We need to talk about 5G

[#1]

Is this too good to be true?

Amazing speeds and low cost too!

Is this the new Elephant in the room?

http://www.three.co.uk/store/broadband/home-broadband

[#2]

I’m sure that it will work great in urban areas where there is 5G coverage plus probably the option or one or more FTTP suppliers. Out in the rural villages we have only steam age ADSL, or if lucky, FTTC and flaky mobile reception, if any.

[#3]

@Baldrick1   I was unaware it was not progressing as planned across the UK (as rollout map for the UK) as around London it's everywhere. 

5G rollout plan as September 2017

[#4]

@Leapy 

Clicking on the link in you original post and selecting 'Check Availability' I get:

4G. You got it.

Good news.
Our plug and play 4G Home Broadband is available in xxxxx

No mention of 5G.

I've already got a 4G MiFi unit for holidays and emergencies and the best that I can get at home is about 20Mbps. I am one of the 'lucky' ones with FTTC and that's good for about 60Mbps.

[#5 · Accepted solution]

That map is misleading. In reality it shows when TV transmitters were removed from the 700 MHz band to allow the band to be used for 5G.
700 MHz will provide good indoor coverage when rolled out but only limited speeds due to the fact there is only 10MHz of spectrum each for EE, O2 and Three. Vodafone did not bid!
However, the main 5G band is at 3500 MHz. This has at least 40 MHz each network. Three has 100 MHz of spectrum.
3500 MHz can deliver the fast 5G speeds.
The downside is that the signals do not reach indoors very well and an indoor 5G antenna/router is unlikely to deliver good speeds in the majority of locations.
You can check Threes 5G coverage on their website. It is very limited!
Richard

[#6]

@Baldrick1 good to know your FTTC is OK for now and the 4G MiFi works too.😊 

@RichardB thanks for your overview of the national situation, clearly the impressive theoretical values are just that, dependant on the phone signal strength? 🤔 Would I be right in thinking that if the phone signal is say 50%, (two bars) then the values would be halved, or is it not linear? 

I presume that reduced signal strength, would also reduce or slow that theoretical 64 devices too?

[#7]

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from Everything Else to Tech Help

[#8]

@Leapy
The signal strength to throughput speed is not a linear relationship.
Typically the speed should be independent of signal strength until the signal goes below a threshold.
However, in reality mobile signal strengths vary far more rapidly than the phone shows.
Phones signal strength indicators are heavily filtered.
Most phone reception is not "line of sight" to the base station antennas and relies on signal reflection.
Signal reflections are not consistent across the RF spectrum and so some of the signal is filtered out, which can slow things down significantly.
The RF spectrum if each cell sector is shared between all the users in that sector. It is a shared resource.
So the speeds are dependent on how good the reception is and many users are using the cell.
Regards
Richard

[#9]

We've had this planted at the end of our road :

Probably get perfect 5G reception and nothing else...............

[#10]

A so called Three UK "Pole of Wonder"
https://mobile.twitter.com/PedroClarke1/status/1400756274162245632
You will get a very good Three 4G and 5G signals!

[#11]

A good standby should my Plusnet FTTC go down......................

[#12]

@Champnet this photo was a few months ago. The Dentist informed me that 5G is really good and all his client's teeth now glow in the dark 

[#13]

Those damn ugly columns are popping up everywhere. Maybe they can make them a bit more useful and stick a propeller on the top.

If this keeps up - 6G 7G 8G - each with less range than the one before, won't we eventually end up with pillars every ten yards?

[#14]

@billnotben  2 x  Empty cocoa tins, and a piece of string  ? ?    no chance of being tapped  ! ! ..

[#15]

My neighbour on BT and also EE its getting 5G mobile here. PlusNet say this is a budget service so there may be no rush to allow us to join the 5G train!