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A comment on Tell HN: AT&T disabled phone numbers and accounts of users using the old phones. Parent comment

Re:Tell HN: AT&T disabled phone numbers and accounts of user... by mdp2021 on Friday May 06, 2022 @04:27AM (#31282773)
> there would be no phones used without 5G compatibility soon

With low level of obstruction, the distance range of 5G is half a kilometer. The distance range of 4G is ~30km. 5G covers roughly one fiftieth of the distance of 4G.

If they phased out 4G, people still owning a mobile telephony device would stop receiving service when out of urban areas?

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Re:Tell HN: AT&T disabled phone numbers and accounts of user... by joecool1029 on Friday May 06, 2022 @05:21AM (#31283085)
>With low level of obstruction, the distance range of 5G is half a kilometer.

Um, no. I regularly connect to a N41 sector broadcasting over 12km away and pull 300-400mbit off it. That's midband 5G, which most consider medium distance.

AT&T is running 3G on 850mhz which they can put a 5G N5 carrier on. This can do that kind of range with obstructions, but is less spectrum so will congest easier like T-Mobile's 600mhz N71 carrier.

EDIT: WCDMA (3G) was always the weakest for coverage. Geographic cell sizes actually shrink as more users connect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_breathing_(telephony)

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Re:Tell HN: AT&T disabled phone numbers and accounts of user... by tambre on Friday May 06, 2022 @05:20AM (#31283079)
What you're talking about is 5G mmWave. Previous longer frequencies remain usable with 5G. Last I looked into it mmWave was a tiny portion of 5G deployments, as it only makes in very dense urban areas due to the reasons you noted. Of course those mmWave stations presumably still support the longer frequencies because why wouldn't you if the goal is to fit tons of clients onto one station.
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Re:Tell HN: AT&T disabled phone numbers and accounts of user... by msh on Friday May 06, 2022 @05:18AM (#31283060)
No, 5G have lots of range. Its no worse than 4G, it just depends on the frequencies that the carrier have rolled it out on.

If its rolled out on 26ghz its bad in range. Sub 6 GHZ 5G rollout is as good or better than 4G on the same frequencies.

My carrier have rolled out 5G on 700 MHZ and I am seeing better coverage than their 4G network.

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Re:Tell HN: AT&T disabled phone numbers and accounts of user... by username190 on Friday May 06, 2022 @11:04AM (#31286018)
> If its rolled out on 26ghz its bad in range. Sub 6 GHZ 5G rollout is as good or better than 4G on the same frequencies.

Range will be the same, but coverage can technically be a bit lower. This is because the modulation used for 5G uplink (phone to cell site) - OFDMA - is more complex than the modulation used for LTE uplink (SC-FDMA).

This is the same reason you might’ve been in a very rural area and seen 2G. It doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a 2G-only cell tower nearby; just that the 2G signals are more resilient to interference and signal loss.

The downside to that resilience is, of course, much lower complexity, and thus it can carry less binary data.

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Re:Tell HN: AT&T disabled phone numbers and accounts of user... by msh on Saturday May 07, 2022 @11:54AM (#31295578)
Is it not just because 2g have traditionally been rolled out on lower bands?
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