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Comment by seszett | Hacker News Reader

Is there anything one can actually do with a home-sized 5G network? As an individual, without being an actual telecom operator and all that.

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I’ve set up an LTE network in my house before and while it is a fantastic educational tool, that is pretty much the extent of the benefits offered vs WiFi.

Campuses like universities could use iot networks in low frequencies which will be much more reliable than Wi-Fi because of range problems.

Use the networks for what?

Maybe I've just been out of school for too long, but I can't think of anything particularly interesting a campus would want an IoT network for beyond maybe motion sensing for automatic light turn-offs and run-of-the-mill security systems.

I can't imagine a low-frequency IoT network being good for broadband access for people walking around (a la wifi) because of bandwidth limitations.

"campus" can mean lots of things... your handle is "vineyardmike" - what about irrigation / water / temperature / other sensors spread over a vineyard?

With lower frequencies comes much lower bandwidth. 5G networks can transmit at much higher power than WiFi, so that's where you get your range at higher frequencie - however that requires licensed spectrum which makes all this a bit harder.

I used to attend O-RAN meetings for a major telecom, and this was always the major hurdle I envisioned for the adoption of these things. On the technical side, it's a fun problem and interesting work, but O-RAN and open source cellular lacks the organic growth other open source projects can enjoy. A comparison point was always the networking space. Open source routers/switches broke into the Juniper/Cisco market, but it doesn't work as well in cellular. Small businesses can buy 1 or 2 open source switches and in aggregate that can start to change the market. No small business is going to own their own spectrum and deploy an open source cell network. And moving to shared spectrum eliminates most of the advantages over WiFi.

It can be used at small scale like home wifi (small cell / femtocell) and it would probably be on par with regular wifi. Cellular networks don’t really stand out in home-sized few-user deployments though because they’re designed for serving large areas or high user densities.

The main advantage should be proper base station handoff. If you have a house that can't be covered by a single wifi access point (or an office), then the normal approach is multiple APs with the same SSID. It's a bit of a hack though, you can't guarantee that your device is connected to the one with the best signal, particularly if you move around, and transitioning involves a connection drop.

Proper cellular radio does measurement of signal to surrounding basestations, and seamless handoff. If would have some advantages over wifi in a corporate environment.

This is a bit outdated -- 802.11r fast transitions (FT) allow devices to roam between access points nearly instantly, and 802.11k and v allow access points and clients to exchange scan results, so that access points can move clients to the most appropriate access point.

This does require more than just having multiple access points with the same SSID, and used to be limited to expensive commercial AP brands, but it's quite accessible to consumers these days.

What are the rules for broadcasting though? I thought you get hit with a fine without a lisence if you transmit any sort of radio-frequency

Doesn't 5G share some of the frequencies used by normal wifi? IIRC devices implementing one standard even cooperate with devices implementing the other to coordinate frequency use.

short answer is no, but the frequencies aren't far off

wifi operates at 2.4Ghz most typically and also at 5Ghz (shorter range but faster)

5G will be ranges of frequencies, depending on jurisdictions, but typically between these two frequencies which are the sweet spot for domestic usage

in the US, 5G carries AFAIK have ranges between 2.5Ghz and just under 4Ghz

in the UK we have EE, O2 and Three operating ranges around 700Mhz besides also having ranges around 3.4Ghz and 3.6Ghz were Vodafone operates too, and those work a lot like US 5G

4G in the UK operates under 2.6Ghz, which is pretty close to wifi also, and LTE is just over 850Mhz or so

basically wifi, 4G and 5G are not strictly higher or lower frequency to each other, it depends on local operators

It always amazes me how pulsing some electricity into a wire at a specific frequency can get you arrested lmao. I really don't understand why there's any legislation at all covering anything above 1GHz where there's enough bandwidth for literally everyone to do whatever they damn well want and not enough range to do any damage at all.

There are satellite comm frequencies above 1ghz that you could easily jam from a more powerful terrestrial transmitter, like gps.

Literally my wifi goes down when my microwave turns on... there are reasons regulations are put in place

There is CBRS, which some phones are equipped to use. However, I believe it’s used only in conjunction with licensed bands rather than independently. It’s more of a capacity thing rather than a way to have a carrier using unlicensed spectrum (carriers are quite happy with the license barrier to entry).

I was going to say OFDMA and MUMIMO but wifi 6 got that covered

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