[martinald]

I really don't get why people think this is possible. Even with microcells and loads of spectrum, you might be able to get 2gigabit/sec of internet per cell, which would be enough for perhaps a couple hundred streams (not including all the other internet services people require all the time).

Considering most cells right now serve thousands if not tens of thousands of devices, there is simply no way that wireless broadband will ever be able to service that, unless you have hundreds of femtocells, but at that point you might as well just deliver fibre to the home as you'll be a few metres from the premises.

5G really changes nothing of this. Shannon's law dictates this and we are close to topping out on it in terms of radio efficiency.

[rayiner]

5G changes things dramatically. 5G deployment will be heavily focused on small cells. That means you can go to higher frequencies, because you don't care as much about propagation, and you've got much more bandwidth available at higher frequencies. So cell size goes down, users per cell goes down, and bandwidth per cell goes up.

That still ends up being massively cheaper than FTTP. Getting fiber into peoples' houses is an incredibly labor-intensive and high-touch process. I just had fiber installed at my house. It took half a day to run fiber down the main road about 1/3 of a mile to my subdivision. Another half day to run it 200 feet down my residential road. Almost a full day to dig under my driveway into my house. And a solid half day to install the CPE. With small cells, you'd basically only have to do the first step. You could've installed a small cell serving hundreds of people in the time it took to retrofit just my house.

[amazon_not]

5G might end up cheaper than FTTP, but I wouldn't get my hopes up on it being massively cheaper.

Higher frequencies will require either line of sight or very short distances to the small cell. The small cells themselves will incur costs both CAPEX and OPEX.

Basically the only part 5G will replace in a FTTP network is the drop. And that's where the density and the topography is cooperating. Whereas if you install a fiber drop, you'll be set for 20+ years and you won't have to install, maintain and power a small cell forever.

[rayiner]

You’re not just getting rid of the drop, but also the last 100 meters or so through the subdivision. Moreover, the drop and CPE install is 30-40% of the cost of deployment.

Also, fiber is not fire and forget. Just the other day a tree took out the cable to my house. Buried cable has less maintenance, but also much higher initial costs, increasing the cost advantage of wireless for the last 200m.

[amazon_not]

Like I wrote in the grandparent, it's a density thing. How many subscribers have line of sight (or close enough) for the 5G small cell to work? At some point it's going to be more cost effective to do FTTP.

The CPE cost is negligible. You can pick one up for $20. True, the drop will cost you, but it has a far longer lifespan than the small cell. It's not like the small cell, it's installation, permits, engineering, pole rental or tower, power, etc. are free either.

Like I stated earlier, 5G may be cheaper than FTTP. Or it may not. It may not even be available in your area due to insufficient density. Even if 5G is cheaper, it's not going to be massively more cheaper.

[martinald]

Sorry, how is this any different to LTE on 3.4GHz or 2.6GHz? There is literally nothing different between 4G and 5G on this. 4G deployment on 3.4 or 2.6 could equally be said to be focussed on small cell, but we also have massive worldwide deployments on 450, 600, 700 and 800MHz. So is LTE also about long range?

[rayiner]

US 5G deployment will leverage spectrum above 24 GHz where it is feasible: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/10/5g-mo.... The FCC is working on auctions of 100+ MHz channels in these bands: http://www.telecompetitor.com/fcc-proposes-schedule-for-28-g.... AT&T already spent more than a billion dollars buying up that spectrum. It’s starting 5G trials at 15 GHz: http://www.lightreading.com/mobile/5g/atandt-5g-trials-to-st...

In the US, almost all LTE deployment is below 2 GHz.

[martinald]

24GHz will require line of sight. I can't see how this is going to work for anything more than cell backhaul or fixed wireless access in very rural areas (without trees)?

[rayiner]

At relatively short distances (hundreds of meters), enough radio waves bounce around in the environment to still make it to the receiever. https://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/wireless/smart-antennas-co.... You need beam forming antennas to take advantage of this fact.

See: http://about.att.com/innovationblog/two_years_of_5g_tria

> Learned mmWave signals can penetrate materials such as significant foliage, glass and even walls better than initially anticipated.

[ksec]

>5G really changes nothing of this. Shannon's law dictates this and we are close to topping out on it in terms of radio efficiency.

10 to 15 years ago that is what I thought. Until Massive MIMO. Some of the crazy stuff we are doing now in Wireless tech was literally dimmed theoretically impossible when I did some very early work on 3G in University. It doesn't break Shannon's law, we just find many ways around it.

Many doubt Massive MIMO will ever work, including industry expert. I doubt it too, if anyone remember something similar called pCell many years ago. It turns out it did work. It was originally created and based on TDD, we could do 128 x 128, or even 1024 x 1024 antenna. Sprint are doing 64 x 64 / 128 x 128 works on their Network already. [1] But there is a cost, power etc involved but the tech works. We thought this crazy thing would not work on FDD, which is what majority of the world uses, it turns out they have found ways around it too. Both Ericsson and Huawei's solution is much better then some originally thoughts. Not as elegant or as effective as TDD but it still works.

We have small cells, this time it actually works as advertised. Combined with LAA in 5Ghz Spectrum.

5G provides an order of magnitude increase in capacity. It also makes some backend services cheaper to run, there are already a few countries started price war in bid to attract more customer on their network as they have more capacity resources.

I still remember a few years ago, when my friend were installing her first fibre installation at her home. It was such as hassle with cable layering, ONT modem etc. She was very frustrated and asked a simple question that stuck me at the time. Why cant we all use mobile. Mobile is enough for me, why cant my home PC uses 4G too? Will there be someday where they sent me a "Modem" with SIM card in mail I plug it in and it will work?

I thought she was crazy. That is not possible, what makes her think that? You told me 5 years ago ( That is 8 - 9 years from today ) Smartphone wasn't a thing, now everyone has it and we are watching video on it already. Surely 10 years from now that should be possible right?

I said no, it is not possible. I had Shannon's law in my mind. I had me BiTorrent downloading Terabytes of data in my mind. Cell tower contention in my mind. Now I am not so sure.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7onQZ51b0yc

[DenisM]

If there is more demand for cell service the cell companies will build more towers. Lower the power levels and use higher frequency bands to reduce interference.

By your numbers, 200 clients x $50/mo $10k revenue per mo for a tower. A new cell tower costs $150k, so it pays for itself in 15 months.

[martinald]

It can take years in the UK to add a new cell tower. Apply to the local govt for planning, then more applications to dig the road up for fibre. And then you need a power connection which often aren't trivial or quick to get. $150k sounds unbelievably low.

[lostapathy]

You have to remember that the denser you install towers, the shorter and less obtrusive they need to be. I.e., you don't need to be nearly as high if you only need line of sight over one mile instead of ten.

[DenisM]

https://www.quora.com/How-much-money-would-it-cost-to-build-...

[VectorLock]

Do what Verizon did in Boston. Get the local government to give you access ostensively for FTTH broadband like FiOS then go "psyche!" and use the fiber to run cell towers.