5G versus Wi-Fi? FIGHT!

5G versus Wi-Fi fight - who will win?

  • Total voters
    21
vishalrao

vishalrao

Global Moral Police
Skilled
Does anyone else foresee 5G (and beyond) technology eventually killing off or at least relegating Wi-Fi technology to niche usage like only indoor extremely high speed intranet?

Analogy would be similar to how SSD technology has pretty much relegated HDD technology to niche use cases like very high volume data storage?
 
vishalrao said:
Does anyone else foresee 5G (and beyond) technology eventually killing off or at least relegating Wi-Fi technology to niche usage like only indoor extremely high speed intranet?

Analogy would be similar to how SSD technology has pretty much relegated HDD technology to niche use cases like very high volume data storage?
Click to expand...
5G might come next year to India but wifi everywhere is always good I think.
 
How can 5G replace WiFi? To have your own 5G network you need to buy spectrum, have ISP license, etc. If you are asking if I will ditch my own WiFi network and completely rely on telcos 5G network for wireless internet access, then the answer is no. I like to have control on my network.
Many general users may do it though. Especially since cutting edge WiFi hardware seems to be a lot more expensive than paying telcos a monthly fee.
 
Yes look at current 5G deployment as FWA aka fixed wireless access aka 5G home broadband. Plus I am not specifically restricting to current gen 5G but considering future gen like 6G and beyond.

Related to my SSD vs HDD analogy... Remember the early days when SSDs were costly and unreliable but look at the situation today.
 
bhp91 said:
How can 5G replace WiFi? To have your own 5G network you need to buy spectrum, have ISP license, etc. If you are asking if I will ditch my own WiFi network and completely rely on telcos 5G network for wireless internet access, then the answer is no. I like to have control on my network.
Many general users may do it though. Especially since cutting edge WiFi hardware seems to be a lot more expensive than paying telcos a monthly fee.
Click to expand...
I am saying that if the Telcos bring 5G next year we can use it but relying on wifi for general usage where it's provided is always preferable because for 5G I need to upgrade to 5G enabled phones where normal janata might not afford it and might become generally available after 1 or 2 years of 5G introduction into any country.

So rely on wifi where ever available and use the 5G when it's available.
 
vishalrao said:
Yes look at current 5G deployment as FWA aka fixed wireless access aka 5G home broadband. Plus I am not specifically restricting to current gen 5G but considering future gen like 6G and beyond.

Related to my SSD vs HDD analogy... Remember the early days when SSDs were costly and unreliable but look at the situation today.
Click to expand...
Yes my 1st SSD was only 240GB and that too SATA 2 I think and it was in 2013 and it took almost 6 to 7 years to become mainstream.
 
My first SSDs were crucial brand 64gb and 128gb bought IIRC back in 2010.

Was completely blown away by the improvement in windows bootup , app startup and general os and app responsiveness... Even the right click context menu sped up immensely.
 
bssunilreddy said:
5G might come next year to India
Click to expand...
only in documents bro only in documents.
we don't even have a sustainable 3g speed in this country that too in 2022.

vishalrao said:
Does anyone else foresee 5G (and beyond) technology eventually killing off or at least relegating Wi-Fi technology to niche usage like only indoor extremely high speed intranet?
Click to expand...
India?
sorry not gonna happen.. first give me a GPRS/Edge network which is reliable and i dont have to go stand in balcony to make voice calls.
 
I meant to compare only the technology itself not where it's being deployed and with what success, but yes we can only hope that mistakes are not repeated in the Indian market.
 
bssunilreddy said:
I am saying that if the Telcos bring 5G next year we can use it but relying on wifi for general usage where it's provided is always preferable because for 5G I need to upgrade to 5G enabled phones where normal janata might not afford it and might become generally available after 1 or 2 years of 5G introduction into any country.

So rely on wifi where ever available and use the 5G when it's available.
Click to expand...
When 4G speeds drop to below 20 Mbps in areas of high density, I am not sure how anyone expects 5G to be able to provide any realistic speeds in densely populated areas. It will also be load-limited and will always have a cap making it unsuitable for home use.

Fixed line broadband is here to stay for quite some time.
 
t3chg33k said:
When 4G speeds drop to below 20 Mbps in areas of high density, I am not sure how anyone expects 5G to be able to provide any realistic speeds in densely populated areas. It will also be load-limited and will always have a cap making it unsuitable for home use.

Fixed line broadband is here to stay for quite some time.
Click to expand...
In my house when our wifi is offline we all get good speeds when using our 4G and 3G Sims. I never tried to find out about 4G speeds in greater density areas because I always used to stay at home other than 15 months of employment in my friends company.So can't comment on speeds when greater density is there in populated areas.
 
WiFi is like mother. She's here and you can rely on her 100%.

5G is like some person you saw on posters. No idea how that is in person.
 
Given the current state of telecom and broadband infrastructure, I would rather these companies return to fixed line telephones which were more consistently reliable.
These idiots should first be held accountable for the nonexistent QOS. I don't understand why they cannot solve this basic issue inspite of moving from one generation to the next.
5G makes big promises with latency but I am not optimistic and would like to keep 0 expectations.
Coming to the OP, I would have thought these were more complementary rather than competitive -
www.intel.com

Comparing 5G vs. Wi-Fi 6

Learn how 5G and Wi-Fi 6 are different and how they can work together to revolutionize wireless technology.
www.intel.com www.intel.com
 
Last edited:
I don't see how this is possible. Most people have multiple devices at home these days. Does each device get its own 5G connection? Or do we go back to plugging in dongles into our router?

I don't think wireless can replicate the reliability of wired connection. Even inside the house, wi-fi is not as reliable as ethernet (pretty close these days though). 4G speeds fluctuate like anything. One minute I'll be downloading an 80 MB app in 5 seconds, next minute it will be struggling to open Reddit. I don't expect things to be significantly better with 5G.

And now that there's no Jio to bring prices down, 5G is definitely going to be way more expensive than 4G. Jio was built ground up to be a 4G network and had the favour of certain people which allowed it to operate at near zero revenue for a year. Their present rates are way higher than their initial rates already. So I don't expect unlimited 300 mbps 5G for 1000 rupees a month, something which many ISPs provide already.
 
If you're comparing technology then still the results don't seems optimistic because with SSDs though were costly back then but had provable performance which does not seem the case with 3, 4gs as they have network issues, misrouting, region dependent speed, regions dependent better network provider.

If we had solved these issues with the present tech we might have been able to see a bright outcome out of 5g vs wifi.
 
vishalrao said:
Does anyone else foresee 5G (and beyond) technology eventually killing off or at least relegating Wi-Fi technology to niche usage like only indoor extremely high speed intranet?
Click to expand...
Mobile did not replace landline which Wifi is for a lot of us. In the US there is wifi calling so 5G and that are comparable.

What I'm more interested in this 5G business is what frequencies are they going to get. Higher than the 2,300Mhz that 4G runs on isn't going to be great for range.

I want to see 3 digit frequencies and the operator that has that will get my subscription. In that sense 5G will be better than 4 & 3G.
Ramadhir Singh said:
first give me a GPRS/Edge network which is reliable and i dont have to go stand in balcony to make voice calls.
Click to expand...
I used to be able to make calls from the bedroom, but not any more even on 2G !! receiving works and messaging but not calling.

Unless I move into the living room the call won't even connect.

It used to couple of years ago :bored::sorry:
 
Back
Top