A lot of people here are putting out a lot of very logical evidence why 5G will either never work or won't for a long, long time.
But, telecoms & mobile equipment vendors around the world are betting many billions of dollars -- basically betting their company -- that it will. In fact, it's impact is projected to be such that it has become worldwide security / political issue.
Then, add on top of that that 5G was really the only incentive for Apple to cave in and settle with Qualcomm....
And, it all adds up that the experts are saying its coming hard and fast.
You’re assuming that Apple settled with QC to get 5G (not an unreasonable assumption,) but 5G for phones may be as much or more about the perception than the reality, and that alone may be enough of a reason for manufacturers to put it in their devices and for the telecoms to expand their 5G coverage. Look at AT&T with their 5GE sham. One other possibility is that the benefit of 5G is not actually maximum speed, rather allowing more devices to connect at a given speed so you can actually get more devices, all at decent (4G) speeds without bogging down.
All of the hype around 5G focuses on latency, speed and increased numbers of devices. One of the Zdnet articles made an interesting statement: 5G is wireless, but it’s not mobile. The articles that I’ve read that actually go beyond the hype all point to significant technical issues with 5G. This leaves me with a conundrum - as you say, the telecoms are heavily investing in 5G rollouts (with some of them now making statements to temper expectations) yet the technical descriptions don’t seem to bear out the hype. THat leaves me with 3 general possibilities - the telecoms are all racing each other for a prize they don’t understand other than that they know they don’t want to be last, the technical issues are as insurmountable as they would seem, or the real benefits of 5G have to do with the infrastructure and other non-mobile uses. The first seems ludicrous until you listen to an MBA talk about technical issues so who knows?
My bet would be the last: An infrastructure thing that is less about cell phones than other, newer uses of wireless. But, that doesn't change my mind for two reasons:
1) If it can replace cable & FiOS, or at least provide competition to them, then I'm happy.
2) As Avon7 said, even if it isn't directly targeting cell phones, the cell phone will likely be at the center of it -- just as it is with Homekit.
And, as I have said: Major upgrades in communications have triggered major upgrades in computing that nobody predicted: -- T1 lines enabled remote datacenters -- which triggered outsourcing and what is now called "cloud computing"
-- Cable triggered a revolution in TV and then home computing and eventually, streaming. -- cellular technology enable the car phone -- 3G enabled mapping over a car phone
-- LTE changed the car phone from a phone into a pocket computer that can do as much as a desktop.
We focus too much on CPU's & GPU's -- it is communications technologies that have made the biggest differences in computing Rather than upgrading existing functions, major upgrades in communications open doors -- and sometimes even doors that nobody even knew existed.
I think the analogy might be the "horseless carriage": At the time it was argued that they were mostly just a toy that wasn't very usable: That they broke down, needed fuel instead of grass, and got stuck in the mud. In other words: That a horse was much better at doing what people had done for the past 1,000 years. And, ya know? They were right.
A lot of people here are putting out a lot of very logical evidence why 5G will either never work or won't for a long, long time.
But, telecoms & mobile equipment vendors around the world are betting many billions of dollars -- basically betting their company -- that it will. In fact, it's impact is projected to be such that it has become worldwide security / political issue.
Then, add on top of that that 5G was really the only incentive for Apple to cave in and settle with Qualcomm....
And, it all adds up that the experts are saying its coming hard and fast.
You’re assuming that Apple settled with QC to get 5G (not an unreasonable assumption,) but 5G for phones may be as much or more about the perception than the reality, and that alone may be enough of a reason for manufacturers to put it in their devices and for the telecoms to expand their 5G coverage. Look at AT&T with their 5GE sham. One other possibility is that the benefit of 5G is not actually maximum speed, rather allowing more devices to connect at a given speed so you can actually get more devices, all at decent (4G) speeds without bogging down.
All of the hype around 5G focuses on latency, speed and increased numbers of devices. One of the Zdnet articles made an interesting statement: 5G is wireless, but it’s not mobile. The articles that I’ve read that actually go beyond the hype all point to significant technical issues with 5G. This leaves me with a conundrum - as you say, the telecoms are heavily investing in 5G rollouts (with some of them now making statements to temper expectations) yet the technical descriptions don’t seem to bear out the hype. THat leaves me with 3 general possibilities - the telecoms are all racing each other for a prize they don’t understand other than that they know they don’t want to be last, the technical issues are as insurmountable as they would seem, or the real benefits of 5G have to do with the infrastructure and other non-mobile uses. The first seems ludicrous until you listen to an MBA talk about technical issues so who knows?
My bet would be the last: An infrastructure thing that is less about cell phones than other, newer uses of wireless. But, that doesn't change my mind for two reasons:
1) If it can replace cable & FiOS, or at least provide competition to them, then I'm happy.
2) As Avon7 said, even if it isn't directly targeting cell phones, the cell phone will likely be at the center of it -- just as it is with Homekit.
And, as I have said: Major upgrades in communications have triggered major upgrades in computing that nobody predicted: -- T1 lines enabled remote datacenters -- which triggered outsourcing and what is now called "cloud computing"
-- Cable triggered a revolution in TV and then home computing and eventually, streaming. -- cellular technology enable the car phone -- 3G enabled mapping over a car phone
-- LTE changed the car phone from a phone into a pocket computer that can do as much as a desktop.
We focus too much on CPU's & GPU's -- it is communications technologies that have made the biggest differences in computing Rather than upgrading existing functions, major upgrades in communications open doors -- and sometimes even doors that nobody even knew existed.
I think the analogy might be the "horseless carriage": At the time it was argued that they were mostly just a toy that wasn't very usable: That they broke down, needed fuel instead of grass, and got stuck in the mud. In other words: That a horse was much better at doing what people had done for the past 1,000 years. And, ya know? They were right.
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And, as I have said: Major upgrades in communications have triggered major upgrades in computing that nobody predicted:
-- T1 lines enabled remote datacenters -- which triggered outsourcing and what is now called "cloud computing"
-- cellular technology enable the car phone
-- 3G enabled mapping over a car phone
I think the analogy might be the "horseless carriage": At the time it was argued that they were mostly just a toy that wasn't very usable: That they broke down, needed fuel instead of grass, and got stuck in the mud. In other words: That a horse was much better at doing what people had done for the past 1,000 years. And, ya know? They were right.