BT to Expand 5G to Entire UK by 2028 Using Drones, Satellites, and Portable Cells, Will End 3G Service by 2023

[daveathall]

I've had no problem with BT or O2, I live in a rural setting, the connectivity and service has been fabulous for me. Before I get flamed, I call it as I see it for me.

 

[G5isAlive]

Cells have to be connected to the internet themselves to offer wireless internet connection to phones and other cellular-enabled devices. What would these drones be connected to if the area has no power or internet?

Even if the drones could directly connect to satellites through a really fast link (which I doubt is possible in the near future), they would need huge batteries to power the radios to serve hundreds or thousands of devices at the same time.

Just to give you an idea, femtocells can serve around 4-8 clients connected simultaneously (source) and they consume around 10W of power (source)... Then you have to power the link to the satellite (around 100-150W are used by current Starlink antennas). And on top of that you have to spend energy to keep the thing floating in the sky. And you also need to factor in the energy spent to fly the drones to the target location and back.

It just doesn't work.

And even if theoretically you could find a way to make it work, it would be way more expensive to deploy and less reliable than any other portable solution that doesn't need to float in the sky.

It all just sounds like an elaborate excuse to procrastinate investments to improve cell coverage where it is needed. It's like they are saying: "Coverage sucks right now when a lot of people gather around this area, but don't worry, one day we will fix the problem. With drones!". LOL

I think people are missing the boat here. They are not looking to use drones for permanent use, or for hundreds of thousands, but a very real application is the rapid extension of telemedicine in remote areas to first responders. Essentially a deployable mesh network with obviously larger ranges.

 

[daveathall]

Cells have to be connected to the internet themselves to offer wireless internet connection to phones and other cellular-enabled devices. What would these drones be connected to if the area has no power or internet?

Even if the drones could directly connect to satellites through a really fast link (which I doubt is possible in the near future), they would need huge batteries to power the radios to serve hundreds or thousands of devices at the same time.

Just to give you an idea, femtocells can serve around 4-8 clients connected simultaneously (source) and they consume around 10W of power (source)... Then you have to power the link to the satellite (around 100-150W are used by current Starlink antennas). And on top of that you have to spend energy to keep the thing floating in the sky. And you also need to factor in the energy spent to fly the drones to the target location and back.

It just doesn't work.

And even if theoretically you could find a way to make it work, it would be way more expensive to deploy and less reliable than any other portable solution that doesn't need to float in the sky.

It all just sounds like an elaborate excuse to procrastinate investments to improve cell coverage where it is needed. It's like they are saying: "Coverage sucks right now when a lot of people gather around this area, but don't worry, one day we will fix the problem. With drones!". LOL

 

[daveathall]

I think a lot of members are a bit confused as to what the drones can or cannot do. Have a look here.

5G and Drone Technology | BT's Global unit

Explore how 5G ultra-low latency and reliable connections can open up new possibilities for the latest drone technology use cases.

www.globalservices.bt.com

 

[mrsmith1]

I think a lot of members are a bit confused as to what the drones can or cannot do. Have a look here.

5G and Drone Technology | BT's Global unit

Explore how 5G ultra-low latency and reliable connections can open up new possibilities for the latest drone technology use cases.

www.globalservices.bt.com

Great article.

 

[widestload]

So this is going to take another 7 years! Whilst in the meantime (2 years) they are going to turn off 3G which ok i'm sure doesn't serve a great proportion of the public, but for those people / places it does is probably the only option. I wish companies would fully finish something before moving on to the next fanfare item that only benefits a few but they sell as the greatest thing. Feels like say Apple Maps look around, great feature but only available to a handful of cities.

 

[Arek2217]

Not really, Media doesn't understand 5G and Telco didn't do a good job in explaining their story. ( Cant blame them since they dont really need to in a sense )

5G provides lots of benefits to user and carrier, from capacity, cost reduction, deployment, spectrum efficiency. that is why the discontinuation of 3G is so much earlier compare to 4G and 2G era.

Yeah but I feel like users are actually loosing functionality or gaining very little. Weak range, no reception inside buildings. Feels like a step back, doesn't it? Other than benefits for carriers and speed for users, I don't see any additional benefits and that's why I'm sticking with my 4G plan for now.

 

[ruka.snow]

Great, we need a blanket worldwide communication network sooner or later, this would be a great start. If I am out in the middle of the highlands I'll be able to upload my photos to the backup server at hopefully at over 1 Gbps and finally video call in the middle of a field like was promised with 3g.

 

[thebeans]

Satellites are getting cheep. It costs less than building out infrastructure. The cell signals can be beamed to a fairly narrow target. Those beams can be pointed to places where the traditional towers are offline due to internet outages or lack of power. Yes, they are also reusing all of the 3g spectrum.

But how is your phone going to be powerful enough to “beam” back up to the satellite?

 

[ruka.snow]

But how is your phone going to be powerful enough to “beam” back up to the satellite?

https://www.satphone.co.uk/satellite-phone-handsets/ it isn't new tech.

 

[ChromeCloud]

View attachment 1806158

I apologize, I made the mistake of thinking they wanted to use drones to provide a boost of bandwidth in overcrowded/underserved areas and temporary gatherings. That wouldn't be realistic.

Instead they plan on using tethered drones in special situations to basically bring a wired base station to a difficult to reach location by drone transport (which makes sense and can actually work).

Got it.

 

[DaveMcM76]

I live in the Scottish highlands - I’ll believe it when I see it.

 

[Falhófnir]

They couldn't organise a coffee in a coffee shop.

Making a decent phone call or having a 4G data connection is hard enough in parts of the country!

I often find my connection defaulting back to 3G in this area, particularly indoors, despite it supposedly being fully saturated by 4G... I hope this doesn't mean 4G or no connection at all after 2023

 

[testcard]

Won’t 5G be overtaken by 6G and 7G by 2028?

 

[ScottishDuck]

As someone who works within the BT group I will say this… A lot of the infrastructure is already in place, there’s a very aggressive program from the telcos to put more masts up in dead zones. Anyone who’s got 4G at the moment will probably find 5G available in the (relative) short term.

This is really about driving the fibre rollout. 5G needs fibre links and many masts are in remote locations, it means BT can draw government money on two fronts to expand their network.

 

[bd139]

As someone who works within the BT group I will say this… A lot of the infrastructure is already in place, there’s a very aggressive program from the telcos to put more masts up in dead zones. Anyone who’s got 4G at the moment will probably find 5G available in the (relative) short term.

This is really about driving the fibre rollout. 5G needs fibre links and many masts are in remote locations, it means BT can draw government money on two fronts to expand their network.

I’ve got a 5G tower visible from my living room for the last 6 months. Still no 5G on my iPhone 12

 

[Pezimak]

As someone who works within the BT group I will say this… A lot of the infrastructure is already in place, there’s a very aggressive program from the telcos to put more masts up in dead zones. Anyone who’s got 4G at the moment will probably find 5G available in the (relative) short term.

This is really about driving the fibre rollout. 5G needs fibre links and many masts are in remote locations, it means BT can draw government money on two fronts to expand their network.

By relative short term you mean several years for places like the South West. Unless of course BT do roll this out and then you have to join them or EE or one of their MVNO's.

 

[DrV]

Yeah but I feel like users are actually loosing functionality or gaining very little. Weak range, no reception inside buildings. Feels like a step back, doesn't it? Other than benefits for carriers and speed for users, I don't see any additional benefits and that's why I'm sticking with my 4G plan for now.

5G is better than 2G/3G/4G also in indoor reception. The standards under the 5G umbrella cover a lot of different use cases, and there should be no use cases where 5G would be worse than its 2G/3G/4G counterpart.

LTE-M or NB-IoT have better link budget than any of the lower-G standards, so they have better penetration in built environment.

In rural areas the 700 MHz 5G provides larger coverage than older standards due to lower frequency (vs. 800 MHz LTE), more advanced beam forming and improved modulation techniques.

So, no-one is going to lose, if the telcos choose to implement the relevant parts of the 5G standards. Of course, that is a big if.

 

[daveathall]

I apologize, I made the mistake of thinking they wanted to use drones to provide a boost of bandwidth in overcrowded/underserved areas and temporary gatherings. That wouldn't be realistic.

Instead they plan on using tethered drones in special situations to basically bring a wired base station to a difficult to reach location by drone transport (which makes sense and can actually work).

Got it.

No need to apologise my friend. In fairness, I thought exactly as you did, it was the wording in the original article that was sketchy, I actually thought, "they cant be serious" and then looked further. I put the original to your post for info, I should have explained further.

 

[threluja]

Drones? What are they smoking?

Drones, oh behave, I want sharks with Frickin Laserbeams…..

 

[MrDerby01]

Wish the US had this type of insight. Heck.. We are still stuck bickering over voting rules here in the states. No wonder everyone else is passing us up.

 

[thesheep]

The 3G network is almost useless at this point. I think they have deliberately crippled it. Sometimes I can only get a 3G signal on EE, for some reason I can't even check email, or browse Google Maps on this, it is so slow. Only voice calls still work OK. I remember email and maps used to work fine on 3G back in the day. For some reason you need 4G before this works now.

 

[entropys]

I came here just for this comment.

And just wait til someone shoots one down.

Depends on what kind of drone. A high altitude blimp for example? Even a balloon on a tether! Biggest problem will be regulatory. Drones can also be used in construction anyway.

Anyway, Musk and fellow travellers are right now flooding LEO with relatively cheap satellites that will make the internet available practically anywhere they are allowed to by the regulators.

 

[NightFox]

When the coverage at my house was 3G, I typically got speeds of around 20mbps. With 4G, I get about 8mbps. Thank God I've still still got a few years before they downgrade me to 5G.

 

[polyphenol]

It would also be useful for natural disasters and such.

Just how many natural disasters do we get in the UK? That would benefit from an influx of 5G? And that BT could actually deliver to in a useful timescale?

OK - the "and such" does extend the possibilities, but not sure what you are thinking about.