Court Slaps Down Ajit Pai's Lazy FCC Ruling On 5G Safety, Likely Fueling Conspiracy Theorists

from the not-helping dept

To be clear, there's absolutely no evidence that 5G wireless technology poses a meaningful impact to human health. Most of the conspiracy theorists that claim otherwise have a head full of pebbles, and are uniformly basing those claims on misinterpreted evidence or absolute gibberish. That doesn't mean that you don't want to continue studying cellular technology's impact on the human body, or adjust your safety standards when the scientific evidence warrants.

In December of 2019 the Ajit Pai FCC announced it would not be updating its radiofrequency (RF) emission guidelines, which determine "safe" levels of exposure. The decision, Pai said, was based on a comprehensive six year review of the available evidence.

Yeah, about that.

Several groups that lean toward the... conspiratorial... had challenged the FCC's decision, forcing a court review. And when the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit actually reviewed the FCC's decision making process, they found that the FCC didn't really do its due diligence in reviewing the evidence. The court stated in its order (pdf) that while there very well might be good evidence to not change the standards, the FCC under Ajit Pai didn't actually provide it:

"Last Friday, the court ruled that the FCC’s decision in 2019 that its 1996 radio frequency emission guidelines adequately protect the public was capricious, arbitrary and not evidence based, in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act. The court also found that the analysis provided by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration, on which the FCC relied for its decision, was also not evidence based."

Again that's not to say that it wasn't the right call to maintain the same safety standards, just that the FCC didn't actually provide meaningful evidence in making that determination:

"To be clear, we take no position in the scientific debate regarding the health and environmental effects of RF radiation — we merely conclude that the Commission’s cursory analysis of material record evidence was insufficient as a matter of law,” stated the order."

Granted this whole "making a decision without looking at the actual evidence" thing was a bit of a pattern for the Ajit Pai FCC, whether it was its attempts to kill broadband subsidies for tribal lands, its attacks on media consolidation rules, its rulings on cell tower placements that largely favored industry, or its attempt to ban states from protecting broadband consumers. In every example Pai's decisions were shot down by the courts after they found they weren't based on much in the way of legally-supportable fact. Pai's disregard for factual reality was also well represented during the net neutrality repeal.

In this case, the FCC's laziness is now directly fueling conspiracy theorists like Robert Kennedy Jr., who will now use the FCC's screw up as broader evidence that there's some vast health conspiracy going on:

"The court’s decision exposes the FCC and FDA as captive agencies that have abandoned their duty to protect public health in favor of a single-minded crusade to increase telecom industry profits,'' said Kennedy, in a statement. Kennedy has repeatedly claimed that the FCC is a "captive agency," led and controlled by telecom industry insiders who are not objective about the health effects of RF radiation."

It's true that the FCC is historically a captured agency (especially under Trump). It's also true that some of the Pai FCC's laziness could be attributed to not wanting to upset the cellular industry. But that doesn't automatically mean that 5G harms human health. That still needs to be proven by actual evidence. But because Pai didn't do his job properly, that's going to all get lost in translation.

Filed Under: 5g, ajit pai, arbitrary, capricious, evidence, fcc, robert f. kennedy jr., safety

You Can Now Pay AT&T Extra To Adhere To The Dictionary Definition Of 'Unlimited'

from the pay-me-more-to-avoid-my-nonsense dept

For years, US wireless carriers have had a... somewhat nebulous relationship with the dictionary definition of "unlimited." As in, for the better part of two decades they've sold wireless data plans professing to be "unlimited," then included all manner of heavy handed limitations, often buried in mouse print. Verizon received wrist slaps for this way back in 2007. AT&T recently settled accusations that it lied to consumers about the throttling limitations in the company's "unlimited" plans (impacted consumers got all of $22 for participating in the class action).

None of these penalties were meaningful enough to really change industry behavior. AT&T and Verizon for example now charge more for "unlimited" plans that don't throttle 4K or HD video. And you need to pay more if you want to use your phone and "unlimited data plan" as a mobile hotspot. Sprint at one point even tried throttling all games, music, and movies unless users paid more.

Somehow we normalized paying wireless providers more money just to avoid arbitrary restrictions, then celebrate when they ease off even modestly. For example this week, AT&T announced that users that buy the company's most expensive wireless plan ($85-per-month "Unlimited Elite) will no longer see their connection throttled after a set amount of usage. In short, if you want AT&T to get close to adhering to the dictionary definition of "unlimited," you'll need to pay more:

"AT&T is adding a few more benefits to its $85-per-month top-tier unlimited plan at no added cost. Unlimited Elite subscribers will now truly have access to unlimited high-speed data and will no longer be subject to deprioritization after hitting 100GB of data per month. Customers will also get a bump from 30GB of monthly hotspot data up to 40GB as well as up to 4K video streaming — boosted from a maximum of 1080p. The new plan features will be added automatically for all current subscribers starting this week."

Network management technologies have evolved to the point where well-built modern networks can detect, adapt, and avoid congestion bottlenecks by deprioritizing select traffic with virtually no detection by the end users. So there's no real reason for many of these kinds of arbitrary restrictions to exist, outside of creating a sort of pricing funnel that shovels you to the most expensive plan if you'd simply like your connection to work normally. Yet the press has normalized this sort of thing to the point where outlets applaud a company for charging you more to avoid bizarre restrictions.

AT&T only made this modest concession because a similar plan by T-Mobile pressured it to (read: competition). But as investors inevitably force AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile to exploit the reduced competition from the Sprint/T-Mobile merger over the next few years, you'll see more and more nickel-and-diming, less real price competition, and fewer and fewer meaningful concessions. Especially if the government can't be bothered to restore net neutrality or the FCC's authority over telecom providers.

Filed Under: fees, mobile broadband, throttling, truth in advertising, unlimited
Companies: at&t

Verizon's UltraFast 5G Can Only Be Accessed 0.8% Of The Time

from the not-the-revolution-we-were-promised dept

We've noted repeatedly how fifth-generation wireless (5G) was painfully over-hyped. To spike lagging smartphone and network hardware sales, carriers, equipment makers, and the lawmakers paid to love them spent years insisting that 5G would change the world, ushering forth amazing new cancer cures and the revolutionary smart cities of tomorrow. But while 5G is an important evolutionary step toward faster, more resilient networks, it's more of an evolution than a revolution, particularly here in the US, and most of the loftier claims have proven to be a bit hollow.

Several studies have now shown how US 5G is significantly slower than overseas networks, thanks in part to our failure to push more high speed, high-range middleband spectrum to market. And within the United States, many 5G networks have shown to actually be slower than 4G. Throughout this, Verizon has particularly hyped its millimeter wave "ultrawideband" (mmWave) flavor of 5G, which offers ultra-fast speeds, but struggles a bit with range and things like building wall penetration.

But a new OpenSignal report indicates that despite years of hype, Verizon's ultra-fast 5G variant is only actually available to consumers with 5G-capable phones around 0.8% of the time:

To be clear, the speeds seen on Verizon's ultrawideband 5G network have reached 692.9 Mbps, an incredible benchmark for wireless service. But those kinds of speeds are only really useful if they're consistently available, and they simply... aren't:

"In Opensignal’s analytics, we consistently see our Verizon mmWave 5G users experiencing a higher average time connected to mmWave 5G than users on the other U.S. carriers. In this 90 day period, our Verizon users saw a mean time connected to mmWave 5G of 0.8% compared with 0.5% on AT&T and T-Mobile. However, despite Verizon appearing to be ahead this result actually represents a statistical tie because of overlapping confidence intervals with AT&T."

A different OpenSignal study looked at 5G availability across all spectrum bands, and still found that heavily hyped standard still isn't widely available despite optimistic carrier maps and rosy marketing. The firm found that 5G was available to users with 5G-enabled smartphones 33.1 percent of the time on T-Mobile's network, 20.5 percent of the time on AT&T's network, and 11.2 percent of the time on Verizon's network.

To be clear, many of 5G's early growing pains should resolve over the next few years as more middleband spectrum is pushed to market. And 5G absolutely is an important improvement in terms of wireless speed, latency, and overall network reliability. But this parade of studies highlights a continued disconnect between carrier marketing hype and reality. A gap that will only act to associate "nationwide 5G" with empty promises in the minds of consumers. Meanwhile, many US analysts and news outlets still don't much like to even talk about the fact that US consumers pay some of the highest prices for wireless data in the developed world, something that's only likely to accelerate in the wake of continued sector consolidation. That too seems to get lost in the hype.

Filed Under: 5g, overhype
Companies: verizon

5,000 T-Mobile Employees Lost Their Jobs Post-Merger While Ex-CEO John Legere Saw A $137 Million Golden Parachute

from the uncarrier-no-more dept

To be clear, former T-Mobile CEO John Legere did some amazing things with T-Mobile. After regulators blocked AT&T from acquiring T-Mobile in 2011 (which wound up being a very good thing), he took the $3 billion break up fee and turned an also-ran into a major thorn in the side of AT&T and Verizon. Legere accomplished this by (gasp) generally treating consumers well, eliminating annoyances like long-term contracts, sneaky fees, and many other telecom industry mainstays. He also did it by embracing an entertaining, wise ass persona in an industry not known for having a sense of humor.

But then, T-Mobile owners Deutsche Telekom decided it would be a good idea to throw all of this away by pursuing a $26 billion merger with Sprint. That suddenly forced Legere into a position where he had to behave exactly like the companies he'd just spent a decade making fun of. That included lying a lot about the benefits of the deal as the company tried to sell the Trump administration on the competition and job-eroding megadeal (that wound up not being particularly difficult, since the industry-allied Trump FCC and DOJ didn't care about hard data).

Technically, Legere only worked for three months in 2020, but nabbed a $137 million exit package according to new data:

"Legere's 2020 compensation was revealed yesterday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (see pages 49 and 50). Legere was previously paid $27.8 million in the full year of 2019 and $66.5 million in 2018, mostly in the form of stock awards. His 2020 compensation of $137.2 million did not include any stock awards—instead, it consisted of a $136.55 million severance payment, $600,000 in salary, and $50,000 in reimbursement for legal fees."

Legere certainly had a comfy exit, also offloading his $17.5 million Central Park West apartment to Giorgio Armani on his way out of town.

Of course, you're supposed to ignore (and most of the US press certainly will) the fact that Legere repeatedly promised in print that the Sprint merger would result in a massive surge in new jobs. That never happens in the wake of telecom consolidation, and soon enough, the company was busy laying off 5,000 employees. Unions and Wall Street analysts predict the layoffs could get as high as 15-30,000 as redundant positions are inevitably eliminated over the next few years.

Of course, there was always ample evidence that Legere's brash, pink high-top wearing trash talking persona was more caricature than reality. After all, Legere supported the FCC's decision to lobotomize its consumer protection authority, opposed net neutrality, and mocked the EFF when they pointed out the company was lying. But the mask really slipped during the merger sales pitch, which not only involved lying constantly about the benefits of the deal, but hiring Trump ally Corey Lewandowski, and throwing cash at Trump's DC hotel to improve merger approval chances.

Given the Sprint merger reduced US wireless sector competition by 25%, and the FCC currently has its hands tied behind its back due to the net neutrality repeal, which T-Mobile supported (which again neutered most FCC authority, not just net neutrality rules), it's inevitable that investors now pressure T-Mobile to behave more and more like AT&T and Verizon over the next few years. That means more empty promises, more efforts to nickel-and-dime subscribers, and a steadily eroding effort to seriously compete on price. All the stuff Legere repeatedly insisted he was opposed to. That's not speculation or opinion, it's what happens every time a country decides to give a middle finger to competition by allowing mindless consolidation in telecom. There are 40 years of indisputable evidence.

Again, Legere deserves all the praise in the world for turning T-Mobile into a heavyweight champion in wireless. But at the same time, he also deserves ample criticism for the ease in which he was willing to throw all of that in the toilet, and the grotesque amount of falsehoods and Trump ass kissing that accompanied the effort along the way.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, jobs, john legere, lies, mergers, promises, wireless
Companies: sprint, t-mobile

Despite A Decade Of Complaints, US Wireless Carriers Continue To Abuse The Word 'Unlimited'

from the that-word,-it-does-not-mean-what-you-think-it-means dept

Way back in 2007, Verizon was forced to strike an agreement with the New York State Attorney General for falsely marketing data plans with very obvious limits as "unlimited." For much of the last fifteen years numerous other wireless carriers, like AT&T, have also had their wrists gently slapped for selling "unlimited" wireless service that was anything but. Despite this, there remains no clear indication that the industry has learned much of anything from the punishment and experience. Most of the companies whose wrists were slapped have, unsurprisingly, simply continued on with the behavior.

The latest case in point is Boost Mobile, a prepaid wireless provider that was shoveled over to Dish Network as part of the controversial T-Mobile Sprint merger. For years the company has been selling prepaid "unlimited" data plans that aren't, by any definition of the word, unlimited. In part because once users hit a bandwidth consumption threshold (aka a "limit"), users find their lines slowed to around 2G speeds (somewhere around 128 kbps) for the remainder of the billing period.

No regulators could be bothered to thwart this behavior, so it fell to the wireless industry's self-regulatory organization, The National Advertising Division (NAD), to dole out the wrist slaps this time. The organization last week told Boost that it should stop advertising its data plans as unlimited, after getting complaints from AT&T -- a company that spent a decade falsely advertising its plans as unlimited:

"AT&T had challenged Boost for its “Unlimited Data, Talk & Text” claims, asserting that the prepaid brand’s 4G LTE data plans are throttled to 2G speeds once a monthly data cap is hit. For the “Talk & Text” portion, NAD sided with Boost, saying the company was able to support its message."

Carriers (including AT&T) have historically tried to claim that a connection is still technically "unlimited" if you slow it to substandard speeds, something regulators and the courts haven't agreed with. NAD didn't much like this explanation either, noting that trying to use modern services on the equivalent of a 1998 IDSN line amounts to the same outcome:

"At 2G speeds, many of today's most commonly used applications such as social-media, e-mail with attachments, web browsing on pages with embedded pictures, videos and ads and music may not work at all or will have such significant delays as to be functionally unavailable because the delays will likely cause the applications to time out,” NAD stated in its decision."

Granted NAD's punishments never really carry much weight. As a self-regulatory organization NAD's function is basically to pre-empt tougher, more comprehensive regulatory action on things like false advertising (which are already pretty rare in telecom). So usually what happens is the organization steps in, doles out a few wrist slaps for ads that have already been running for a year or two, leaving little incentive for real reform in an industry long known for its falsehoods. Which is precisely why we keep reading this same story in the press with little substantive change.

Filed Under: false advertising, unlimited
Companies: at&t, boost mobile

Yet More Studies Show That 5G Isn't Hurting You

from the stop-getting-your-news-from-YouTube dept

On the one hand, you have a wireless industry falsely claiming that 5G is a near mystical revolution in communications, something that's never been true (especially in the US). Then on the other hand you have oodles of internet crackpots who think 5G is causing COVID or killing people on the daily, something that has also never been true. In reality, most claims of 5G health harms are based on a false 20 year old graph, and an overwhelming majority of scientists have made it clear that 5G is not killing you (in fact several incarnations are less powerful than 4G).

Last week, more evidence emerged that indicates that no, 5G isn't killing you. Researchers from the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) and the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia both released studies last week in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology. Both studies are among the first to look exclusively at 5G, and the only people who'll be surprised by their findings get all of their news from email forwards and YouTube. From an ARPANSA press statement on its first study's findings:

"‘In conclusion, a review of all the studies provided no substantiated evidence that low-level radio waves, like those used by the 5G network, are hazardous to human health,’ said Dr Karipidis, Assistant Director, Assessment and Advice at ARPANSA."

The second study, which focused on RF energy specifically in the millimeter wave band (the ultra-fast but limited range variant of 5G) also found no health impact that could be replicated by other studies:

"‘This meta-analysis of the experimental studies also presented little evidence of an association between millimetre waves and adverse health effects,’ said Dr Karipidis. "Studies that did report biological effects were generally not independently replicated and most of the studies reviewed employed low-quality methods of exposure assessment and control."

Now that doesn't mean these studies are the definitive answer to questions surrounding 5G's impact on human health, but the evidence we do have continues to indicate that the technology isn't killing you. Granted the actual underlying scientific evidence is headed in the complete, opposite direction of the conspiracy theorists and assorted dipshits who've been attacking telecom infrastructure (or employees) because some supplement-grifting nitwit said so on YouTube.

The reality is, and continues to be, that 5G isn't interesting enough to warrant hyperventilation over its supposed revolutionary impact on communications, or its supposed diabolical impact on human health. But since neither opinion is a real money maker, the truth continues to play second fiddle to bullshit, whether it's coming from the mouths of wireless carriers or complete crackpots.

Filed Under: 5g, conspiracy theories, safety, science, studies

After Hyping 5G For Years, Verizon Advises Users To Turn It Off To Avoid Battery Drain

from the not-the-revolution-we-were-promised dept

If you listen to Verizon marketing, it goes something like this: fifth generation (5G) wireless is going to absolutely transform the world by building the smart cities of tomorrow, revolutionizing medicine, and driving an ocean of innovation.

In reality, US 5G has largely landed with a thud, studies showing how the US version is notably slower than overseas 5G (and in fact often slower than the 4G networks you're used to) because the US didn't do enough to drive middle-band spectrum to market. Contrary to Verizon claims it's not a technology that's likely to revolutionize medicine. Service availability also remains very spotty, and US consumers continue to pay some of the highest prices for mobile data in the developed world, regardless of standard.

Some variations of the technology are also a bit of a battery hog, something Verizon support was begrudgingly forced to acknowledge this week by informing users that if they want better battery life, they're better off turning 5G off:

"Verizon has spent years hyping 5G despite it bringing just a minor speed upgrade outside the limited areas where millimeter-wave spectrum has been deployed, but the carrier's support team advised users yesterday to shut 5G off if their phones are suffering from poor battery life. The tweet from VZWSupport, now deleted, said, "Are you noticing that your battery life is draining faster than normal? One way to help conserve battery life is to turn on LTE. Just go to Cellular > Cellular Data Options > Voice & Data and tap LTE."

The Tweet was deleted once it began getting attention from users and journalists amused by the disconnect given two straight years of marketing that claimed the technology was near-miraculous. Granted, companies like Apple have adapted to this reality by unveiling a "Smart Data mode" that shifts each phone from 5G to LTE when 5G speeds aren't necessary, conserving battery life. Samsung, Huawei, and other handset manufacturers have issued similar warnings about how the wireless industry's shiny new standard is a bit of an energy hog.

Again, that's not to say 5G isn't going to offer meaningful improvements, eventually. The standard ideally delivers significant improvements in speed, latency, and reliability (assuming it's actually available to you). But these improvements are more evolutionary than revolutionary. The problem: as wireless carriers looked to use the standard to justify higher and higher rates, they've over-promised what it's capable of. That, in turn, is creating a consumer brand impression that associates 5G not with reliability, but hype and bluster; the exact opposite of what marketing departments were hoping for.

Filed Under: 5g, battery life, hype
Companies: verizon

6G Hype Is Already Getting Stupid, When 5G Hype Hasn't Even Finished Disappointing Us Yet

from the maybe-just-stop-talking-for-a-bit dept

We've noted repeatedly how fifth-generation wireless (5G) was painfully overhyped. To spike lagging smartphone and network hardware sales, carriers, equipment makers, and the lawmakers paid to love them spent years insisting that 5G would change the world, ushering forth amazing new cancer cures and the revolutionary smart cities of tomorrow. But while 5G is an important evolutionary step toward faster, more resilient networks, it's not some magical revolution, and US 5G speeds so far have proven to be much slower than overseas counterparts, and in many instances actually slower than 4G.

You'd think industry and experts would view this as a sort of cautionary tale about hype. You'd think pundits and industry would understand that by over-promising what 5G is capable of, they've associated the branding with empty hype and bluster in the eyes of the public. You'd be wrong.

Some wireless industry executives have already started insisting that 6G will be a lot like The Matrix (it won't). And this week, telecom trade magazine Light Reading cited a few companies and experts who are already arguing that 6G will somehow enable Star Trek-esque transporters and the ability to taste and smell things over the internet. Seriously:

"But what if future virtual reality systems allowed their users to taste, touch and smell as well as to see and hear? Seated in their New York or London homes, executives could effectively teleport themselves to Barcelona's gothic district for the full gastronomic accompaniment to their deal-making banter."

To be clear, 6G isn't even a thing yet. It's a future standard that hasn't been developed yet. And the technology to taste or smell things over the internet doesn't exist either, though the idea has long been tinkered with. The idea that 6G will be akin to magic appears to have come from a few academics, tasked with trying to imagine futuristic ways companies can monetize future network standards:

"Tafazolli and his colleagues are determined to break this pattern. In their view, the setting of hard targets for connectivity speed has brought little payoff for operators while lumbering them with multi-billion-dollar bills for the rollout of more advanced networks. By simply cranking up the bitrate or cutting latency, each successive generation looks even less like a breakthrough and more like a mere evolution of mobile technology.

"They give users something to play with, but they don't really generate more money," said Hendon. "We are trying to do things in a completely different way." A businessman who does not have to fly around the world to wine and dine his clients might be willing to spend quite a bit more on his mobile service, he said."

In many countries (Canada, America), consumers already pay some of the highest prices in the world for mobile data. Carriers are mad that they weren't able to charge customers even more money for 5G. Verizon tried to charge consumers $10 extra per month just to connect to 5G networks, but then had to back off the ambition after consumers (quite correctly) failed to see the value proposition. Especially given US 5G speeds (so far) are a flimsy disappointment.

With net neutrality dead (for now), and US carriers already discovering creative new ways to nickel-and-dime consumers (like charging you extra for HD, or charging you extra to have your games and music throttled), there's really not much doubt that providers would love to charge you extra to enjoy simulated scents and smells over your wireless connection. But at this juncture, fresh off 5G hype, it's just kind of silly to take seriously.

The whole premise appears to be little more than a thought exercise by a few academics working in concert with industry on ways to justify higher rates, though it's obviously dressed up as something more noble and intellectual than all that:

"This is not just a university having a bright idea," said Hendon. "Vodafone and BT and Telefónica have all signed up to this – they understand it as well as we do, and we are responding to what they say." Putting the operators' commercial interests and pressing need for a growth story ahead of the technology considerations could help this particular initiative to stand out."

On the one hand, there's nothing wrong with creative thought exercises that try to envision the technologies of tomorrow. But fresh off of consumer disappointment with 5G, caused directly by three straight years of bullshit and hype about what the standard is actually capable of, you'd think folks would be a little more careful about tempering expectations moving forward.

Filed Under: 5g, 6g, hype

Pudding-Brained 5G Conspiracies Somehow Get Even Dumber

from the you-need-help dept

We've made it repeatedly clear that 5G now exists in some kind of alternate reality, untethered from this complicated mortal plane. On one side, you've got telecom giants, hardware vendors, and some politicians busy pretending that 5G is a revolutionary game changer, something you just sprinkle around to create near Utopian smart cities, smart vehicles, and miracle cancer cures. On the other side, you've got an international cabal of conspiracy theorists with a head full of pudding, who think 5G gives them COVID or is a diabolical deep state, mind-surveillance tool.

While the "let's overhype 5G" set has quieted down some after data continues to show US 5G is largely underwhelming, the pudding-head conspiracy theorist side of the discussion has only accelerated. Some 5G conspiracy theorists have even been buying faraday-cage enclosed routers in the belief it protects them from 5G (despite the routers in question not even being wireless 5G). Worse, some have become violent in their delusions, whether that means burning down cell towers or setting dangerous traps for wireless technicians.

Just when you think 5G conspiracies have reached peak stupidity, somebody manages to raise the bar. Conspiracy theorists have long tried to claim that 5G caused COVID, or that COVID vaccines are part of some diabolical plan to track the public. Over in Italy, conspiracy theorists have been claiming that a tiny 5G-enabled microchip is being injected along with the COVID vaccine to spy on the public. Their proof? An engineering schematic for a guitar pedal, according to Mario Fusco, a senior software engineer at Redhat:

The schematic appears to be for a Boss MT-2 Metal Zone guitar pedal, something all the references to "gain," "treble" and a footswitch should have made clear to even a nitwit:

The irony continues to be that 5G simply isn't interesting or important enough to warrant either the hype or the conspiratorial bullshit. It's largely a modest evolutionary step toward lower latency, faster, and more resilient networks. And there's plenty of evidence to suggest it's less powerful and safer than many existing 4G technologies.

It's funny, but it's not funny. While there's been no hard proof shared yet, it's believed that Nashville bomber may have targeted an AT&T building because he'd been hoodwinked by this kind of bullshit online. Worse perhaps, the conspiracies encourage doubt in the effectiveness of the vaccine, ensuring fewer take it, in turn ensuring the recovery from the virus take longer and is more brutal than necessary.

Filed Under: 5g, conspiracy theories, covid, guitar pedal, vaccines

Verizon's Latest 5G Innovation: A 5G 'DSS' Network That's Slower Than 4G

from the deflated-hype-balloon dept

While unveiling its shiny new 5G-enabled iPhones back in October, Apple brought Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg to the stage to declare that Verizon had launched an updated, "nationwide" 5G network that shores up the company's 5G coverage. Until now, Verizon has largely embraced "high band" or millimeter wave 5G, which provides amazing speeds if you're near an antenna, but suffers from terrible range and building wall penetration issues. As a result, the company has been routinely criticized for comically overstating not only what 5G is capable of, but where 5G is available.

To attack this credibility problem, and drive some hype for the new iPhones, Verizon announced that it was dramatically expanding its 5G network to 200 million more people. To do so, Verizon announced it would be using "dynamic spectrum sharing" (DSS) that helps utilize some existing 4G channels to offer 5G.

Fast forward a few months, and the early reviews of Verizon's DSS 5G improvements... aren't so hot. PC Magazine took a closer look at Verizon's latest upgrade and found that users in many cases would be better off just sticking to 4G:

"If you don't have any dedicated channels, DSS lets you use the odds and ends of your unused 4G channels for 5G. The 4G and 5G phones compete for the same 4G channel. The only difference is that the 5G ones are running the 5G encoding system on that channel. There are non-speed advantages to DSS—or there will be in the future, once carriers go to standalone 5G systems—but right now, you're just getting slower performance.

In our most recent tests, we found that DSS 5G is seriously holding back both iPhones and Android phones. We compared a OnePlus 8 using DSS 5G with a Samsung Galaxy S20 FE on 4G, and we then ran tests on an iPhone 12 Pro toggling between 5G and 4G at the same locations. In both cases, DSS 5G turned in worse results than 4G LTE.

Again, eventually 5G will provide faster, more resilient networks. But for right now all it's creating is a lot of undeserved hype:

And that's in select areas of New York City (read: best case scenario). Experts suggest that phones in DSS mode are handling carrier aggregation (combining different channels of spectrum) worse than phones in 4G-only mode, resulting in said experts advising that you actually turn 5G off on your shiny new iPhone if you want to improve overall performance. Again, this will improve in time as 5G becomes more fleshed out, but it's another example of how 5G simply isn't living up to the absurd hype consumers have been inundated by for the better part of the last three years.

If you only listen to wireless carriers, network hardware, or handset manufacturer PR departments, 5G is an incredible, revolutionary upgrade that changes everything, from cancer treatments to the smart cities of tomorrow. With smartphone innovation flailing and overall sales lagging, they were eager to drive mass upgrades by portraying 5G as something more substantive than it is. 5G is a dull but important evolution, but it's not a revolution.

U.S. 5G in particular (even of the non DSS variety) continues to be far slower than a long list of overseas networks because we've done a poor job making mid-band spectrum available for public use and driving fiber to lower ROI areas (despite billions upon billions in subsidization). And numerous studies have found that current 5G is in some instances slower than 4G. In a few years as more mid-band spectrum is pushed to market this will steadily improve. But right now, consumers (correctly) don't really see 5G as worth it, which is a major reason why Verizon had to back off plans to charge a $10 monthly premium just to access it.

Filed Under: 4g, 5g, overhype
Companies: verizon