News - Samsung’s 5G tests break through speeds of 1Gbps

[HEXUS]

Firm wants to commercialise technology by 2020.

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[ZaO]

Who actually gets a consistent 3G connection anyway? Let alone 4G. Maybe it's just O2 and Giffgaff because that's all I've used for some years now. But I basically never get a 3G connection

[zap117]

Well then. That would use up my whole monthly data allowance in less than a second. -.-

[maverik-sg1]

Got to agree about the consistency and availability of a 3G signal, I am on orange and it's very hit and miss, but my works phone is on Vodafone which seems to be a lot more accessible.

I'd be interested to see how 'diluted' that transfer rate becomes when everyman and his dog is connected.

Until unlimited accessibility to high speed mobile data is reasonably priced, these leaps forward do not matter so much to us peasants whilst it's cost prohibitive.

All these radiowaves......people say they are harmless, but we're now saturated with them, I'd be lying if I said it's not a concern.

[bdaniel7]

Maybe the bandwidth will become so cheap that we'll get gigabit speed everywhere. And gigabytes in the subscription.

[MaddogPepper]

Who actually gets a consistent 3G connection anyway? Let alone 4G. Maybe it's just O2 and Giffgaff because that's all I've used for some years now. But I basically never get a 3G connection

O2 are rubbish! I was on them for 2 years and hardly ever got a 3G signal. Been on 3 for past 18 months and its the opposite it is very rare I have a 2G signal - always 3G

[mark22]

I'm on giffgaff and it says H+ most of the time sometimes just H, I rarely ever see 3G or even E on there, probably just a mast near me. I have a friend who works in a phone shop and he does say that 3 is the best network for coverage and that people usually don't believe him.

[watercooled]

All these radiowaves......people say they are harmless, but we're now saturated with them, I'd be lying if I said it's not a concern.

We've always been exposed to radio waves in one form or another, even before humans started transmitting, it's known as background radiation. You have to be careful as a lot of these 'trials' have underlying motives and/or are run by people without a basic grasp of scientific methods. Conclusions are often drawn when there is no substantial evidence to prove it, and they hide the original data with the excuse of something like 'oh you couldn't understand it anyway'. TBH science is often made out by the media etc as some unfathomable magic mere mortals should not even attempt to understand.

Negative health effects of radio waves cannot be conclusively disproved, but only in the same way the existence of the flying spaghetti monster (example borrowed from another Hexus member ) cannot be disproved. Radio waves are attenuated by the conductive flesh of humans (like lots of other materials) and some energy is lost as heat; you can see a similar effect on a larger scale in a microwave oven. But in the same way we're not cooked down one side when standing in the sun, our circulatory system (and conduction in general) quickly dissipates the small amounts of heat. Oh and it's a common belief that you need 'microwaves' to heat water through resonance, but it's incorrect, in fact some microwaves use something like 900MHz, but are larger to accommodate a standing wave with the longer wavelength.

There are also groups of people who are convinced cell towers are used for mind control broadcasting. Cell networks are fairly visible and known about by pretty much everyone, but properly understood by far fewer, so they attract a lot of pseudo-scientific scaremongering attention.

O2 are rubbish! I was on them for 2 years and hardly ever got a 3G signal. Been on 3 for past 18 months and its the opposite it is very rare I have a 2G signal - always 3G

3 only own a 3G network and have to have customers roam onto Orange's 2G network as a fallback, which they have to pay for, so their 3G network has fairly good coverage and they try to keep connections to their own network where possible.

[daveyhue]

Who actually gets a consistent 3G connection anyway? Let alone 4G. Maybe it's just O2 and Giffgaff because that's all I've used for some years now. But I basically never get a 3G connection

O2 are rubbish! I was on them for 2 years and hardly ever got a 3G signal. Been on 3 for past 18 months and its the opposite it is very rare I have a 2G signal - always 3G

I have been with 3 the past 18 months and rarely get a signal at all, I would love to get a 3g signal! Spoke to customer services who lied over and over again. I finally got a home signal box out of them, but never got the reduction they promised. I'm going back to O2 or T-Mobile atleast I'd be able to call and text people again.

[crossy]

Who actually gets a consistent 3G connection anyway? Let alone 4G. Maybe it's just O2 and Giffgaff because that's all I've used for some years now. But I basically never get a 3G connection

Aren't GiffGaff a MVNO for O2 anyway - in which case you're not changing networks. That said, there's a lot folks around here that say that while O2's 2G signal is really good (strong and wide coverage), their 3G coverage sucks - far worse than Three for coverage.

Maybe the bandwidth will become so cheap that we'll get gigabit speed everywhere. And gigabytes in the subscription.

ROFLMAO, yep and on that glorious day I'll be hunting bacon sandwiches with a butterfly net.
(unless you're willing to spend gigapounds on that gigaspeed/gigabytes connection of course).

I have a friend who works in a phone shop and he does say that 3 is the best network for coverage and that people usually don't believe him.

Three's undoubtedly better than they were, but the best coverage? Don't think so. One of the main reasons for moving from Three was that I couldn't get any signal in some areas where folks on O2, Voda, T-Mobile were fine. In the interests of balance though, I'll still maintain that Three have the best deals for the data hound and, when you can get a signal, their signal rates are pretty darned good.

Why the focus on headline speeds, isn't this as pointless as the similar race on fibre broadband? I'd prefer to have "merely" 3G speeds everywhere. Hopefully, as some on Hexus have said, the move to 4G will deliver that.

[Jingee]

I can't get a decent Orange/EE connection anywhere outside of major towns or cities. Absolute load of bollocks it is. They should sort out getting full UK coverage for calls first!

[Noxvayl]

I hope there is more investment in 4G than there was in 3G so we can get perfect coverage for the UK rather than the patchy nonsense we have now. As others have said I couldn't care less about 5G.

[kingpotnoodle]

There is a long way to go yet, 5G will not be here for 10+ years and any wireless system will depend on wired backhaul for the forseeable future for a start so we'd never get a gigabit each to play with... 4G LTE is going to get a lot of development once the competition hots up... irrespective of what 5G developments there are.

IMHO for 54G they'd be far better off concentrating on increasing range, penetration and number of users per cell than going for outright speed. I'd snap up a device that offered me a consistent low-ish latency x Mb absolutely everywhere including a fast moving rural train over one that offered me a patchy 10x Mb in certain parts of London only (not mentioning any names but all know who that is).

[ZaO]

Got to agree about the consistency and availability of a 3G signal, I am on orange and it's very hit and miss, but my works phone is on Vodafone which seems to be a lot more accessible.

I'd be interested to see how 'diluted' that transfer rate becomes when everyman and his dog is connected.

Until unlimited accessibility to high speed mobile data is reasonably priced, these leaps forward do not matter so much to us peasants whilst it's cost prohibitive.

All these radiowaves......people say they are harmless, but we're now saturated with them, I'd be lying if I said it's not a concern.

I'm with ya on all that.

O2 are rubbish! I was on them for 2 years and hardly ever got a 3G signal. Been on 3 for past 18 months and its the opposite it is very rare I have a 2G signal - always 3G

I wouldn't say O2 are rubbish overall. I've had issues with them, but in comparison to other networks I'd say they have a pretty good service. Unless you're just on about the signal. Well I've always found them to be good for regular network signals, really good actually. But my current phone is the only one I've ever actually used mobile internet on and so wouldn't have noticed how bad that part of the coverage was in the past. Didn't 3 pioneer 3G anyway? Or is that completely wrong?

I'm on giffgaff and it says H+ most of the time sometimes just H, I rarely ever see 3G or even E on there, probably just a mast near me. I have a friend who works in a phone shop and he does say that 3 is the best network for coverage and that people usually don't believe him.

Yeh same for me really. What the hell are H & H+ anyway? How do they compare to say, 2G and 3G? You can lookup network coverage easily enough. 3 are one of the worst overall. At least last time I checked. But I'm sure they could be great if you live in the right area. I may be wrong though...

Aren't GiffGaff a MVNO for O2 anyway - in which case you're not changing networks. That said, there's a lot folks around here that say that while O2's 2G signal is really good (strong and wide coverage), their 3G coverage sucks - far worse than Three for coverage.

Yeh Giffgaff runs on the O2 network so it's basically the same. Just much better value for money. I haven't seen any pay as you go deals that come anywhere near to competing with it!

[crossy]

Yeh same for me really. What the hell are H & H+ anyway? How do they compare to say, 2G and 3G? You can lookup network coverage easily enough. 3 are one of the worst overall. At least last time I checked. But I'm sure they could be great if you live in the right area. I may be wrong though.

"H" icon means HSDPA access, "H+" means HSPA+ (afaik). Useful potted guide at "GSM / GPRS / EDGE/ 3G / HSDPA / HSPA (plus) and LTE". Or as someone on XDA said ... "H" = 3G, "H+" = 3.xG where x depends on what network you're on, where you are, phase of the moon, etc, typically touted as 3.5G. Or:

H+ = decent broadband; H = basic broadband; G = dial-up.

What do LTE phones show, "4" or "L"?

[ZaO]

"H" icon means HSDPA access, "H+" means HSPA+ (afaik). Useful potted guide at "GSM / GPRS / EDGE/ 3G / HSDPA / HSPA (plus) and LTE". Or as someone on XDA said ... "H" = 3G, "H+" = 3.xG where x depends on what network you're on, where you are, phase of the moon, etc, typically touted as 3.5G. Or:

H+ = decent broadband; H = basic broadband; G = dial-up.

What do LTE phones show, "4" or "L"?

Ah so they're actually better than 3G. I've seen my phone flash up with 3G a few times, but always goes to H or H+. I forget what else it shows but it is often pretty slow.