Re: 5G roadblock: labor

[Sabri Berisha]

- On Jan 3, 2020, at 9:31 PM, Mark Tinka mark.ti...@seacom.mu wrote:

Hi,

>> I don't know about you, but I rarely use those. My T-Mobile plan has
>> unlimited data and coverage is adequate for me. It even works abroad, so
>> unless I need high speed data I'm fine with the included 256kbps.
>> Surprisingly, that's good enough for facetime.
> 
> Hell, if an unlimited plan is 256Kbps, sign the whole world up :-). I
> think any MNO selling 4G @ 256Kbps unlimited can manage that.

I'm not sure if you know how that plan works, but domestic I have unlimited
data at a fair speed (10s of Mbit/s). My foreign data is also unlimited
but throttled at 256kbps. Which is good enough for me.
 
> I'm not sure they are willing to sell 4G @ 50Mbps unlimited.

Of course they will. But the consumer might not like the price tag :)

>> I predict that there will be a time where, just like POTS lines were
>> exchanged for cellular phones, people will disconnect their cable internet
>> and rely on 6g or 7g alone. And probably still with IPv4 addresses.
> 
> I don't think so, not unless GSM receivers are cheaper to install in all
> fixed and mobile devices than wi-fi and Ethernet, and not unless MNO's
> are going to offer unlimited data service at high bandwidth.
> 
> It's the kids, Sabri, and judging from your daughter's online behaviour,
> you can see it too :-).

Lots of if and unlesses. But consider this: in the 90s, when I was making
may way into this industry, cellphones were becoming a mainstream thing.
My parents, and every other grownup for that matter, had a POTS landline
to the house. I'm sure you'll remember calling to the home of your crush
hoping that s/he'd pick up and not a parent.

By the time I had my own place, I did not need a landline. I had cellular,
thanks to being on-call paid for by the ISP I was working for at the time.

In fact, I never had a landline as my primary phone number. (note: I did
have landlines going into my house for DSL purposes).

My prediction is that a similar thing will happen to data. We live in an
era where competing wireless data technologies are being developed. 
Cellular, wi-fi, ptp microwave, and geostationary satellite are here
today. Low earth orbit satellite is upcoming, and cellular technology is
evolving to a point where I think my daughter (who is now 8) may never
need cable or dsl. My Roku uses wifi, her Roku will simply have a
softsim, just like those Amazon Kindles that came with AT wireless.

The (far) future is wireless for consumers. Fiber (or whatever is next)
will only be needed for aggregation, datacenter and dc2dc.

Until then, 5G is merely an intermediate technology. Just like 100BaseT
was a precursor to the 400G that's being deployed right now.

Thanks,

Sabri 

Re: power to the internet

[Mark Tinka]

On 4/Jan/20 12:54, Florian Weimer wrote:

>
> I guess most countries struggle to maintain basic infrastructure.

Then someone will ask, "What is basic, and is the Internet it?"

Mark.

Re: 5G roadblock: labor

[Mark Tinka]

On 4/Jan/20 12:44, Tom Ivar Helbekkmo via NANOG wrote:

>
> It's happening where I live, now.  My ISP recently announced that all
> the POTS lines, and any network connectivity over them, would be
> decommissioned shortly, and affected subscribers moved to cellular
> instead.  It's happening all over the country, as the company that owns
> the POTS infrastructure has decided it's too expensive to keep
> maintaining it.

They are all doing it.

A short while back, Telia announced no more copper in Sweden by (was it)
2020 or 2021... something along those lines. See here:

   
https://www.teliacompany.com/en/news/news-articles/2018/the-fall-of-copper-watch-telia-shift-technologies/

Telkom South Africa are doing the same, albeit a bit more poorly -
removing copper lines without having a real terrestrial alternative
apart from some dodgy wireless in areas with no fibre. The point, they
all see maintaining copper as wasting cash. I'd agree.

But this generally applies to operators that have both land and cellular
services. Most ISP's will only have just the one option, and in most
cases, it will be land.

Mark.

Re: 5G roadblock: labor

[Mark Tinka]

On 4/Jan/20 08:37, Christopher Morrow wrote:

>
> it's nor really except that a bunch of the radio/client management is
> 'easier' in cellular than in wifi. managing roaming COULD be saner as
> well even, so when you walk out of the shop and off their pico-cell
> you can transition the running call (or data stream since it's all
> just voip/ip anyway) to the next network (some gsm/lte/4/5g thing
> perhaps.

The reason I am not too fussed about seamless call hand-off when on
wi-fi is because the kids aren't talking anymore. The closest they'll
come to talking to each other is by exchanging WhatsApp voice notes. All
the kids do is text, and voice calling is so 1920 :-).

You may coax them into WhatsApp calling, but even that is a stretch. The
only time I've seen the kids enthusiastic about talking to each other is
when they are playing networked Fortnite... "Hey, I'm lagging, I'm lagging".

For me, I'm old school; I still prefer to make a voice call from time to
time. Providers that offer VoWiFi can't even hand-off properly when the
wi-fi has an issue and the phone switches back to GSM. I always get call
drops when this happens, so much so that sometimes when I am making
calls I can't afford to drop, I just turn off the wi-fi so that I am not
using VoWiFi.

The reason seamless voice hand-off isn't going to be a big issue - I
feel - is because we've, over the years, all been accustomed to call
drops, call setup and call clarity problems. What do we do when this
happens? We just call the other person again (while taking or dishing
blaming about why the call dropped), or walk around like chicken
chanting "Can you hear me now". At no time do we hold the MNO's to
account about why call management is actually poor, even when you aren't
driving through a tunnel or inside a lift. We are just used to it, so I
don't think fixing hand-off transition is going to be the killer app.
Pure texting or the transmission of voice notes doesn't care about any
of that; and just like any ideas about ploughing money into fixing
PMTUd, I think investing too much energy into fixing seamless voice
hand-off may be a slight waste, based on what the kids are doing now.


>
> The main point, the part I missed I think in this thread bit, was that
> to make this all work the cost of the chip that does 4g/5g/lte has to
> be equivalent to the wifi chipset, such that each thing that has wifi
> also just has cellular. It may not work out that way, who knows :)

Agreed - but for laptops, you've got Bluetooth or USB ports to help
tether them to the GSM network via a mobile phone. Does putting a GSM
chip in there make sense? Maybe, maybe not.

With the cost of energy becoming a real issue, and so-called "IoT"
devices destined to be smaller and smaller, does adding yet another
wireless radio make sense? Maybe, maybe not.

Considering that you can install wi-fi pretty much everywhere for cheap
(even with a piss-poor backhaul connection), but the presence of GSM
networks being typically backed by $Big_Money, where does one want to
spend their limited time and energy?

Mark.

Re: power to the internet

[Florian Weimer]

* John Levine:

> In article <87y2up1vc4@mid.deneb.enyo.de> you write:
>>I found the connection rather puzzling (that is, how switching off
>>power distribution prevents wildfires or at least reduces their risk).
>>I found some explanations here (downed lines, vegetation contact,
>>conductor slap, repetitive faults, apparatus failures):
>>
>>
>
> Oh, you're in Europe.  You wouldn't believe how cruddy US power
> distribution systems are.  California is particularly bad becuase the
> populist state regulator has keep retail prices low at the cost of
> reliability, safety, and everything else.
>
> Also keep in mind that California has conditions seen nowhere in
> Europe: bone dry forests with 40C temperaturees and 100Kph winds,
> and a power company too underfunded to keep up with tree trimming.

I think Greece also suffered a major wildfire in the 2018 that was
initiated by a faulty power line.  In Germany, we have some vegetation
issues on train lines partially due to insufficient maintenance, but
they fortunately don't trigger wildfires, only train outages.

I guess most countries struggle to maintain basic infrastructure.

Re: 5G roadblock: labor

[Tom Ivar Helbekkmo via NANOG]

Andrey Kostin  writes:

> Could be true very soon. When supporting cable infrastructure will
> become too expensive they will cut it in lieu of mobile, like many
> railways were decomissioned earlier. Must be a local tipping point in
> each area but it shouldn't be long to wait.

It's happening where I live, now.  My ISP recently announced that all
the POTS lines, and any network connectivity over them, would be
decommissioned shortly, and affected subscribers moved to cellular
instead.  It's happening all over the country, as the company that owns
the POTS infrastructure has decided it's too expensive to keep
maintaining it.

-tih
-- 
Most people who graduate with CS degrees don't understand the significance
of Lisp.  Lisp is the most important idea in computer science.  --Alan Kay