The good news: Vodafone switches on first full-fat, real-life 5G network in the UK. The bad news: it only got sent to Coventry
- Reference: 1593782706
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/07/03/vodafone_5g_coventry/
- Source link:
The inaugural deployment is located at Coventry University, and - all being well - is expected to deliver increased capacity as well as the low-latency connections required for time-sensitive IoT applications.
Coventry University said it will use the network to trial virtual-reality learning technologies for student nurses, as well as to help it specialise in 5G-related research.
Vodafone has also pushed out Ericsson's 5G Radio Dot System at the Midlands university, providing indoor 5G access in key buildings.
If most punters are unlikely to pay more for 5G, why all the rush? [1]READ MORE
Con Latham CBE, Coventry University vice chancellor, issued a canned statement about the instllation:
"Being the first university in the UK to have this next phase of 5G technology is the first step on our journey to creating a 5G campus, and we will soon be able to reveal how we will use this technology to maximise the potential of virtual-reality teaching for our Health and Life Sciences students."
Voda's the first UK network to push out standalone 5G,; before this the UK's 5G infrastructure was entirely built upon the existing 4G network – a standard known as 5G NSA (non-standalone). Moving to the standalone tech presents advantages long touted as the killer apps for 5G, including the ability to cheaply and quickly deploy 5G networks, achieve lower latencies and the possibility of fully exploiting millimetre wave spectrum.
5G SA expands upon the speeds offered by NSA and introduces features like network slicing – where a provider dedicates a portion of their network to a specific customer. The lower latencies that can be achieved by standalone 5G, specifically, are hugely helpful for edge computing applications in addition to IoT - though none of this game-changing tech is going to come without a cost.
Telecoms analyst Paolo Pescatore commented: "5G remains in its infancy and the technology has yet to achieve its full potential. The vast majority of telcos have focused on a non-standalone version of 5G initially. This has been important in getting 5G off the ground. While these advancements are better than 4G, this non-standalone form of 5G only scratches the surface in terms of its true capabilities.
"Though it is early days, [this] represents a significant step along with other efforts around DSS and mmWave." ®
Get our [2]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2018/12/14/with_most_punters_unlikely_to_pay_more_for_5g_why_the_rush/
[2] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Educate me please?
Laying fibre is expensive, the backhaul is by utilising existing infrastructure with these perfectly good 56k modems we got cheap
News flash!
Coventry shops out of tin foil stocks!
Seriously though, all the mast burners are going to need a new theory when it turns out Coventry hasn't got a population infected with C19 and their brains haven't been fried.
Re: News flash!
I think you might be overestimating their logical reasoning
Re: News flash!
In 1987 or '88 I first visited Coventry and a week later Cologne. Both with historic cathedrals that were bombed out in WWII. On the front of both cathedrals were footballs trapped high in their gothic spires.
It was a surreal coincidence as if the madness of war had been replaced by the Anglo-German football rivalry. Or maybe both balls were where English penalties ended up.
5G is perfectly fine, but I heard that 6G will make you impotent and ugly.
Re: News flash!
5G is perfectly fine, but I heard that 6G will make you impotent and ugly.
I heard that 6G will interconnect all of humanity and usher in a world of peace and harmony ....
....of course, we'll all be wading hip deep in broken Smart devices and failed IOT rubbish by then.
Which applications exactly?
"low-latency connections required for time-sensitive IoT applications"
Pretty much all the IoT applications I've seen being hyped are pointless consumer tat of the "smart" home variety. Are things like central heating thermostats and internet-connected toasters really so time sensitive that a few milliseconds of network lag are relevant?
Re: Which applications exactly?
I've just been reading a Vodafone hype document which suggest that 5G "could" bring £150bn extra to UK output.
Being interested, I read the entire doc to find out where this £150bn figure comes from. As I should have expected, there was no supporting business case information. Instead, there was a great deal of vague hand-waving about exciting stuff that "could" happen.
Some of the suggested applications were interesting, such as how it might be used for remote farming (however they did have the grace to admit that this would take rather a lot of coverage...).
Some of them were things like autonomous driving, to which my reaction was "yeah, right...".
Some of them were just bullshit ideas, such as crowing that it would enable infotainment systems on buses, which ignores the fact that everyone already has an infotainment system in their pockets.
However, most of these, such as c&c in manufacturing, were IMO all just stuff we can do today with 4G/Wifi/fibre. Or the claim that 5G will enable continued home working, as if the existing networks aren't coping quite happily at the moment.
So, almost complete hype then. Usual bollocks. However I did wonder whether this was the start of a campaign to have the govt subsidise the 5G rollout, as it's going to be damn expensive for the telcos.
Link to the Information Age article, which has a link to the actual report: https://www.information-age.com/5g-shift-result-productivity-boost-worth-over-150-billion-123490085/
"So, almost complete hype then. Usual bollocks."
It's so nice to be surrounded by like-minded souls. Have one on me!
The Future
Maybe this is linked to the announcement that Coventry is the next City of Culture. Perhaps all the 5G goodness will enable the cultured residents of Coventry to download more cultured stuff.
Coventry -> culture, is that an association that only I am struggling with?
In the current situation there is bugger all live culture happening with no realistic timeline as to when anything will start. I supposed the only thing that will have benefited at the moment is the porn industry. I would hazard a guess that quite a lot of the seedier end will not have been to worried about the long-term health of their "performers" as long as the money kept rolling in.
Blah, blah, blah...
Just give me _one_ network that can offer me reliable 4G where I (and about 500 others) live - ideally that I can use in the house, as it's not fun sitting outside in the winter to make a call.
Re: Blah, blah, blah...
Have wi-fi? Get yourself a SIP account. Make calls inside in the winter.
What could possibly go wrong.
I suppose that means to prepare for a sudden spike in Covid-19 cases in Coventry.
5G?
I wish…
Lucky to get 4G where I live (Keighley, West Yorkshire) Usually it is H+ whatever that is. Looking at you O2
Cheers… Ishy
5G In Cork
Vodafone is my ISP and according to the icon in the tray the internet connection through which I am now interacting with the Reg is : 'vodafone-B799-5G'.
Early in the 2010s they laid a new internet cable across the Atlantic Ocean. Said cable was only 20 miles south of Cork Harbour and to tap into it cost all of €20m, which was obviously a bargain.
( Apple could have paid for it out of small change. )
I presume that is why 5G is so common hereabouts.
Educate me please?
I'm making an assumption that 5g backhaul is via fairly bog-standard fibres, and not a signal going hoppity hoppity between 5g masts until it gets somewhere useful. Is it a safe assumption?