Browse in mobility at 1 Gbps and with lower latency thanks to 5G, and connect at home with fiber at 10 Gbps speed. These are the latest messages that telecommunications operators are launching to publicize the advantages provided by the improvements they make on their networks, and although they are real, there are nuances that should be known so as not to be disappointed.
Is it necessary to have such high speeds? Probably not, but it is not only speed and greater immediacy that the latest advances provide is networks. These improvements also make it possible to make the networks more efficient, so that they are capable of providing service to more connected devices while maintaining high speed required in each of them.
So operators are also interested in deploying these improvements, and since they have to do it, they like to mark the point of being first. This is what happened to Vodafone with 5G, and now also to Digi and Orange after announcing fiber with XGS-PON. With 5G, rivals took a year to respond, and with fiber it remains to be seen how the biggest ones react.
Movistar It wasn’t a year ago that it debuted fiber at 1 Gbps, and to set its previous highs for fiber speeds, it did so promptly every three years. In the case of VodafoneWith much of its own network with HFC, it is much less likely to make the jump, although it could do so in its three million accesses with FTTH. The MoreMobile Group Perhaps it is the operator with the most motivation to be the next to join the 10 Gbps bandwagon if it does not want Digi to finish snatching it from being the low cost operator with the greatest initiative.
The arguments for announcing the implementation of more advanced technologies are the same as on other occasions: being able to reproduce more content in 4k simultaneously, improve the online game, streamline the telecommuting, or download and upload files faster. All encompassed under the umbrella of the highest speed, although that is already achieved with 4G + and the current fiber speeds of up to 1 Gbps.
It is difficult for operators to show that users need to have higher internet speed, but they are not in a hurry either. For now, these ads are still more of a marketing claim than a real advantage for users, especially if we serve the Requirements needed to take advantage of 1Gbps 5G and 10Mbps fiber.
Great 5G coverage, but little high-speed availability
Access the highest speed 5G is not easy. And actually, it is impossible if we are strict. The 5G with the greatest potential, 5G SA, has not even been commercially deployed, and the millimeter band cannot be used either. At the moment, with the 5G NSA in 3.5 Ghz a maximum of 1 Gbps can be reached, but it represents only a slight reduction in latency compared to 4G. With 5G SA at 26 GHz, several gigabytes of speed and delays below 5 ms can be achieved.
5G has been officially available in Spain since 2019 and operators are currently announcing 5G coverage of more than 85% of the population. The problem is that all that 5G coverage encompasses various types of 5G, mostly 5G DSS, with speeds virtually identical to 4G, so the availability of high-speed 5G continues to wane. And the worst thing is the null transparency of the operators when it comes to talking about the availability of 5G, which does not clarify the maximum achievable speed in each city.
Of course, in addition to having 5G coverage, you will have to have a mobile compatible with 5G, and in this aspect there is not too much transparency about the maximum speed that can be reached, since the phones may not be compatible with DSS or with 5G SA , and there are few that support the mmWave band or aggregation of certain bands.
That the operator offers 5G coverage will not be a guarantee either, since it will be necessary to have a compatible rate, and that the rate is not excessively limited in aspects such as speed or quality of video streaming.
Once the 5G SA is deployed on a large scale, rather than the higher speed, it is likely that smartphone users will perceive the improvement when it comes to having more stable connections, even in motion, but its greatest advantages will be exploited above all by the industry.
High fiber speed available – and rare times to get the most out of it
“With 10 Gbps fiber you can download a 4K movie in a few seconds.” It is the idea with which operators often exemplify the advantages of the highest speed of fiber internet. Although for that example, you would have to have router compatible, network card 10 GEth, category RJ45 cable connection 6A, and a computer with an SSD and a processor with sufficient capacity. In addition, the server from which internet content is served, it should have such capacity.
In reality, the advantages of 10 Gbps fiber are lower latency, and above all, power connect more devices that require high data consumptionAlthough at present, there are probably not many homes that need more than 1 Gbps, and whose availability is much more widespread. Even 300 Mbps will be sufficient in many cases (Netflix, for example, requires 25 Mbps for its 4k views).
Its availability in Orange is currently limited to Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia and Zaragoza (with the intention of reaching one million homes in 2022), and Madrid in the case of Digi. Limited availability, where operators will be able to have more users connected at high speedIn addition to offering 10 Gbps fiber to the most demanding users and business environments.
Perhaps there are not too many users willing to pay the extra that multiplies by ten a speed that already seemed more than enough does nothing, but these improvements in the network end up benefit all users where XGS-PON is deployed, which will have higher guaranteed speeds and less possibility of saturation.