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[KSweeley]

Found this interesting news release dated June 2017 where Sprint has plans to offer "Gigabit LTE" in the U.S: http://newsroom.sprint.com/news-rel...st-massive-mimo-technology-in-south-korea.htm

If Sprint can actually give its customers gigabit speeds, that would be much faster than the internet connection I have with Comcast:

Sprint and Samsung Test Massive MIMO Technology in South Korea

Companies prepare for U.S. deployment of Massive MIMO to dramatically boost LTE Plus capacity and coverage and offer Gigabit LTE

Gigabit Speed with Massive MIMO

Massive MIMO radios use more antenna elements. For example, 64T64R (64 transmit, 64 receive) uses 128 antenna elements, whereas 2T2R/4T4R/8T8R is used in a typical 4G LTE network today. These Massive MIMO antennas use advanced horizontal and vertical beamforming technology to focus and transmit cellular signals into targeted locations. This more efficient use of spectrum delivers faster speeds and provides more data capacity to customers in high-traffic locations. When deployed on the network, Massive MIMO can provide all mobile device users with performance improvements, and those with the latest generation of devices with the most antenna elements will see the best performance. Massive MIMO, a key element of 5G slated to provide high capacity in densely populated urban centers, can enable LTE network performance well beyond 1 Gbps.

In cities across the U.S., Sprint plans to deploy Massive MIMO radios with 128 antenna elements (64T64R) using its 2.5 GHz spectrum to increase capacity up to eight times. In March, Sprint was the first U.S. carrier to debut Gigabit Class LTE on a live commercial network in New Orleans. There Sprint used three-channel carrier aggregation and 60 MHz of 2.5 GHz spectrum, in combination with 4X4 MIMO and 256-QAM higher order modulation, to achieve Category 16 LTE download data speeds on a TDD network. With Massive MIMO radios using 64T64R, Sprint has the ability to push capacity beyond 1 Gbps to reach 3-6 Gbps per sector.

 

[Skellig Gra]

and after 22 GB you go down to 2G speed still

 

[krae_man]

and after 22 GB you go down to 2G speed still

Wow, 3 whole minutes of full speed data!

 

[Brashnir]

and after 22 GB you go down to 2G speed still

Enjoy your 176 seconds of gigabit speed!

 

[Jonnax]

Yes. It's possible and the technology is in development. But at the same time LATE is pretty much there.

I hear in the US telcos are looking to move into the fixed broadband space with high speed mobile.

 

[KSweeley]

Yes. It's possible and the technology is in development. But at the same time LATE is pretty much there.

I hear in the US telcos are looking to move into the fixed broadband space with high speed mobile.

Very interesting, Gigabit LTE would be awesome if it's coupled with a truly unlimited plan with no data caps, it would be a major alternative to cities that has Comcast as the only option for high-speed internet.

 

[TyrantII]

Latency is still a huge issue, so you won't be gaming with it.

Browsing and streaming makes it viable. Verizon has been pushing for similar wireless build-outs in place of fine because it's much cheaper and less infrastructure intensive.

 

[jimmypython]

Meanwhile in Canada, my $80CAD plan has ONE FULL GB data.

 

[Skellig Gra]

Very interesting, Gigabit LTE would be awesome if it's coupled with a truly unlimited plan with no data caps, it would be a major alternative to cities that has Comcast as the only option for high-speed internet.

Yeah exactly, I don't get why they bother with this and still cap the data. It makes it essentially worthless.

 

[KSweeley]

Yeah exactly, I don't get why they bother with this and still cap the data. It makes it essentially worthless.

I wish all U.S. wireless carriers could understand the benefits of offering true unlimited data with absolutely no data caps.

 

[Izuna]

Tokyo olympics 5G test is going to be fun

 

[Engell]

4G achieved what was promised with 3G for the normal user.
5G will achieve what was promised with 4G etc etc etc..

 

[rrs]

I wish all U.S. wireless carriers could understand the benefits of offering true unlimited data with absolutely no data caps.

but you don't understand that I could make more money charging for every last GB

 

[Skellig Gra]

but you don't understand that I could make more money charging for every last GB

I would be interested to see what people pay in overages/additional data buys on a monthly basis.

 

[Transistor]

I would be interested to see what people pay in overages/additional data buys on a monthly basis.

I be it's horrifying. I have unlimited data for a reason.

 

[TheCochese]

I'm fine with the speeds I get now. I want more coverage.

 

[jstripes]

I wish all U.S. wireless carriers could understand the benefits of offering true unlimited data with absolutely no data caps.

That's easier on cable and DSL.

You've got those weirdos who need to stream 4K YouTube videos on their 6" smartphones every waking hour of the day. (I'm sure some of them are in this thread.) Get enough of them in a cell, and it bogs down the experience for everyone.

 

[KSweeley]

That's easier on cable and DSL.

You've got those weirdos who need to stream 4K YouTube videos on their 6" smartphones every waking hour of the day. (I'm sure some of them are in this thread.) Get enough of them in a cell, and it bogs down the experience for everyone.

But cable has data caps, Comcast has a data cap for their internet plans.

 

[beanoboy7]

and after 22 GB you go down to 2G speed still

Not true. Only temporarily throttled until you latch to an uncontested cell site. Then back to normal.

 

[QuantumZebra]

I just switched to Sprint (got an amazing deal on an S8+, S7 Edge for my wife and iPhone SE for my mom) from AT&T.

Couldn't be happier.

 

[clav]

See Google Fiber's 3.5 GHz wireless project.

Sprint has a lot of 2.5 GHz spectrum, and SoftBank reportedly has experience in deploying it. Cell radios have to be at low heights and require many due to low propagation.

Google's proposal is to simply mount these cell radios at the top of street lamps.

T-Mobile also has been running a project called LTE-U using 5 GHz spectrum. Some people worry that that might mean the end of reliable wi-fi since gear operates at similar frequencies.

 

[Sir Abacus]

Can wireless data achieve gigabit speeds???

You give a wireless terminal enough bandwidth and enough SNR and you get any speed you want.

 

[Ethical Hedonism]

I would be interested to see what people pay in overages/additional data buys on a monthly basis.

Telcos have whales too

 

[Palette Swap]

I was at a 5G test last month, it's real.

I fully expect to not reach these speeds in real life conditions though, like I don't casually reach 300Mbit/s on cat6 LTE.

Still, if this means consistently averaging several hundred Mbit/s, I'll be happy.

 

[K' Dash]

Now you will get through your data cap FASTER!

 

[Hexa]

Man. That's going to need a lot of small cells. The thing with MIMO is you may support a larger connection by essentially bundling them, but the total bandwidth remains the same. I'm still skeptical about the effects of using the unlicensed band for LTE on Wi-Fi as well. So in the end, you need to build a lot more towers.

 

[Kthulhu]

Wow, 3 whole minutes of full speed data!

Don't worry. Sprint's coverage is so ass that you'll never get anywhere near those speeds.

 

[Thelonelykoopa]

For people talking about latency it depends. I have in the last month bought internet from a local company to get rid of my shitty dial up speed windstream. While the download speeds and upload are not much to call home about(Well I guess in my area it is and their is no data cap) The ping I get consistently in every game I play around 56ms and Its radio wave based internet which I believe is the same as this.

 

[Gallbaro]

For people talking about latency it depends. I have in the last month bought internet from a local company to get rid of my shitty dial up speed windstream. While the download speeds and upload are not much to call home about(Well I guess in my area it is and their is no data cap) The ping I get consistently in every game I play around 56ms and Its radio wave based internet which I believe is the same as this.

EM is actually faster than copper or fiber, as a speed of light percentage.

 

[daffy]

Latency is still a huge issue, so you won't be gaming with it.

Lol you can already game on LTE speeds in certain situations. I don't believe this for a second.

 

[StuKen]

EM is actually faster than copper or fiber, as a speed of light percentage.

Congested backhaul and bouncing from tower to tower are the culprits. Do you really think you're riding radio all the way back to the isp backbone?

 

[rrs]

Lol you can already game on LTE speeds in certain situations. I don't believe this for a second.

yeah, it's not wired latency but easily usable and not 3G's ~1 sec latency

 

[David H Wong]

FYI this kind of thing is why Google Fiber has been all but abandoned, the future is wireless (Comcast is trying to buy into this, too).

Wired has always been a problem due to infrastructure issues (Google got stonewalled from laying fiber in some cities, for example) and I think everyone has decided this is how it's going to go.

 

[FantasticMrFoxdie]

I can hear the companies salivating on your caps lol

 

[Gallbaro]

Congested backhaul and bouncing from tower to tower are the culprits. Do you really think you're riding radio all the way back to the isp backbone?

In the industry brah, just speaking to the theory.

 

[Marky Mark]

Telstra in Australia sells a device for gigabit LTE

https://exchange.telstra.com.au/one-step-closer-to-5g-with-gigabit-speeds/

 

[keuja]

Latency is still a huge issue, so you won't be gaming with it.

Browsing and streaming makes it viable. Verizon has been pushing for similar wireless build-outs in place of fine because it's much cheaper and less infrastructure intensive.

Super low latency is something that 5G aims to achieve among other things.
You can still play most games using 4G though.

 

[avaya]

FYI this kind of thing is why Google Fiber has been all but abandoned, the future is wireless (Comcast is trying to buy into this, too).

Wired has always been a problem due to infrastructure issues (Google got stonewalled from laying fiber in some cities, for example) and I think everyone has decided this is how it's going to go.

Google Fiber was abandoned because the economics of a FTTH rollout requires a payback period of decades. A private company canot afford to deploy its capital in this manner, even one as large as Google. It also did not achieve a secondary intended effect of forcing the cablecos to invest more, they never felt threatened.

No one will achieve the speeds that are being quoted here in wireless in the real world because they need a fibre lines/ multiple fibre lines.

The RAN part of the mobile network has enough capacity, the backhaul is lacking and there are multiple chokepoints. The cost of backhaul is exorbitant and will become even more so in the densified clusters that faster LTE and eventually 5G will need.

Wireless will never replace fixed.

 

[jchap]

It will be awesome to hit my data cap limit inside of a minute.

 

[Forerunner]

Super low latency is something that 5G aims to achieve among other things.
You can still play most games using 4G though.

Yeah 4G works fine for gaming. I'm playing OW atm and my ping is 40-50.