The Differences Between Mobile 5G Networks, ADSL, Fiber-to-the-Home Fixed Lines, and Broadband Internet Speeds

This year (2020) can almost be called the first year of 5G. The United States even worried that the People’s Republic of China’s Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. would erode its technological hegemony, and pulled out all the stops.

But no matter how many ways the United States tries to contain Huawei, the popularization of fifth-generation mobile communication technology (English: 5th generation mobile networks or 5th generation wireless systems, abbreviated as 5G) is already an ongoing process, and Huawei indeed holds the most related technology patents in the world.

For example, Chunghwa Telecom has quietly begun promoting various discount plans for upgrading from 4G to 5G (monthly fees starting at around NT$599, a price that isn’t very attractive to me), and the mainstream phones on the market have gradually all become 5G phones.

Even at Apple’s launch event that has been driving stock prices these past few days, the market generally believes that the 5G version of the Apple iPhone 12 will be officially released, effectively securing a foothold for 5G technology.

Now that prices are not yet affordable enough, is it necessary for us to switch to a 5G mobile network? The essence of this question lies in “Can the speed of a mobile 5G network replace ADSL fixed lines and fiber-to-the-home broadband networks?”

As for those who have a strong need to use 5G networks, they are currently mainly concentrated in two major groups: commercial purposes (such as live streamers or tech companies) and those who enjoy the spotlight (the wealthy).

In the past, whether it was 2G, 3G, or the currently mainstream 4G, network speeds could not be mentioned in the same breath as contemporary fixed lines (such as Chunghwa Telecom’s Hinet ADSL, fiber-to-the-home, or the broadband networks of cable TV). At best, they served the need to go online while playing outdoors, but network performance at such times could not handle high-intensity use.

However, the upgrade from 4G to 5G brought a dual improvement in both quality and quantity. Although this is also because the network speed of 4G mobile networks was originally only barely adequate, so by comparison 5G seems to have become the savior of the internet world, as if completely ignoring the calm and composed fixed-line giants.

But as for how many ripples it can stir up in changing the ecosystem, I personally hold an ambiguous attitude. Everyone played the same way in the past and will play the same way in the future. At most, watching 4K video outdoors will have less lag. It can be said that the current pain points of 5G are all concentrated in audio-visual entertainment uses.

As for most mobile apps, the traffic they originally consume doesn’t need to be much, and the speed limits of other websites depend on how much money the operators are willing to invest in hardware budgets. Even if 5G is fast, in reality the speed the website platform can give us won’t differ much (listen to the sound of money being spent).

Perhaps from another angle, what 4G cannot do but 5G can do, home fixed lines can not only do, but do better. Just as you would want to use your phone to download action videos, or use a fixed line at home to download steadily? Although Apple’s tablet computer Apple iPadOS can already provide a multitasking mode, using a phone or tablet, no matter how fast, basically still has a relatively singular working mode.

Conversely, if 5G doesn’t have unlimited data, then it’s truly useless. Compared to 4G’s generous data (taking the Mother’s Day NT$299 plan as an example, mobile internet volume is 12GB), the consumption speed of 5G’s generous data is also four times that of the past 4G (still theoretical). From the newly launched 4G upgrade plans, the NT$599 5G plan only provides 24GB of mobile internet volume. The usage habit of using data from the beginning of the month to the end of the month may now be used up right after payday.

Of course, I cannot deny that 5G is a good technology, but in the current process of the two Gs running in parallel and intersecting, high-priced 5G networks are temporarily useless to me. But I believe that within the next two years, system operators will gradually replace 4G base station systems, and by then there will be no need to consider between 4G and 5G, only the question of whether the price can touch one’s conscience.

Nowadays, a bunch of foreign ISPs provide cheap 1000M fixed-line speeds, and only our country is still slowly messing around with a few dozen M. Even if everyone uses 5G in the future, it would be a ghost if network speeds could be freely unleashed.

Looking back, if we analyze purely from theoretical values, the download speed of 4G networks is claimed to reach up to 300Mbps, and upload is claimed to reach 75Mbps. This is already several times faster than my home’s fiber-to-the-home (60M/20M) (currently the highest download rate of fiber-to-the-home reaches 1000M).

However, after actual testing, it can be found that depending on how much bandwidth the telecom company occupies, 4G download speeds mostly range from 20 to 50Mbps, and upload is even worse at only 10 to 20Mbps — and this is putting it generously, without even considering the possibility that phone processing performance further reduces the speed.

Now 5G mobile networks are likewise claimed to achieve transmission speeds approaching 2Gbps, exactly double the most expensive fiber-to-the-home speed. But this is likewise only a theoretical value. From 3G to the current 5G, I believe everyone should already be very clear about this set of claims from manufacturers.

Chunghwa Telecom’s statement is somewhat more tactful. In their official data, they mention that “the theoretical peak speed of Chunghwa’s 4G/5G EN-DC (EUTRA-NR Dual Connectivity) dual connectivity architecture is about 4 times that of 4G,” which means that if the actual tested 4G network speed in the past could reach 50M, then