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4g+ and 5G rollout in towns?

I'm still confused though :D

I think we are still years away from a nationwide 4G+ type of network (including most the features this entails).

The problem is the carriers refuse to embrace the capabilities of 4g+ and utilise what they already have available. They'd rather jump on the 5g bandwagon when they already have the capability of providing 100Mbps over 4g+ but aren't interested in providing the back haul to provide it.

4g, let alone 4g+ in the UK is like having a Focus RS and pootling about at 30mph. Its easily capable of 4 times that speed but the carriers don't want to visit the petrol station that often.

5g is just the carriers Mclaren P1 showboating round the city centre on a Friday night when they're going to just drive that around at 60mph tops, isn't it?
 
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of ppl can only get upto half the max download speed of 112.5mbps (say around 55-60mbps) on 4G, due to average / weak signal strength. Maybe more in cities though, where masts are more likely to offer higher bandwidths.

It's just not particularly suited for home use is it (compared to wired)? Especially since there's a lack of capacity too, for the ever increasing data usage of customers. I don't think wireless networks will be until we have 4G+ / 5G networks.

It's kind of like 4g+ never really took off though (hence the lack of detailed future rollout plans!), makes me wonder if its just not economic enough. Maybe they will just skip upgrading to 4g+ and just build new 5G masts in cities, then towns eventually.
 
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On 4g most people are lucky to get 30Mbps, and even then its contention reliant. Its actually worse in cities because more people are using it.

I can get 4g+ on three, but I see slower speeds using bands 1 and 3, so set it to band 3 alone. I can get an average of 30Mbps boosting to 70Mbps if I'm lucky with band 3 and with the addition of band 1 (4g+) I only get 20Mbps tops. I believe Three limits each user to a set amount of bandwidth at any given time across their network.

The problem as I see it is if carriers aren't willing to supply the speeds 4g is capable of, are they really serious about providing the speeds of 5g they are even putting out in their sales pitches? We have the technology available in place to provide everyone on 4g with 100Mbps, but with 4g+ that's a given.

The marketing pull of 5g makes it so special, when it don't need to be. Why bother investing in 5g at all when you can spend more on back haul and offer a faster service to existing 4g customers anyway?
 
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of ppl can only get upto half the max download speed of 112.5mbps (say around 55-60mbps) on 4G, due to average / weak signal strength. Maybe more in cities though, where masts are more likely to offer higher bandwidths.

It's just not particularly suited for home use is it (compared to wired)? Especially since there's a lack of capacity too, for the ever increasing data usage of customers. I don't think wireless networks will be until we have 4G+ / 5G networks.

It's kind of like 4g+ never really took off though (hence the lack of detailed future rollout plans!), makes me wonder if its just not economic enough. Maybe they will just skip upgrading to 4g+ and just build new 5G masts in cities, then towns eventually.
Getting half the theoretical speed is actually pretty good going even with good signal! I'd expect it to actually be worse in cities where there are more users per cell so the same resources are spread more thinly - this is assuming cell density vs population ratio is not the same as a more remote location and the same frequencies/features are deployed.

LTE-A features are certainly being used and deployed, however infrastructure such as masts, radios and antennas, when installed, are planned to be in service for X number of years to supply the current local requirements and future planned over that time. The cost of that must be recuperated over that lifetime. Providers can't go around replacing hardware on every mast every year just to ensure it supports a specific feature, particularly if there isn't the demand on a given mast - they'd be bankrupt.

I do agree with the feeling a lot of the providers in the mid-late 2010's held back on making wide sweeping changes to their infrastructure with 5G being on the horizon, knowing that that would require massive investment to deploy new hardware which wasn't yet available.
With those 5G deployments, 4G will improve (if held-back through backhaul limitations) and the newer hardware should also support the LTE-A features which perhaps the older 4G hardware did not, if the provider feels those are worth enabling.
 
The marketing pull of 5g makes it so special, when it don't need to be. Why bother investing in 5g at all when you can spend more on back haul and offer a faster service to existing 4g customers anyway?
These arguments apply to most infrastructure projects.

Would you say the same about FTTP vs FTTC? Why bother rolling out FTTP when FTTC could just be enhanced with G.fast?

How about HS2...?
 
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I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of ppl can only get upto half the max download speed of 112.5mbps (say around 55-60mbps) on 4G, due to average / weak signal strength. Maybe more in cities though, where masts are more likely to offer higher bandwidths.

It's just not particularly suited for home use is it (compared to wired)? Especially since there's a lack of capacity too, for the ever increasing data usage of customers. I don't think wireless networks will be until we have 4G+ / 5G networks.

It's kind of like 4g+ never really took off though (hence the lack of detailed future rollout plans!), makes me wonder if its just not economic enough. Maybe they will just skip upgrading to 4g+ and just build new 5G masts in cities, then towns eventually.
I've just finished a 12 month stint with 4g broadband before returning to virgin this week.

My mast is three/ee shared. My EE mobile has clocked 283 Mb from this 4g mast so theories can work but generally won't. My three router sim would top out around 60Mb when I first joined them. But reality brought that down by half which isn't too bad considering what others write about on here. Peak usage might bring that as low as 10Mb.

Then three upgraded the mast to 4g+ and the router quickly enjoyed around 70Mb connections. I even bought a second router and that connected at 90Mb for all of a day and haven't seen that since.

But with three as all of us know the connection speed subsides within a few short hours. That 4g+ advantage I gained hasn't really been that advantageous. Connection speed and real life streaming speed are probably less than before the upgrade for me. Like others the CA doesn't always result in anything superior at all.

I gave 4g a shot, went for the cheap headline costs, yet probably spent even more on 'infrastructure' to try make it viable. The difference in virgin quality Internet this week for me is like a lada vs lambourghini.

Guess I should be offloading my routers and external antennae now 😏
 
I've just finished a 12 month stint with 4g broadband before returning to virgin this week.

My mast is three/ee shared. My EE mobile has clocked 283 Mb from this 4g mast so theories can work but generally won't. My three router sim would top out around 60Mb when I first joined them. But reality brought that down by half which isn't too bad considering what others write about on here. Peak usage might bring that as low as 10Mb.

Then three upgraded the mast to 4g+ and the router quickly enjoyed around 70Mb connections. I even bought a second router and that connected at 90Mb for all of a day and haven't seen that since.

But with three as all of us know the connection speed subsides within a few short hours. That 4g+ advantage I gained hasn't really been that advantageous. Connection speed and real life streaming speed are probably less than before the upgrade for me. Like others the CA doesn't always result in anything superior at all.

I gave 4g a shot, went for the cheap headline costs, yet probably spent even more on 'infrastructure' to try make it viable. The difference in virgin quality Internet this week for me is like a lada vs lambourghini.

Guess I should be offloading my routers and external antennae now 😏


CityFibre is slowly starting to rollout in my little town so if or when I can get it will be looking at their base 100 up/down package.

After using 3 broadband since February I can honestly say it’s a very poor replacement for a physical line and at best a mediocre 2nd backup line in case your primary fails.

On a slightly related note I see a lot of 5G here reporting itself as LTE-A so even when you see 5G it’s not guaranteed you are actually getting it.

Backhaul is massively important when I was on 3 with 5G NR I never hit anything more than 150 down but moved to EE with a weaker signal I get twice that but even then it averages around 180 to 200

4G is massively slower at a peak of around 30mbits here , Vodafone holds the record here for a rather nice 120mbits on 4G. In MK a mate of mine sees 300 plus on 4G.

I would prefer a guaranteed 100 mbits everywhere rather than having crazy fast speeds in one location and a few yards down the road struggling to get even 2mbits.
 
CityFibre is slowly starting to rollout in my little town so if or when I can get it will be looking at their base 100 up/down package.
They did our area during lockdown and the online system allowed me to order the 900Mb last week. Everything got setup and installation date secured but then they called to say the area won't actually be connected up for a while.

Gonna be with virgin for 18 months now so their loss, and mine 😉
 
Backhaul is massively important when I was on 3 with 5G NR I never hit anything more than 150 down but moved to EE with a weaker signal I get twice that but even then it averages around 180 to 200
Interesting Daleski,

Vodafone states in its 5g marketting babble..

" 5G is around 10 times faster than 4G. It will work at average speeds of 150-200Mbps, and peak speeds will reach above 1Gbps "


5G.co.uk ran an interesting 5g article in May this year....

"An Opensignal report from May 2020 showed that the UK’s average 5G download speed across all tested networks was 138.1Mbps.
An even more recent report from Opensignal showed an average 5G speed on EE of 149.8Mbps, while on Vodafone it was 122.1Mbps, with other UK networks not tested.
In yet more data, this time from Ookla and released in late 2019, we’ve seen EE hit average 5G speeds of 205.02Mbps, Vodafone reach an average of 140.15Mbps, and O2 of 159.48Mbps.
We’ve also seen more localised tests in select cities, with RootMetrics finding in early 2020 that EE had a median 5G download speed in London of 149.2Mbps. In Birmingham, its median speed was 185.7Mbps, and in Cardiff it was 163.1Mbps.
Vodafone was also tested, with a median 5G download speed of 97.7Mbps in London, 112.2Mbps in Birmingham, and 113.6Mbps in Cardiff."


Meanwhile the U.S. has topped 1,815Mbps to customers homes on its 5g trials.

So new customers to 5g in the UK are getting the sorts of speeds we should be getting from 4g+ right now.

Any idea why that is? Don't think its down to the mast tech for one second.
 
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Interesting Daleski,

Vodafone states in its 5g marketting babble..

" 5G is around 10 times faster than 4G. It will work at average speeds of 150-200Mbps, and peak speeds will reach above 1Gbps "


5G.co.uk ran an interesting 5g article in May this year....

"An Opensignal report from May 2020 showed that the UK’s average 5G download speed across all tested networks was 138.1Mbps.
An even more recent report from Opensignal showed an average 5G speed on EE of 149.8Mbps, while on Vodafone it was 122.1Mbps, with other UK networks not tested.
In yet more data, this time from Ookla and released in late 2019, we’ve seen EE hit average 5G speeds of 205.02Mbps, Vodafone reach an average of 140.15Mbps, and O2 of 159.48Mbps.
We’ve also seen more localised tests in select cities, with RootMetrics finding in early 2020 that EE had a median 5G download speed in London of 149.2Mbps. In Birmingham, its median speed was 185.7Mbps, and in Cardiff it was 163.1Mbps.
Vodafone was also tested, with a median 5G download speed of 97.7Mbps in London, 112.2Mbps in Birmingham, and 113.6Mbps in Cardiff."


Meanwhile the U.S. has topped 1,815Mbps to customers homes on its 5g trials.

So new customers to 5g in the UK are getting the sorts of speeds we should be getting from 4g+ right now.

Any idea why that is? Don't think its down to the mast tech for one second.

Assuming the masts are fine it’s all the connectivity behind it which needs upgrading, a 10gigabit backbone will have far more capacity than a 1gigabit backbone even if the masts are identical.
 
I don't think capacity is the main problem actually. If you test a 4g connection at night when there should be plently of capacity available, you would expect to get full speed under ideal conditions, but its pretty unusual to get 112/ 150 mbps. Unless they reduce available capacity at night to save money?? Or, maybe just all the time if a mast doesnt serve many people in an area.

But in most cases, people don't have a perfect connection to a mast, as i sure you guys know, it cant be assumed that 4 bars on a phone means a 4g perfect connection... its often around 70% when it changes to 4 bars when ive tested it. maybe they could add an extra symbol on devices to indicate 95% signal strength :D. im sure even then, there's a huge amount of packet loss vs a fibre optic cable.

I wonder if 4g devices in sleep mode, or inactive 4g routers have any effect on a mast's data capacity? E.g. do they have to assign capacity to inactive devices to ensure thst if they become active, there is enough capacity available?

The point of all this is really - What is the point of all these upgrades if they won't necessarily improve 4g signal strength, which if it could be achieved, would improve speeds for most customers. I'm definately no expert, but id guess this could be done by building more (expensive) 4g masts nearer to where people live in which case, it would probably be more cost effective (long term) to build 5g equipment instead.

5g might actually provide much better signal stength if enough equipment is built close to where people live / use the connection. Or, potentially reduce it to the point where you fall back to 4g anyway, if built too far away or in a poor location.

Also, ive heard the higher frequencies signals are shorter range and dont travel so well through objects. Edit - that mostly applies just to 5g networks using >24ghz + apparently, which dont exist in the UK yet.
 
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In terms of tangible '4g plus' benefits for customers, LTE Advanced can support 'Scalable system bandwidth exceeding 20 MHz, up to 100 MHz'. So, potentially upto 5x the speed of ordinary 4g (if carrier aggregation is used for 4G plus). In practice though, a lot of devices only support 4x4 carrier aggregation.

But, the max channel bandwidth for 5g over 24ghz (mmWave) is a max channel bandwidth of 400mhz, so upto 20x the bandwidth of single channel 4G.

There aren't too many mmWave 5G networks in other countries yet. South Korea had commercially available 800mhz channel bandwidth 5G networks in 2018! In the US, Verizon setup a 400mhz channel bandwidth network. In the UK, EE is doing its best to avoid talking about mmWave 5g, maybe it makes then look bad compared to faster networks abroad, but it also fuels more conspiracy theories about 5G networks.

I'd guess it could be a long time (5+ years) before we see mmWave 5G in the UK, which would be a massive upgrade from 4G, if it could be affordably rolled out.
 
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I read that Three has 100mhz of channel bandwidth for their 5G network, whereas EE has 40mhz for theirs. Also, Three has a higher max download speed in some areas, but EE seems to have higher average speeds across the UK. I wonder if that is related to the differences in bandwidth? Id guess EE has higher average speeds because they have greater 5G coverage overall, and therefore higher received signal strength.

Also, I think I missed an important difference between 4G plus and 5G - 4G Plus networks do not support more than 20mhz channel bandwidth over a single channel (but can support multiple channels). Sub 6ghz 5G networks can support upto 100mhz for a single channel, without needing to rely on carrier aggregation to achieve high speeds. I bet this leads to more consistent speeds overall, provided your signal stays strong.

Based on the above, Id say 4G plus isn't such a big deal, unless you live in an area with a LTE mast that supports CA over several channels, each with 15/20 mhz bandwidth, and have a router or phone that supports all the different frequency bands, as well as 4x4 carrier aggregation (a lot of LTE cat6 devices only support 2x2 carrier aggregation).
 
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I have a couple more questions I hope someone can answer:

1. Does 2x carrier aggregation ever actually lead to 2x the performance, when compared to a single channel, assuming both frequencies have the same channel bandwidth?

2. Is it unusual for network masts in the UK to actually support more than 2x carrier aggregation, e.g. 4x4 CA?

3. Can CA actually weaken a 4G signal, eventually causing a device to switch back to single channel mode?

Darsuke - Can you explain what you meant by this "But with three as all of us know the connection speed subsides within a few short hours"? Is this only a problem on Three networks? Does EE tend to reduce in speed after a few hours too?
 
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Darsuke - Can you explain what you meant by this "But with three as all of us know the connection speed subsides within a few short hours"? Is this only a problem on Three networks? Does EE tend to reduce in speed after a few hours too?
I think it does seem to be three more than others. You will get a decent connection speed that then reduces by a large proportion. Reconnect and the speed returns back again. Rinse and repeat.

I never witnessed this with EE.
 
I wonder if networks can reduce the speed of a 4G connection if they detect it has been idle for a while / or had low usage, to free up available capacity? Do you mean the connection speed reduces if you constantly download with the connection?
 
2. Is it unusual for network masts in the UK to actually support more than 2x carrier aggregation, e.g. 4x4 CA?

You keep mixing up the LTE-Advanced features. CA (combining multiple pieces of separate spectrum) is different to a higher order of MIMO (1x1, 2x2, 4x4 etc).
 
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