5G technology the battle for latency Posted On September 24, 2019 Angel Eulises Ortiz 0
5G technology the battle for latency. We were recently exploring the impact of 5G on data centers in this HostDime blog; likewise, already on a personal level, I was watching and writing about The Hummingbird Project , where there is no blush, at the fiction level, a connectivity with a latency of 15 ms or less to join the stock exchange of Kanzas with fiber optic The New York Stock Exchange. More than one will be questioning the rationale for this comment. Well, for those who have not seen the connection, I will explain it in detail.
How fast data can travel
Physics tells us that the speed of light is equal to the maximum speed that a particle without mass can travel in a vacuum: 186,282 miles / second or 299,792 km / second.
But the data is not completely without mass. The data does not travel directly on a fiber cable (even if the cable is straight) because it bounces off the inner walls of the cable. In addition, the data can only travel between 60 and 100 miles (96-160 kM) before it is necessary to “increase it”. However, every time the signal has to move through an amplifier, it causes a latency that is generally around 1 ms. In the movie, the main characters discovered that they had too many signal amplifiers, and if they eliminated some of them, they could reach their 15 ms latency reduction target and both would be rich.
And 15 ms of latency is very good. The theoretical speed of light from New York City to Los Angeles is 20 ms. But keep these facts in mind: data bounces off the walls of the fiber cable, reinforcements that steal latency are essential and there is no straight and continuous cable buried from NYC to LA. And these facts mean that data has to be transferred or "skipped" from one network to another five or six times, which causes even more latency.
Therefore, the best case for a one-way data trip from New York City to Los Angeles is around 45 ms. Since the speed of light time is 20 ms, that means there would be 25 ms of latency (delay) using the best available technology.
The Hummingbird Project was fiction, but a true story was captured in Michael Lewis's 2014 exhibition, Flash Boys, when Spread Networks built an 827-mile fiber cable from Chicago to New York, and a line of microwave towers specifically for High frequency trade. However, the company could never obtain access rights to realize the dream.
The promise of 5G is that it is essentially free of latency <1 ms from wherever you send and receive data worldwide. This makes applications such as remote surgery, robotic police forces, immersive video games, holograms, augmented or virtual reality experience, and many more possible. However, latency below 1 ms does not mean instant communication and this is where 5G claims are misleading. The speed of light tells us that the data can only go so fast with a theoretical journey from New York City to Los Angeles that lasts 20 ms without latency!
I'm not here to rain on anyone's digital transformation parade, I'm just exposing the facts. 5G will be 100 times faster than 4G, which is a huge improvement! But it will not break the laws of physics.
5G will have a huge impact on local or small areas, which is why almost all 5G demonstrations have taken place in stadiums. For 5G to work at the claimed sub 1ms latency, local communities or clusters must be enabled by a local mobile edge cloud (MEC).
How fast data can travel
Physics tells us that the speed of light is equal to the maximum speed that a particle without mass can travel in a vacuum: 186,282 miles / second or 299,792 km / second.
But the data is not completely without mass. The data does not travel directly on a fiber cable (even if the cable is straight) because it bounces off the inner walls of the cable. In addition, the data can only travel between 60 and 100 miles (96-160 kM) before it is necessary to “increase it”. However, every time the signal has to move through an amplifier, it causes a latency that is generally around 1 ms. In the movie, the main characters discovered that they had too many signal amplifiers, and if they eliminated some of them, they could reach their 15 ms latency reduction target and both would be rich.
And 15 ms of latency is very good. The theoretical speed of light from New York City to Los Angeles is 20 ms. But keep these facts in mind: data bounces off the walls of the fiber cable, reinforcements that steal latency are essential and there is no straight and continuous cable buried from NYC to LA. And these facts mean that data has to be transferred or "skipped" from one network to another five or six times, which causes even more latency.
Therefore, the best case for a one-way data trip from New York City to Los Angeles is around 45 ms. Since the speed of light time is 20 ms, that means there would be 25 ms of latency (delay) using the best available technology.
The Hummingbird Project was fiction, but a true story was captured in Michael Lewis's 2014 exhibition, Flash Boys, when Spread Networks built an 827-mile fiber cable from Chicago to New York, and a line of microwave towers specifically for High frequency trade. However, the company could never obtain access rights to realize the dream.
The promise of 5G is that it is essentially free of latency <1 ms from wherever you send and receive data worldwide. This makes applications such as remote surgery, robotic police forces, immersive video games, holograms, augmented or virtual reality experience, and many more possible. However, latency below 1 ms does not mean instant communication and this is where 5G claims are misleading. The speed of light tells us that the data can only go so fast with a theoretical journey from New York City to Los Angeles that lasts 20 ms without latency!
I'm not here to rain on anyone's digital transformation parade, I'm just exposing the facts. 5G will be 100 times faster than 4G, which is a huge improvement! But it will not break the laws of physics.
5G will have a huge impact on local or small areas, which is why almost all 5G demonstrations have taken place in stadiums. For 5G to work at the claimed sub 1ms latency, local communities or clusters must be enabled by a local mobile edge cloud (MEC).
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