Will There Be a 7G?

16 points | by Betelbuddy 37 minutes ago

15 comments

  • Havoc 2 minutes ago

    There will always be new Gs...marketing teams require it.

    I hope they go into the direction wifi is taking though - stability rather than speed.

    I never think about cell speeds being slow anymore but irritation at lack of coverage is still frequent. Esp in urban jungles where buildings block it

  • walrus01 a minute ago

    Note that "G" generally is a marketing term for consumers, the actual tech is 3GPP rev-whatever

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GPP

    Like 3GPP release 15 or 16 is what we currently know as a lot of in production LTE/LTE-Advanced stuff.

  • BlackRabbit1 9 minutes ago

    5G SA isn't still available for the broad masses yet.. and they are talking of 7G?

    I had the chance to test it in Germany with Telefonica as it can be ordered for free. It saves a lot of battery compared to 5G NSA. But they still had smaller problems with hand-overs to LTE and GSM as they keep you on 5G with a lot of weight then.

    Colleagues told me that the 5G NSA battery consumption problem is pretty much solved with other basebands and only Pixels are famous for suffering this much.

      tomasGiden 2 minutes ago

      And companies are selling electric cars even though not everyone has a petrol car…

      I remember people saying the same thing about 4G relative 3G and 5G relative 4G.

      esperent 3 minutes ago

      [delayed]

  • jruohonen 25 minutes ago

    Well, I suppose the rolling out of 5G must happen at some point, but otherwise his/her take in Section III.A is spot on and the most important takeaway.

      VorpalWay 15 minutes ago

      5G seems pretty widly available here in Sweden in my experience, even in the countryside. Not that the speeds are actually better than 4G, but the indicator say 5G as I'm writing this in a tent in the middle of nowhere. :)

      I guess other countries are further behind?

        tvink 8 minutes ago

        On raw coverage of 5g, only a few much denser countries are better. You live in basically the best 4g and 5g covered, sparsely populated country on earth :) most countries are not just further behind.

        jruohonen 11 minutes ago

        > I guess other countries are further behind?

        Yes, and even in Europe. The demand-led need was badly misunderstood or anticipated in my opinion as operators were hesitant to invest (and some big ones still are). In this sense, 7G is a pipe dream (but of course worth researching as such).

        hn_throwaway_99 6 minutes ago

        With 5G in particular I think it's important that people talk about which specific technologies they're referring to.

        In the US at least, low-band or extended range 5G is widely available and has been for some time (and I'm talking about the "real" 5G low-band, not the BS marketing speak AT&T used for a while). Mid and high band 5G, or 5G ultra capacity, is much less available but if course it only really makes sense in dense cities.

        I'm surprised that low band 5G isn't widely available in most 1st world countries, as again it's been here in the US for many years now.

  • respectattentio 6 minutes ago

    The right question:

    Will 7G be needed?

    I say no for the next 15 years. Because there are 1425235 other things that are way much important than this.

      someguynamedq 4 minutes ago

      Right and society only works on one thing at a time

  • tolugenius 6 minutes ago

    Could there come a limit to the G-cycle? Like either a) marginal gains slow/stall progress or b) more connectivity simply not being better? Curious to hear from folks in this field if this question has been raised.

  • ck2 2 minutes ago

    even the moon only has 4G

    well if they ever get the lander upright, you'd think they'd learn to put crashbags that self-inflate to upright landers by now

    * https://www.wired.com/story/nokia-4g-network-on-the-moon/

  • dorianmariecom 9 minutes ago

    yes