Any better solutions than FTTP?

Seems like a mammoth job, huge expense and not happening anytime soon for the majority of people.

5G, isn't this an option now? As of 2019 why wouldn't providers be rolling out a 5G network for residential high speed data access.

Instead of trying to run fibre to every premises, why don't they use street lamps as nodes for mini 5G cells, data taken back via fibre... or even residential properties to host 5G cells strategically with the emphasis to provide broadband via localised 5G for residential estates / streets / neighbourhoods etc.

Keep FTTP for flats, larger buildings and business.

Considering just 15m houses will be connected to full fibre by 2025 at a projected cost of £6Bn, when you consider 4G was purchased jointly for £2.5Bn - 5G at a similar cost would be easier to deploy and potentially a fair bit cheaper. There is a lot of man maths in there. But i figured 5G will need full fibre connections anyway. And 5G is going to happen for mobile access regardless. So joint use for home broadband too,

Why not build mini cells in housing estates / streets instead? 5G is apparently low latency too.

Just curious what i'm missing here, technically.

To get the 5G hyped Gigabit speeds basically means every lamp post hosting a small cell and you still have the issues of attenuation from building materials e.g. reaching back rooms of a house.

In short by the time you fibre up every lamp post you might as well go the full hog and do FTTP, especially if the patterns of broadband usage continue, i.e. while 5G has much better signalling and latency performance once you get 100 homes in a street doing what they do over their fixed line connection it then probably not going to be so pretty latency wise.

Remember too that while mobile data allowances are improving unlimited that would suggest the average 200GB to 300GB usage from fixed line today is still some time away.

On the 4G costs, are you referring to licence costs or actual build costs of all the hardware and associated backhaul?

NOTE: There has been a rush to occupy street furniture with active hardware for use with Wi-Fi as that gives operators the basis for adding a small 5G cell.

The key to 5G is understanding the physics around the attenuation of the high frequency signals i.e. some of the demo signals could be blocked with a piece of card if you wanted to

There are two things to remember about any wireless technology (neither of which are mentioned much by proponents of the technology):

1) The bandwidth quoted is shared by all users of a mast. 5Gb might sound a lot but when it's shared by 1,000 users it's less impressive.
2) Signal attenuation. You probably only get 5Gb if you're standing underneath the mast. Users at the edge of the cell with a couple of walls in the way get a lot less than that.

As Mr. S. says - the only way to overcome these problems is to install a large number of cells by which time you've pretty much duplicated FTTP hardware. Wireless is great for mobile use. But it will never compete with a hard wired solution where bandwidth demands are high and especially not when large numbers of people in a relatively small area require high bandwidth.

Edited by Andrue (Tue 23-Oct-18 20:01:18)

Where I live the nearest lampost is about 3.5 miles away. I cannot even get 2G indoors except under favourable atmospheric conditions let alone 3G or 4G so no chance of 5G! I do however have native FTTP as does everyone in my hamlet who cares to order it. So 5G is a complete none starter as the geography and indeed fauna would make 5G as difficult and expensive to install as FTTP but less satisfactory. I am pretty sure that would be the case for many small hamlets and isolated property.

Don't panic - they will offer 5G but using a frequency band is going to give much slower speeds.

The properties that can't get FTTC quite probably don't have nearby street lights - at night I can see 2 from my bedroom window that are less than 2 miles away.