Yeah in your dreams maybe. I'm often seeing zero bars, asking others if they have any signal only to have them show me a full 5G signal. New towers aren't backwards compatible, and the bandwidth has been largely reduced.
I'm not entirely sure why you're arguing with me about this. 4G currently has much better coverage than 5G; that's just a fact. I'm sure "4G barely works anymore" is true for you, but you don't represent the world, much less India, where this phone is sold.
> New towers aren't backwards compatible, and the bandwidth has been largely reduced.
Yup.
In tech-speak there is 5G NSA (Non-Standalone Architecture) and 5G SA (Standalone Architecture).
5G NSA is a kludge, it is 5G radios operating on a legacy 4G core. Inherently backwards compatible.
5G SA is 5G radios on 5G core. Clearly not backwards compatible.
5G SA is the preferred route for good reason:
1. It delivers reduced power consumption at both operator and user-device level
2. It delivers improved latency and bandwidth at both operator and user-device level
NSA can be rolled out with almost nothing more than a firmware update. For any existing carrier network, it was the obvious place to start 5G rollout.
If you're building new towers, things change, obviously. That said, a lot of industrial/IoT hardware still requires 4G so it's not entirely unreasonable to deploy 4G in new coverage areas.
And it also planned-obsoletes 4G only devices, a big win for the operators that can then sell new 5G capable ones. Such a racket I swear. Can't wait to go through this shit again for 6G in about 5 years, like we did for 3G.
4G is ending up as the replacement to 2G as the base network. I suspect 5G networks will be shut down before 4G ones given IoT devices are largely setting on the low power variants of LTE.
4G is currently the dominant mobile data network with the best coverage.
Yeah in your dreams maybe. I'm often seeing zero bars, asking others if they have any signal only to have them show me a full 5G signal. New towers aren't backwards compatible, and the bandwidth has been largely reduced.
I'm not entirely sure why you're arguing with me about this. 4G currently has much better coverage than 5G; that's just a fact. I'm sure "4G barely works anymore" is true for you, but you don't represent the world, much less India, where this phone is sold.
> New towers aren't backwards compatible, and the bandwidth has been largely reduced.
Yup.
In tech-speak there is 5G NSA (Non-Standalone Architecture) and 5G SA (Standalone Architecture).
5G NSA is a kludge, it is 5G radios operating on a legacy 4G core. Inherently backwards compatible.
5G SA is 5G radios on 5G core. Clearly not backwards compatible.
5G SA is the preferred route for good reason:
NSA can be rolled out with almost nothing more than a firmware update. For any existing carrier network, it was the obvious place to start 5G rollout.
If you're building new towers, things change, obviously. That said, a lot of industrial/IoT hardware still requires 4G so it's not entirely unreasonable to deploy 4G in new coverage areas.
In other words - noone in real life is deploying 5G only infrastructure right now and won't for awhile.
MSR base stations are the norm in the industry, not a rarity.
And it also planned-obsoletes 4G only devices, a big win for the operators that can then sell new 5G capable ones. Such a racket I swear. Can't wait to go through this shit again for 6G in about 5 years, like we did for 3G.
They can replace 2G/3G IoT with LTE, but cannot with 5G (due to energy consumption).
5G RedCap is the solution, but that will need new infrastructure and chipset. LTE will stay at least for another ten years.
Did you mix up 4G with 3G/2G?
> Did you mix up 4G with 3G/2G?
Most operators have switched off both 3G and 2G by now.
2G is still active in a few areas as a low-speed, long-range fallback while 3G is being shut down.
This is why I'm asking, because noone is shutting down 4G anywhere. And 5G actually has LESS range than 4G.
4G is ending up as the replacement to 2G as the base network. I suspect 5G networks will be shut down before 4G ones given IoT devices are largely setting on the low power variants of LTE.
5G has more range than 4G on the same frequency bands. 5G UWB has less range than 4G.