free wifi hotspots back in ISP regulated money hungry hands.

 

[Failbert]

Isn't the frequency of 5G that high, that it is not penetrating walls, windows or skin?

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong or oversimplifying, but IIRC it's a correlation that (at least with what we use for telecom) the higher the radio frequency, the worse it is at penetrating terrain and obstacles.

And after the new EU-rules which getting voted today, there is no need for fast connections because lack of content.

For this towers to work they need to have fiber themself, that plus the limited range...
Its basically just a way to put free wifi hotspots back in ISP regulated money hungry hands.

Regarding mostly Bernd's remark about content: the majority of the population (ie. consumers of culture and popculture) don't seem to be getting anymore picky about the content they are served, that's one thing, they will invest not only money but perhaps a lifestyle in a device if it lets them "fire and forget" to get instant gratification and distraction.

The above terms may sound like grotesque, or sociopathic, wording, but that's how I'd describe that people don't want to download (legally, like buying a file, even drm-binded or whatever) their favorite movie once and hold it on in the corner of their hard-drive, they'd rather stream it and effectively download it every year. Or they don't want to browse forums and mod games by editing files and figuring some things out, they want it to be integrated with steam workshop.


Regarding mostly Elw3's "it's gonna need fiber infrastructure anyway" remark: It may have been decades that marketing people envision a bigger number to show to the customer and the engineers design it and the thing sells even though it's pointless (like more and more megapixels, when the optics of a camera are lacking etc.). But in the last decade/two it seems to me that in IT, consumer electronics and especially websites, bad design is off the charts. I don't think we MUST write all software in low-level languages and optimize a million years so that a game executable has 32kB and uses a tiny amount of resources etc., but most software is whipped out without regards to resources at all like they'd think "hey ok this calculator takes 1gb of RAM but everyone has at least 8 gigs of ram anyway so don't sweat". Someone (can't find the article) compared this to a car that runs 0.01 miles per gallon being perfectly acceptable.

tl;dr What I am getting at with this wall of text above is that shitty design seems acceptable in consumer software for now, but bad design culture seems to stretch towards entire infrastructure projects.

 

[FBnil]

And after the new EU-rules which getting voted today, there is no need for fast connections because lack of content.

rofl!

the higher the radio frequency, the worse it is at penetrating terrain and obstacles

It still is being absorbed by your epidermis.
Also the spectrum is broader. And just increase the power to penetrate more.

source: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/towards-5g
[doublepost=1553616302,1553616167][/doublepost]

but that's how I'd describe that people don't want to download

Yeah, having a hard time to explain that to the kids. Google is so much more convenient.
It's not easy to install a browser download plugin and download your favourite music video. Then manage the downloaded videos, moving the old videos to old and keeping links to the current favourite ones.
[doublepost=1453618264][/doublepost]

They are just trash anyway

Most are just uneducated. Don't blame the people, blame society.

 

[levi]

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong or oversimplifying, but IIRC it's a correlation that (at least with what we use for telecom) the higher the radio frequency, the worse it is at penetrating terrain and obstacles.

It's all a little hazy now, but my recollection from wave theory at school is that no waves penetrate obstacles, and obstacles can be considered to block the signal. But any aperture in the block such as a doorway, or for certain frequencies, a glass window, if the aperture is less than the wavelength of the frequency, the wave will radiate out from that aperture, but if it's smaller, it'll effectively only be permitted by that aperture, and become line of sight. Wavelength is in the inverse to frequency, so higher frequency stuff has a smaller wavelength.

 

[ElPoco]

Some waves do penetrate obstacles. Otherwise you wouldn't hear anything through a wall (and we wouldn't be concerned about the effects of EM waves on our brain and many imaging/radar systems wouldn't work). And after all, they do penetrate air.
Depending on the surface, the radiation might be partly or fully reflected and what isn't reflected will penetrate the material and go more or less far depending on the material and the wavelength (there are so many different effects and physical properties that come into play here that it's more complicated than "lower/higher frequencies penetrate better")

 

[levi]

Under my understanding, that's because walls aren't perfect obstacles. I don't know off the top of my head how they respond to high frequency radio waves, since the low frequency pressure waves that make up sound waves aren't a good guide for that sort of behaviour, I wouldn't have thought.

From what I've read, people seem to be convinced that you need line of sight for millimeter waves (although some of the frequencies I've been reading about are definitely in the microwave range, and I know microwave comms to be essentially point to point, so maybe there's something in that)

 

[Failbert]

It still is being absorbed by your epidermis.

Sure, never for a moment did I mean this is beneficial in regards to us absorbing all of that.

Seeing that graphic makes me think it's all about making it convenient to stream everything, deliver everything to the screen and let the phone or desktop essentially be a dumb terminal.

And a sophisticated espionage device.