Is 5G a hoax?

While there might truly be examples of 5G popping up here and there, in 2021 nationwide global coverage of 5G seems a long way off.

The biggest hurdle is how this technology works. 4G tends to have far more practical base station implementations that have tremendous range and don’t require direct LOS (Line of sight). 5G on the other hand has pitiful range and does require direct LOS to get those really high speeds.

Even with direct LOS, you need to be really close to a base station to get full speed, speeds comparable to fiber.

So what does this mean for you and me?

It means that besides all the hype and talk from telecom companies and all their promises. They haven’t cracked this problem because it’s frankly unsolvable just due to the way the technology works. This is why there’s major delay with any tangible rollout, other than a few spots in a few major cities.

For 5G to actually work as they advertise it will, it’s going to require at least one base station for every streetlamp. That’s right you heard me, unlike 4g where 1 or 2 towers can service an entire neighborhood, 5G signal range is around 500m, and that’s max range, in reality the signal degrades way before it hits this max range. Coupled with the fact that it can’t penetrate walls or any solid object, something like a tree in the way could mean the end of you getting a 5G connection to your house.

Another solution or it will never happen

It makes sense for carriers to improve communications in large cities, but the notion of a 5G national rollout to anywhere you can currently get 4G is what a lot thought would finally give us fiber like speed at home without the need for fiber optics.

In most areas the idea of a fiber rollout is in the realms of science fiction. It’s just not viable for any provider to install extremely costly cables to a suburb or out of city rural setting. But surely we thought 5G would be a wireless rollout and hence completely plausible. Well not entirely. Best we’re going to get if we even get it is 4G LTE+ (or fake 5G).

Not that 4G is too terrible, perhaps more 4G towers and some aggregated or bonded connections would allow some of us to break past the 50mbps speed barrier.

But the idea that miraculously in 1 or 2 years some 5g network is just going to be turned on, or some magic switch pressed and those 4G towers start broadcasting 5G signals – sorry that’s not how it works and the reality is way too depressing to think about, that we’ve all been conned into believing in a solution that will most likely never rollout or perhaps we will find a way to overcome these broadcast limits in the distant future.