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Greenhill
Founder
Founder

Why is 4g blocked?

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Hello everyone, 

I use 4g with stadia via 4g wifi hotspot. It works great with wifi hotspot, infact it works better than my home 2.4ghz wifi and 5ghz wifi, due to less interference and more stable connection. But why is using 4g directly blocked or not allowed? Is it due to health concerns? Or is it perhaps to prevent accidental data loss? And is there a way to bypass the 4g block on stadia so that I can use it directly without rerouting my device through an unnecessary secondary 4g wifi hotspot emmitter.

 

Thanks

2 Kudos
Best Response
Ivan
Platinum Stadia Guide
Platinum Stadia Guide

@Greenhill Google hasn't really provided us with any official answer, but a few of my guesses:

  1. A lot of people don't have unlimited / strict mobile plan. This way, they don't have to deal with angry Stadia users that suddenly gets charged hundred of dollars in phone bill
  2. Google doesn't want to annoy carriers. A lot of carriers provide unlimited data plan, expecting not everyone will take advantage of it. If more Stadia users are actually using their unlimited plan to the max, that means more bandwidth overall used, and it hurts the carrier's bottom line. 

In any case, I know this is one of the most highly requested feature, so make sure to submit your feedback through the Stadia app so Google can be notified. The more people expressing their interest, the better chance it can become a reality.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stadia Guides are not employed by Google. Opinions are my own.

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6 Kudos
LaughingMatter
Community Member

Came across this thread late, thought I'd clarify a few things. (I don't mean to pick on Rakumei, I appreciate the contribution, at least because it prompted me to answer...)

Cell towers aren't very far from phones in most metro areas, and the cellular signal literally travels at the speed of light (it's actually FASTER in free-space air than in fiber optics). But you are normally within (say) a mile of a tower, which is less than ~5 MICROseconds (not milliseconds) for the cellular signal itself to propagate (not considering other factors). Even geographic distance -- on the same continent -- isn't a huge factor, which might surprise you. Data can travel at ~200 miles per milisecond -- but in fiber + switching hops, etc., let's call it 100 miles per millisecond. If you have 4-5 data centers throughout the US, that's enough to keep the geographic latency below 15ms (downlink, one-way) = 30ms round-trip.

Believe it or not, even local GPU rendering for many games can be 80+ms of latency, due to heavy pipelining. The real challenges with 4G/5G are that few streamer applications (but NOT including stadia) are well tuned for cellular networks. Also, the carriers should open up APIs that would (without getting into too many specifics) improve overall end-to-end quality of experience and reduce the "finger-to-photon" latency (lag).

There are MANY other factors contributing to latency and jitter. The distance to towers actually isn't one of them, though there are some other things that can be improved on cellular that would help.

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0 Kudos
8 Replies
Ivan
Platinum Stadia Guide
Platinum Stadia Guide

@Greenhill Google hasn't really provided us with any official answer, but a few of my guesses:

  1. A lot of people don't have unlimited / strict mobile plan. This way, they don't have to deal with angry Stadia users that suddenly gets charged hundred of dollars in phone bill
  2. Google doesn't want to annoy carriers. A lot of carriers provide unlimited data plan, expecting not everyone will take advantage of it. If more Stadia users are actually using their unlimited plan to the max, that means more bandwidth overall used, and it hurts the carrier's bottom line. 

In any case, I know this is one of the most highly requested feature, so make sure to submit your feedback through the Stadia app so Google can be notified. The more people expressing their interest, the better chance it can become a reality.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stadia Guides are not employed by Google. Opinions are my own.
6 Kudos
FydonTillida
Community Member

It would be nice if they did have an override. I only have 4g Internet. It is both unlimited in speed and data. I'm playing Stadia on my laptop using my phone as a hotspot and some games work fine. I'm near a few 5g areas and have a compatible phone so I could even have a better connection when I'm using my phone away from home. I do get it that I'm in the minority though.

1 Kudo
Fronica
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

Yeah I bought Stadia back in February thinking I'd be able to use my superior 4G connection and was saddened to learn it was blocked. That's limited my play to the local library (which had been closed btw due to covid19) resulting in only about 8-10 hours of the $130 + $60 for Red Dead Redemption 2 I've invested. Feels bad.

0 Kudos
Rakumei
Community Member

It would be a nice feature but just a word of caution to the overly-optimistic. Stadia would probably play like garbage on a mobile data connection. This is probably part of Google's calculus as well. The reason is the latency. Towers are far away. Communication is limited by physics. Current esimates for 4g latency put it anywhere from 100-600ms on average. Which is...really bad.

0 Kudos
LaughingMatter
Community Member

Came across this thread late, thought I'd clarify a few things. (I don't mean to pick on Rakumei, I appreciate the contribution, at least because it prompted me to answer...)

Cell towers aren't very far from phones in most metro areas, and the cellular signal literally travels at the speed of light (it's actually FASTER in free-space air than in fiber optics). But you are normally within (say) a mile of a tower, which is less than ~5 MICROseconds (not milliseconds) for the cellular signal itself to propagate (not considering other factors). Even geographic distance -- on the same continent -- isn't a huge factor, which might surprise you. Data can travel at ~200 miles per milisecond -- but in fiber + switching hops, etc., let's call it 100 miles per millisecond. If you have 4-5 data centers throughout the US, that's enough to keep the geographic latency below 15ms (downlink, one-way) = 30ms round-trip.

Believe it or not, even local GPU rendering for many games can be 80+ms of latency, due to heavy pipelining. The real challenges with 4G/5G are that few streamer applications (but NOT including stadia) are well tuned for cellular networks. Also, the carriers should open up APIs that would (without getting into too many specifics) improve overall end-to-end quality of experience and reduce the "finger-to-photon" latency (lag).

There are MANY other factors contributing to latency and jitter. The distance to towers actually isn't one of them, though there are some other things that can be improved on cellular that would help.

0 Kudos
LaughingMatter
Community Member

Oh and to be less obtuse in my answer --

Stadia's actually done an admirable job in tuning for cellular. They were also prudent to offer it as an experimental feature. Top-notch work, and probably the best that can be done w/o actually interfacing with the Telcos via APIs.

0 Kudos
AstronoCraft
Community Member

Maybe 4G isn't stable enough...

0 Kudos
JamesFromGoogle
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi everyone,
This is an older post so we're going to go ahead and lock it now. If anyone still needs help after trying the suggestions here, I'd recommend creating a new post so that you can get better visibility in our community.


Thank you,
James

0 Kudos