UniFi 5G
102 points
2 hours ago
| 13 comments
| blog.ui.com
| HN
Semaphor
3 minutes ago
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OT: Does anyone know of a setting or extension for Firefox to stop those autoplaying videos? I have gifs disabled, prefers-reduced-motion on, and those videos in that article both autoplay, and start again after pausing them manually. I have no idea what the article is about (except what the title says) because I kept getting distracted by the annoying videos.
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sschueller
50 minutes ago
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I am confused, this is just a 5G router right? Like the 5 year old Huawei CPE Pro 2 but with wifi7, poe and eSim?

[1] https://consumer.huawei.com/en/routers/5g-cpe-pro-2/

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kkapelon
12 minutes ago
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Unifi is the Apple of networking gear. When something new is released the HN crowd is excited even when the same functionality existed already with another company.
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johncolanduoni
4 minutes ago
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For wireless, the prices aren’t much different from products with comparable feature sets/performance. For some niche combinations, they’re the only option that doesn’t force you way upmarket (Meraki, etc.). Most of the money they make is from small business and tiny WISPs, not HN boosters overdoing it on their home WiFi in what must be a bid to get their partner to divorce them.

Their wired stuff is a total scam since Edgerouter fell off, though. The same functionality exists on a $50 netgear managed switch (or wired router, etc.), and the shitty unified configuration interface doesn’t justify the markup at all.

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amelius
7 minutes ago
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Apple of networking? I suppose no OpenWrt then.
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johncolanduoni
11 minutes ago
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Sure, but it’s not manufactured in Ch- ah, nevermind.
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sz4kerto
21 minutes ago
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It's a modem, not a router.
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b-karl
17 minutes ago
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There are both, the router is further down the page
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kkapelon
1 hour ago
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I am already doing what is shown in the video with Teltonika OTD500, fully unlocked and with esim support as well.
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tow21
43 minutes ago
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How does the Teltonika work out for you - I nearly bought it earlier this year but it doesn't have support for external antennae. I'm just on the edge of 5G coverage and I'm not sure I want to splash out on something which I can't tune for decent reception.

Seems an odd omission for a ruggedised outside modem - the Unifi also seems to not support external antennae.

(I'd also prefer a unifi version just so it fits in the with rest of the networking infra I have in the mökki.)

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kkapelon
28 minutes ago
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OTD500 is antenna + router in a single box. There is nothing else needed. I just put it outdoors with a POE cable. Originally, I used it as a backup, but now I have an unlimited SIM, so I use it as a second internet connection.

If you mean the standard routers (like the Rutx50), Teltonika itself sells external enclosures with antennas. https://www.teltonika-networks.com/products/accessories/ante...

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dagmx
1 hour ago
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The fallback support for UniFi setups will be awesome.

I’m honestly tempted to get it for my house. My ISP downtime is pretty low but it does happen every once in a while, at the most inopportune times, which impedes working from home.

Having a wireless backup would hopefully cover those downtimes

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sschueller
44 minutes ago
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I have a wireless backup[1] using Vyos[2] and a 5G router provided for free by the 5G service provider for those rare moments when both fiber links are dead.

At the same time I would never recommend anyone get 5G internet as their primary service if you have other options and especially not from one of these cheap providers.

[1] https://sschueller.github.io/posts/wiring-a-home-with-fiber/

[2] https://sschueller.github.io/posts/vyos-router-update/#wan-f...

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sofixa
5 minutes ago
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Hey, another person running VyOS!

How are you handling updates? Do you update on a fixed cadence, or do you build your own LTS? Or do you just take a random nightly and stick to it?

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ansgri
1 hour ago
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There are now quite a few options for wifi APs with cellular backup. I use TP-Link, and it's ok for the price, I guess, and supports adding OneMesh range extenders.

The problem with this setup for me is that it doesn't work with uplink that sometimes becomes unstable yet nominally working, and in general LTE fallback triggers slowly.

Are there any prosumer-friendly options for connection bundling, which can balance uplinks continuously?

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killingtime74
1 hour ago
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I used to do that. Now I use starlink as backup
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CTDOCodebases
20 minutes ago
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Starlink has a specific backup plan too don't they?
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qwerpy
1 hour ago
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We had a 5 day power outage (Bellevue WA, not exactly in the middle of nowhere) and after 2 days both the cable internet and cell towers went down, so even 5G would not have helped. I had backup power but no internet. On the way back from Best Buy with my new starlink, everything came back online of course. But now I’m ready for the next multi day outage.

I have a network cable from my secondary WAN port on my dream machine running to my first story roof where there’s a wall mount ready for starlink to be plopped in.

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lostlogin
1 hour ago
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I’ve made the second WAN a 10gb uplink.

I wish there were cheaper 10gb switch from Ubiquiti. The link Agg is good, but still pricey.

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thatwasunusual
1 hour ago
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> after 2 days both the cable internet and cell towers went down, so even 5G would not have helped.

I discovered the same thing the hard way myself recently (in Norway); turns out that cell towers only has enough battery for ~24-36 hours (if you're lucky).

However, someone messing with the fibre to my house is a bigger possibility than power outage, so I'll probably end up with this 5G product. :)

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botto
1 hour ago
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Yeah, the fact you can use any of the ports on a dream machine as a WAN (its not optimal, but is an option) makes it really easy to have a couple of fallbacks if you really need high redundancy.
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jonplackett
32 minutes ago
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I wish website designers would remember that not everyone can see great. This text is so fine and light and they’ve also disabled screen reader
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quantummagic
21 minutes ago
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Have you tried Firefox Reader View? It allows you to set whatever text size and font is best for you.
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nake89
23 minutes ago
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Firefox reader view gives me better contrast. Also the text to speech mode works in reader view.
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jwr
1 hour ago
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The 5G max outdoor looks very good and seems to be a direct competitor to the pretty good Mikrotik LHG series. I wonder about the antenna gain, though, the Mikrotik certainly looks more impressive.

(I've been using Mikrotik LHG LTE6 kit devices for years now)

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Doohickey-d
19 minutes ago
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Antenna gain isn't everything: I've set up the LTE6 for people, and in some cases I was able to get more speed in the same location with the latest iPhone.

In locations where you're at the edge of coverage, and your phone is not getting anything at all, it's great.

I sometimes suspected that the modem in these LTE / 5G routers is less well tuned and tested with various network than what you have e.g. in an iPhone.

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nicolaslem
6 minutes ago
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This is my experience as well. Unless you actually need a directional antenna, an iPhone will be faster and more reliable than dedicated hardware.
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kkapelon
14 minutes ago
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> direct competitor to the pretty good Mikrotik LHG series

Is there a Mikrotik 5G version though? I am still waiting for that.

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amelius
51 minutes ago
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These things are nice when they work but when they don't you're completely in the dark. Even figuring out how much GB is left on your simcard is a nightmare.
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kkapelon
26 minutes ago
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Simplest solution is to get an unlimited card. Problem solved.
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amelius
9 minutes ago
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Why do limited cards even exist? Turns out there are various reasons (no need to go into them here).
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cromka
2 hours ago
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The fact that the outdoor version is directional kind of limits its adoption in mobile usage, doesn't it? Most similar products have omnidirectional antenna. Can't imagine you would rotate it by hand on a boat towards the land while on passage
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botto
1 hour ago
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This product targets businesses where they will mount it in a fixed position and target a specific tower so they get the best throughput.
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cromka
1 hour ago
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Did you read through the press release?
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nkrisc
1 hour ago
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Not GP but I’m trying to figure out what you’re insinuating.

> For tougher environments or deployments with poor indoor cellular coverage, the outdoor model maintains the same high performance cellular connectivity with improved antenna performance in a durable IP67 rated enclosure. It is built for rooftop installs, off site locations, and mobile deployments where reliability is critical. Just like its indoor counterpart, you can also connect it via any PoE port, anywhere on your network, greatly simplifying cabling requirements.

And the first image they show of the outdoor model is it installed in a fixed location on a rooftop.

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k33l0r
39 minutes ago
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The video shows it on a moving vehicle
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gvkhna
1 hour ago
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I think it’s going to be targeting mostly stationary HA redundant uplinks. Backup for primary uplink or low usage primary link. In those scenarios pointing at your nearest antenna fixed is much better than an omnidirectional antenna.
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cromka
1 hour ago
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They clearly mention mobile use and show it on the animation as well. Which is why I am surprised.
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phoronixrly
1 hour ago
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Can't wait for this to get OpenWrt support so I can buy it and the first thing I do to be to nuke the UBNT firmware.
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kkapelon
10 minutes ago
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There are several other companies (e.g. Teltonika, glinet) that offer similar solutions that can use OpenWrt today
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johncolanduoni
38 minutes ago
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Is OpenWRT on Unifi APs any good? I hadn’t heard of it before, and I couldn’t find any performance comparisons on a quick search. Ubiquiti has gone downhill on a lot of things the last 5 years or so, but their radio firmware has always been a step up (within their price range) for me. I wouldn’t mind ditching the Unifi controller software though.
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yuvadam
21 minutes ago
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I don't recall their latest hardware is supported, but why would you want that anyway if you're not looking to go all in on their controller stack?
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johncolanduoni
14 minutes ago
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The controller is annoying and changes completely every 6 months, and for home I use basically none of its features beyond configuring the AP. Virtualy all the issues I’ve had with Unifi APs were controller bugs, telling the AP firmware to do stupid things when it could have done literally nothing.

That said, I have some concerns that the OpenWRT AP firmware is not as optimized as the Unifi firmware is for that specific hardware. Mostly for wireless performance, but I also don’t want to hit some weird CPU bottleneck.

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tucnak
1 hour ago
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> Up to 2 Gbps downlink

> 2.5 Gbit/s PoE to upstream switch

Can anybody explain to me why these supposedly premier networking devices are lacking so much in bandwidth? I get it that mmWave is really only ever realistically going to hit 2.5G over the air, but is there any reason why they're not willing to provide at least 10G copper, or an actual SFP port? Hell, even Macs support 10G these days. I never understood this. Do they mean 2 Gbps downlink per client, or per device in total? If it's the former, 2.5G wired seems like a major bottleneck to any serious consumption.

If a single client at 2 Gbps is all the promise of 5G amounted to, well, it would be disappointing to say the least.

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johncolanduoni
51 minutes ago
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This is a modem, it itself is the client of a cell tower/base station. So unless you put it in a faraday cage with the base station next to it, 2G is almost certainly enough.

The better reason to put a 10G transceiver in this would be that some (cheap, honestly garbage) SFP+ transceivers can’t negotiate anything between 1G and 10G. But I’ve only seen that on bargain-bin hardware so I don’t know that they should be designing products around it.

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jasoncartwright
1 hour ago
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I think you answered your own question - also the places where mmWave is available, there is also often other better internet connection options.
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fulafel
1 hour ago
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The whole 2.5 G spec is a weird step for ethernet speeds too. It's unfortunate it took off.
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tucnak
57 minutes ago
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They said the same thing about 40G but hey, I've loved it for bridging the gap between my two (10G and 100G, respectively) Mikrotik switches. You can have a dozen Gigabit ports, as well as up to four true 10G devices on your aggregation switch, and neither would be bottlenecked by traffic to and from the backside. This has been a massive boon. However, when it comes to 2.5G, I struggle to find one good reason to use it; such a tiny step-up in bandwidth, and for what?
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johncolanduoni
45 minutes ago
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40G on Mikrotik is just channel bonding of 4 10G links at layer 2. It’s not like the vast majority of 100G that does layer 1 bonding. I really don’t know why they did it other than to have a bigger number on the spec sheet - I can’t imagine they save any money having a weird MAC setup almost nobody else uses on a few low-volume models.
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u8080
39 minutes ago
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1x PCIE 3.0 has 8 Gbps raw speed - for 2.5Gbps duplex Ethernet you'll need 6~7 Gbps of raw link to CPU.

For 5Gbps and higher, you'll need another PCIE line - and SOHO motherboards are usually already pretty tight on PCIE lanes.

10GbE will require 4x3.0 lanes

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johncolanduoni
32 minutes ago
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Are motherboards commonly using PCIe 3.0 for onboard peripherals these days? I wouldn’t expect it to save them much money, but my PCIe knowledge is constrained to the application layer - I know next to nothing about the PHY or associated costs.
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JoshTriplett
54 minutes ago
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> However, when it comes to 2.5G, I struggle to find one good reason to use it; such a tiny step-up in bandwidth, and for what?

Portability and heat. You can get a small USB 2.5G adapter that produces negligible heat, but a Thunderbolt 10G adapter is large and produces a substantial amount of heat.

I use 10G at home, but the adapter I throw into my laptop bag is a tiny 2.5G adapter.

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johncolanduoni
43 minutes ago
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I’m sure it depends on the model, but in my experience if you force a 10G copper transceiver to 2.5G the insane heat generation goes away. I don’t have any Thunderbolt 10G adapters, but I’m kind of surprised they’re much larger. A SFP+ transceiver is the same size as a SFP one.
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flanked-evergl
1 hour ago
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Just bought a Gl.iNet Puli. It's only 4G but seems like a better option if you want to supply internet to some devices that you move around. Planning to use it for setup and management of a headless presentation PC as it can directly be connected to the LAN port.
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walterbell
1 hour ago
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Does it support eSIM? For backup internet, eSIM is good for avoiding monthly subscription, by paying per GB when needed.
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flanked-evergl
1 hour ago
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I have read that people managed to get an eSIM installed on it, but I think there are also physical eSIM options. See https://www.gl-inet.com/solutions/esim/

Edit: The SIMPoYo eSIM Physical Card (see https://www.gl-inet.com/campaign/simpoyo-cards/ ) seems really cool, may even be nice for a phone.

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yapyap
42 minutes ago
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I gotta say, I hate it when companies use “xxx bits per second”, whether its Mega or Giga nobody uses bits per second and for the average consumer it’s very unclear that this differs from bytes.

Having to explain to relatives and such that “yeah you actually have to divide that by 8” is a hassle and I get tricked by it subconsciously at times as well.

2 gbps meaning 250 megabytes per second is a SCAM. A marketing sham at it’s finest.

“I have 100 mbps download” meaning “I get 12.5 megabytes download per second” is ridiculous!!

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johncolanduoni
25 minutes ago
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If you really want to piss people off, use Gibibits - 1024 * 1024 * 1024 bits. The ratio between those and Gigabytes is ~7.451.
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AceJohnny2
41 minutes ago
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and how do you feel about HDD vendors (and Apple) using giga-/tera- for their strictly SI power-of-ten and not power-of-two meaning?
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johncolanduoni
22 minutes ago
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This ship sailed out of view a long time ago, the only GB you’ll see that is still base-2 is RAM. And that’s only because you literally can’t address physical RAM in non power-of-2 blocks in most architectures.
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kortilla
38 minutes ago
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That’s not marketing related at all. It’s how network speeds have been measured long before ISPs were a business.

A byte per second is no more intuitive than a nibble per second or a bit per second. You might be used to byte as a power user because of storage, but I assure you that to regular people “256 gigabytes” is a meaningless number as well.

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ur-whale
1 hour ago
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We're doing ads on HN now?
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grim_io
55 minutes ago
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Sir, this might not be a Wendy's, but this is a VC owned site that regularly shills its questionable investments.
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johncolanduoni
20 minutes ago
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And for most of the people here, buying any 5G mmWave modem is a questionable investment.
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skrebbel
1 hour ago
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I see you've never opened HN during an Apple product launch event
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haunter
44 minutes ago
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The majority of posts are ads on HN

Did you know there is an entire post category for ads and self-promotion? https://news.ycombinator.com/show

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