On 1 June 2018 at 18:59, David <[email protected]> wrote: > >But I wonder what applications those proselytizing 5G expect to take up > the bandwidth? So far it seems Linkers have no suggestions.
23 years ago I got online with a 14.4kbps modem. It was adequate for text based gopher sites, ftp of some shareware and web pages with carefully compressed small images. I could easily imagine what I would use faster bandwidth for then, because it was very apparent. Mainstays of my use then, like NNTP, have been completely superseded. My laptop is currently on a wifi link via the NBN at faster than 3000x that old modem's speed. I can now watch videos in a web page and it usually works. Certainly, Netflix et. al. lets me watch movies should I want. But my computer does struggle even now with some tasks. It is a pain to do a full back up to off-site locations. Video conferencing is poor (I urge you to try a Cisco telepresence video conference if you have the chance. It uses about 30mbps). When you buy a new Xbox you need to budget several hours for the downloads of all the updates before you can play a game. Computer games transmit relatively little data when being played, because they require everyone to have adequate links to be fair - so they use the lowest common denominator. I am sure there are game developers right now who would love to be able to design a game with tens of megabits of bandwidth they could rely upon. Most of these needs occur for mobile users too. Iphones come in 256Gb models now, so back ups are not trivial over the air. A single game on an ipad can be >3gb. Why not have high quality video conferencing from a cellular tablet or mobile? It wasn't long ago I had to use a little app to store web pages and things to read on the train. Now I use my 4g phone to gain access to that information without needing to pre-plan. But a cost effective mobile plan is likely limited to 20Gb of data transfer, so I need to be somewhat parsimonious with data. If 5G means I can be as carefree as I am at home, that is a win. And just because I don't currently need more mobile data doesn't mean I am right. My teen regularly uses more than 15gb of mobile data snapchatting little 20 second videos to her friends. She would use more mobile data if she had it available. The fast 5G speeds will allow a narrow slice of bandwidth to be re-used over and over to satisfy many end users, so mobile users will feel their devices get the data faster, freeing up the base station to deal with the next user's request faster, reducing congestion. They will reduce the cost of mobile plans significantly, likely making data 'unlimited' as voice calls and SMS routinely have become. I'm not an evangelist for 5G, I suspect it is some time away, and I predict the linked article is right and there will be interference problems in the rain etc. But I think it is worth while to deploy, if only to see what new applications will come about. In the last couple of years, always on, effectively unlimited data transfer on home links has opened the door to new apps like distributed file transfer, blockchains, non-hardware media entertainment, voip, video conferencing and other things routinely. 15 years ago the same things were hard and just for hobbyists. Let's see what 5G always on, effectively unlimited data to mobile devices brings. Regards, Michael Skeggs _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
