[mlfreeman]

The visualizer reminds me of my thermal camera.

I have heard claims of devices (mostly TVs) supposedly coming with secret 5G cell uplinks built in [never heard a specific model mentioned though].

If there were more variants covering more commonly-used RF bands, people could walk around and literally check for once.

(incidentally i'm sure three letter agencies have had this sort of tech in their bug-detecting toolkit for a LONG time)

[mikeweiss]

Whos paying the telcos for those 5G connections and also has the FCC been degraded so much that they would allow for undeclared radios in consumer products?

[FuriouslyAdrift]

More likely 4G LTE MTM (https://www.verizon.com/business/products/internet-of-things...). It's dirt cheap and paid for by the vendor of the device it is in (usually) in the name of 'telemetry'.

I've seen so many random industrial devices and parts come into our plant that have their own cellular it's wild.

[mikeweiss]

You really think these are in TVs going unoticed and someone is paying for each radio?

[FuriouslyAdrift]

I have $100 devices in industrial devices that have them. In bulk, they cost next to nothing (not quite as cheap as RFID but getting there).

[tredre3]

But in your scenario they are an integral and necessary part of the device, so it's costed in.

In a television it's an added cost and it's unclear if serving ads really can offset that extra $25-100 of hardware (and included data) you ship on a $200-1000 television.

It's also unclear to me if the low data packages they come with would be enough to serve meaningful ads to begin with. Those devices usually come with a fixed plan of 100MB/month for 5yrs (or along those lines). Modern smart tv ads are very often video or at least hi res images.

[semi-extrinsic]

> In a television it's an added cost and it's unclear if serving ads really can offset that extra $25-100 of hardware (and included data) you ship on a $200-1000 television.

Amazon seems to have done the math and found that it makes sense to give a $20 discount on a $180 device if it lets them display very unobtrusive ads on the lockscreen. So I don't think you are correct.

[fc417fc802]

Why are you assuming the primary motivator is to serve ads? Smart TVs were already caught running content ID against the contents of the screen and phoning that data home. "Routing at the edge" is the euphemism for the logical extension of that.

> extra $25-100

Your estimated costs are off by at least one order of magnitude, probably two.

Of course none of this makes much sense in a world where smart TVs have ubiquitous wifi, most consumers have one, most consumers run the stock OS, and most consumers connect it to the public internet. It would be entirely viable if not for that status quo.

[jcims]

My truck (Ford) has some cell connectivity that I’ve never paid for. At scale it’s likely very inexpensive.

[drnick1]

Unfortunately, it's used to spy on you, and insurance companies are known to buy the data to profile customers or prospective customers. The good thing about Fords is that the cell modem often has its own fuse.

[throwaway85825]

Secret 5G is not as common because there is a huge incentive to resell the free service. Maybe with eSIM it will be harder. Kindles uses to have a free data plan SIM.

[thomashabets2]

> huge incentive to resell the free service

Not all mobile data APNs go to the Internet. You can't resell an IP service that lands on an RFC1918 network with exactly one IP:port available; the API endpoint.

Not saying I've seen this in devices, but I have built and run mobile data networks with private APNs.

[bluGill]

Telcos sell off peak only 5g for cheap. Only to large companies that are willing to work with the limits. Often it is low bandwidth.

[ireflect]

This is interesting. Do you have any specific examples?

[bluGill]

No. I did see in the 5G design that that type of thing was a consideration. It may well be that phone companies aren't selling like that, however it certainly would make sense that they would be looking for companies who want a deal. Most of the cost of service is fixed, and a large number of customers want service during particular peak times and so they can serve that peak data even at off peak times such as when everyone's asleep and so if they could sell that time only that is a little bit more money. It only makes sense if those buying off peak times do have other alternatives that they would turn to instead.

[ethin]

The FCC is literally powerless nowadays for all intents and purposes. They've abrogated so much of their authority to the states now that they might as well be eliminated. What little authority that remains with it is bought and paid for to the point that I'm sure you could get anything "approved" if you wanted.

[mschuster91]

> has the FCC been degraded so much that they would allow for undeclared radios in consumer products?

Well... most TVs already have a WiFi/BT chipset for stuff like advertisements or, especially with Apple, high-bandwidth video streaming. There is already a radio module present, but (IIRC) you don't have to disclose what exactly that module is capable of.

[sroussey]

You definitely are required to disclose what frequencies are used and at what power.

[mikeweiss]

Uhh yes you absolutely do need to disclose exactly what each is capable of. Each radio must itself be approved by the FCC and documented

[drnick1]

> I have heard claims of devices (mostly TVs) supposedly coming with secret 5G cell uplinks built

This is occasionally mentioned on HN, but I have not yet seen a specific instance of this. Please share if you know something about secret 5G cell modems used to spy on people.

[MomsAVoxell]

It always impresses me that technology ideas once exposed in the nefarious background of the Snowden revelations, has now become mainstream, almost passé among the technocratie, but then I remember that there is a very dominant event horizon where all technology is weaponized/de-weaponized according to the intentions of its users..

It's going to been pretty wild to see QuadRF being applied for things. I can only imagine there are weapons-technologists who will bolt this onto hunter/killer drones at some point. A lynchpin technology for the inevitable drone wars.