X50, Any power usage figures? Just wondering how far are we from putting it inside a phone. How is mmWave suppose to work in 4G/5G era? Are we going to have mmWave in Small Cell so direct line of sight is possible? Or is mmWave a niche for filling rual area broadband only. How much total capacity is it per call? at 5Gbps, this could go up to 20Gbps/40Gbps or even higher in total. Doesn't that still require Fibre to be laid out. Also wondering if mmWave are using the same air interface E-UTRA.
I keep wondering the amount of Wireless Tech inside a Smartphone keeps increasing, WiFi 802.11a-ac, Bluetooth, 2G/3G/4G/and later 5G. It surely comes in at a cost, when will it makes sense for a Smartphone to drop, say like 2G/3G, when LTE is much better. And save on complexity and transistor.
Both, those without fiber yet and low population density areas. The question now though if that market requires faster than 4G speeds. Maybe, in a few years.
It was more a snide on some countries insisting on limiting mobile internet usage. But 5G will have lower range than previous techs, so I still don't think it's for developing (or low population) countries.
Don't be too sure. Different countries are remarkable in trying to get some value out of tech that doesn't make sense in other countries.
In Myanmar, for example, a very common delivery mechanism for home or small office internet is WiMax, with a reasonably heavy duty antenna (size of a small TV antenna or so) mounted outside the building, feeding the analog signal to a router/wifi box inside the building. I assume South Korea had a bunch of excess WiMax equipment they wanted to get rid of once LTE became mainstream, and someone in Yangon had a bright idea as to how they could get some real value out it.
You can sneer at all this --- the connection is 500kbps when you're lucky, and it goes to hell when it rains --- but the alternative is not fiber, it is nothing. And with serious infrastructure problems in more basic items like sewers and pavements, you're going to be waiting a long time for some sort of wired system to serve most areas.
Obviously that is old tech, while mmWave is new tech; my point is just that the tradeoffs and infrastructure exploitation that's possible are very different in different places.
Hi, this is Sherif from Qualcomm. Great questions about mmWave. Here's a quick one-pager on how mmWave will work in X50 to support mobile scenarios, including indoor non-line-of-sight: https://www.qualcomm.com/documents/qualcomm-snapdr...
Amazing techology - you even defy basic physical principles like the reflection law for EM-radiation! (in the document beams hit an apparently flat wall at 90° and are reflected in a specific angle)
Do normal walls (which look like they have roughness of order a mm or so) act as specular reflectors to this radiation? (But yeah, I agree that the diagrams in the PDF are kinda dumb, and look like they COULD be redrawn with equal incident and reflected angles, just reflecting at a different point, to still make the journey as desired.)
Gigabit LTE on Telstra! Great, now their customers can blow through their expensive, tiny monthly data caps in mere seconds! Well, that's assuming they're not having another network outage...
256-QAM. Seriously? How far can you get from a cell tower before ambient noise drowns up such fine amplitude detail in the signal? (I'm not being snarky, I'm genuinely curious. In a normal city, can this function usefully even a block from the tower?)
Or is the secret that you've aggressively lengthened the window over which error correction is performed, along with aggressively iterated soft decoding, so that while individual bits are frequently incorrect, the signal when tracked over, I don't know, (16? 32?) successive bits can be extracted? (With what density of excess FEC bits?)
At 28 GHz the propagation length is so short that I don't think the classical cell phone tower concept works anymore. For indoor use over a few meters the requirements won't be as harsh.
Yup, 256-QAM. Turns out it performs remarkably well in real networks. Here are results from Telstra's network in Australia, which has had 256-QAM since last year on their macro network: http://signalsresearch.com/issue/256-qam/
Signals Research Group is the foremost authority on cellular technology testing in live networks.
Yeah, 256-QAM is not a joke. I like to think of it as the upper limit of the technology. Sure, you need very good conditions if you want to pack that high number of bits. But when you consider that these same "very good conditions" are also required for the highest bit rates on 3G/2G networks before it shows that even though you may never have the opportunity to use it, you're still getting benefits on more common scenarios.
Good progress, but while we're at it could we please have LTE as default on the lowest end of devices? Qualcomm/Mediatek please convince your customers to use your cheap LTE-enabled chips instead of continually producing and selling 2 year parts.
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iwod - Monday, October 17, 2016 - link
X50, Any power usage figures? Just wondering how far are we from putting it inside a phone.How is mmWave suppose to work in 4G/5G era? Are we going to have mmWave in Small Cell so direct line of sight is possible? Or is mmWave a niche for filling rual area broadband only. How much total capacity is it per call? at 5Gbps, this could go up to 20Gbps/40Gbps or even higher in total. Doesn't that still require Fibre to be laid out.
Also wondering if mmWave are using the same air interface E-UTRA.
I keep wondering the amount of Wireless Tech inside a Smartphone keeps increasing, WiFi 802.11a-ac, Bluetooth, 2G/3G/4G/and later 5G. It surely comes in at a cost, when will it makes sense for a Smartphone to drop, say like 2G/3G, when LTE is much better. And save on complexity and transistor.
Wardrop - Monday, October 17, 2016 - link
I'll just reset your monthly download quota now... and it's gone!ajp_anton - Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - link
I don't think this is meant for developing countries.zodiacfml - Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - link
Both, those without fiber yet and low population density areas.The question now though if that market requires faster than 4G speeds. Maybe, in a few years.
ajp_anton - Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - link
It was more a snide on some countries insisting on limiting mobile internet usage. But 5G will have lower range than previous techs, so I still don't think it's for developing (or low population) countries.name99 - Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - link
Don't be too sure. Different countries are remarkable in trying to get some value out of tech that doesn't make sense in other countries.In Myanmar, for example, a very common delivery mechanism for home or small office internet is WiMax, with a reasonably heavy duty antenna (size of a small TV antenna or so) mounted outside the building, feeding the analog signal to a router/wifi box inside the building.
I assume South Korea had a bunch of excess WiMax equipment they wanted to get rid of once LTE became mainstream, and someone in Yangon had a bright idea as to how they could get some real value out it.
You can sneer at all this --- the connection is 500kbps when you're lucky, and it goes to hell when it rains --- but the alternative is not fiber, it is nothing. And with serious infrastructure problems in more basic items like sewers and pavements, you're going to be waiting a long time for some sort of wired system to serve most areas.
Obviously that is old tech, while mmWave is new tech; my point is just that the tradeoffs and infrastructure exploitation that's possible are very different in different places.
sherifhanna - Monday, October 17, 2016 - link
Hi, this is Sherif from Qualcomm. Great questions about mmWave. Here's a quick one-pager on how mmWave will work in X50 to support mobile scenarios, including indoor non-line-of-sight: https://www.qualcomm.com/documents/qualcomm-snapdr...MrSpadge - Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - link
Amazing techology - you even defy basic physical principles like the reflection law for EM-radiation!(in the document beams hit an apparently flat wall at 90° and are reflected in a specific angle)
name99 - Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - link
Do normal walls (which look like they have roughness of order a mm or so) act as specular reflectors to this radiation?(But yeah, I agree that the diagrams in the PDF are kinda dumb, and look like they COULD be redrawn with equal incident and reflected angles, just reflecting at a different point, to still make the journey as desired.)
MrSpadge - Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - link
Good question. There's definitely some directionality, otherwise they wouldn't be talking about "using relfections".sherifhanna - Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - link
Sorry that you didn't find the info graphic helpful. Here's a video of our 28GHz mmWave prototype in action: https://youtu.be/IabL8uk8A-4And here's an in-depth white paper on how to make mmWave mobile, including results from real world tests in urban environments: https://www.qualcomm.com/documents/heavyreading-wh...
Hope you'all find that information much more substantial.
iwodo - Friday, October 21, 2016 - link
My only problem with directional mmWave is if there are any health concern passing through a human being. What energy level are they ?StevoLincolnite - Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - link
Telstra is a horrible provider, over-priced, garbage customer service.But you cannot dispute their network size and quality, they tend to adopt the latest technology's before most other companies.
Sadly though, price is an important factor, so I stick to their main competitor, Optus.
scottjames_12 - Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - link
Gigabit LTE on Telstra! Great, now their customers can blow through their expensive, tiny monthly data caps in mere seconds! Well, that's assuming they're not having another network outage...MrSpadge - Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - link
> The downside to using higher wavelengths, however, is their limited penetration and range.You meant higher frequency and shorter wavelength.
Matt Humrick - Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - link
Thanksname99 - Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - link
256-QAM. Seriously?How far can you get from a cell tower before ambient noise drowns up such fine amplitude detail in the signal? (I'm not being snarky, I'm genuinely curious. In a normal city, can this function usefully even a block from the tower?)
Or is the secret that you've aggressively lengthened the window over which error correction is performed, along with aggressively iterated soft decoding, so that while individual bits are frequently incorrect, the signal when tracked over, I don't know, (16? 32?) successive bits can be extracted? (With what density of excess FEC bits?)
MrSpadge - Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - link
At 28 GHz the propagation length is so short that I don't think the classical cell phone tower concept works anymore. For indoor use over a few meters the requirements won't be as harsh.sherifhanna - Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - link
Yup, 256-QAM. Turns out it performs remarkably well in real networks. Here are results from Telstra's network in Australia, which has had 256-QAM since last year on their macro network:http://signalsresearch.com/issue/256-qam/
Signals Research Group is the foremost authority on cellular technology testing in live networks.
OEMG - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Yeah, 256-QAM is not a joke. I like to think of it as the upper limit of the technology. Sure, you need very good conditions if you want to pack that high number of bits. But when you consider that these same "very good conditions" are also required for the highest bit rates on 3G/2G networks before it shows that even though you may never have the opportunity to use it, you're still getting benefits on more common scenarios.name99 - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Thanks for the reference!OEMG - Wednesday, October 19, 2016 - link
Good progress, but while we're at it could we please have LTE as default on the lowest end of devices? Qualcomm/Mediatek please convince your customers to use your cheap LTE-enabled chips instead of continually producing and selling 2 year parts.