5Geee - part the third

You have been wondering about real 5G's progress? Haven't you? I, among many, found the physics of mmWave to be insurmountable, at least at a cost that the market would bear. Here's a recent report on the state of mmWave. It ain't pleasant.

Millimeter-wave has also seen barely any uptake outside of a handful of countries, including the United States, and even there it's been limited. Companies like Verizon — initially bullish on millimeter-wave — have instead pivoted to other newly available bands, most notably the C-band (4 to 8 GHz).

The other carriers, not being stupid, went all in on the lower bands, including C-band. So they've been able to claim widespread 5G coverage. Well... what the Regulators allow carriers to say is "5G". And service not obviously better than LTE.

Now for the understatement of all time:

It's too early to say whether or how 6G development will be affected by 5G's early stumbles, but there are a handful of possible impacts. It's conceivable, for example, given the lackluster debut of millimeter-wave, that the industry devotes less time in terahertz-wave research and instead considers how cellular and Wi-Fi technologies could be merged in areas requiring dense coverage.

"Early stumbles"? Yeah right. 6G? Somebody's not just been smoking something, they've been mainlining rocket fuel. Yeah cain't fool physics.

mmWave bandwidth - 10 Gbs+, or 600 Mbps, depending on source
C-Band bandwidth - 100 - 500 Mbps
sub-6 bandwidth - 150 - 200 Mbps

So who's got what?

most mmWave - Verizon
most C-Band - T-Mobile (aka, plus Sprint)
most sub-6 - AT&T poor baby

Of course, all of this misdirection is courtesy of the regulators, who've allowed carriers to label most anything they want as "5G". Even allowing AT&T to label their LTE service as "5GE" or "5G Evolution". Liars will lie and cheaters will cheat.

Here's a puff piece on the future of "6G".

This new network can bring communication to rural areas and shape how various industries conduct their day-to-day operations.
[my snicker]

Riiiiiiiiight!! Flyoverland barely has 4G, and may be a bit of sub-6 5G. A corn farm doesn't have many buildings or trees to stop mmWave signal, that's true. But even over a flat, wide open space real 5G can only make it 1,000 feet. Won't be much good getting to the south 40. And 6G?

Engineers at LG and Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft have now successfully beamed 6G signals between two buildings over 100 m (328 ft), marking a distance record. That's a fair jump over the previous record of 15 m (49 ft), set by Samsung just a few months ago.

Cool!! Put a 6G radio on every 10th corn stalk.