Fibre vs 5G

[one more]

As we can currently see, many countries are currently actively deploying both Fibre and 5G technologies.

Why spend so much money on both, when they could just put more resources into 5G and its future advances (6G, etc.), instead of digging ground all over the place and laying zillions of fibre cables?

I understand that Fibre has its advantages (symmetrical speed being the one), but I guess 5G will catch up shortly?

Does anybody know what’s the biggest perk of a Fibre over 5G on the long run? As far as I understand it, 5G is also much easier to deploy.

 

[TokyoKiller]

5G towers and infrastructure need Fiber to exist, otherwise, those towers wouldn't be connected to anything.

Physical connectivity will never be outpaced by wireless connectivity. It's just physics and the former outperforms the latter in specific uses and scenarios.

Here in Canada, they are slowly being bundled together to have 5G be a backup connection for people's home phones, home security, etc

 

[one more]

5G towers and infrastructure need Fiber to exist, otherwise, those towers wouldn't be connected to anything.

Physical connectivity will never be outpaced by wireless connectivity. It's just physics and the former outperforms the latter in specific uses and scenarios.

Here in Canada, they are slowly being bundled together to have 5G be a backup connection for people's home phones, home security, etc

Does this mean that all 4G (LTE) towers were (and still are) interconnected by copper cables and this is why their bandwidth is so limited compared to 5G?

 

[TokyoKiller]

3G/4G towers are also connected to a larger network via Fibre. It's important to also note that 5G requires more towers to cover the same area covered by 3G/4G, mostly just because each tower is able to handle more people but less distance covered.

 

[ChrisA]

Does this mean that all 4G (LTE) towers were (and still are) interconnected by copper cables and this is why their bandwidth is so limited compared to 5G?

All towers (3g, 4g, 5g, ..) are connected via a mix of technologies, some fiber, some microwave and some copper. 5G is faster because the cells are smaller. There are many more transmitters required for a 5G network.

A fiber connection can be much faster but most people don't need it. 5G is so much easier to install because they don't need to run a cable to the end user and it is fast enough.

 

[one more]

A fiber connection can be much faster but most people don't need it. 5G is so much easier to install because they don't need to run a cable to the end user and it is fast enough.

This is exactly the point I was trying to make. Apart from very specific cases, today’s connection speed of 300+ Mbps should be totally fine, which is easily achievable with sub-3 GHz 5G waves. All of this without running those expensive wires to each building. A much smarter way, then, would be deploying fibre to improve the quality of our cellular networks, rather than have a potential benefit of a very fast connection for somebody who does not actually use it. 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

[guzhogi]

I'm a bit old school. Mobile devices like laptops, phones, tablets are okay with wireless tech, and it's often fast enough. However, with stationary devices, I prefer hardwiring it. Much more reliable connection, less interference, tends to be faster.

But you're correct, one single 5g tower can provide coverage to way more people. I'm just concerned about interference and so forth.

 

[one more]

I'm a bit old school. Mobile devices like laptops, phones, tablets are okay with wireless tech, and it's often fast enough. However, with stationary devices, I prefer hardwiring it. Much more reliable connection, less interference, tends to be faster.

But you're correct, one single 5g tower can provide coverage to way more people. I'm just concerned about interference and so forth.

I have also read that 5G towers utilise a beam-forming tech, basically creating a back and forth connection tunnel to each device with their super-MIMO cells. Thus 5G is considered to be more “environmentally friendly” and less energy consuming. At the same time, to get Fibre comparable speeds, we need more 5G towers, as mentioned before, so it is a bit of a paradox. Conversely, 3G-4G cover their area as an umbrella, whether they are being actively used or not.