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5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

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Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#111

Post by immibis »

suddenlybananas wrote: post #94
pr337h4m wrote: post #88

>Regulators may also have to consider whether fewer operators may be better for a country, with perhaps only a single underlying fixed and mobile network in many places—just as utilities for electricity, water, gas, and the like are often structured around single (or a limited set of) operators. There are no words to describe how stupid this is.

I think that it should be run as a public service like utilities and should be as cheap as humanly possible. Why not?

Three things are necessary then:

1. It must be well-run.

2. It must be guaranteed to continue to be well-run.

3. If someone can do it better, they must be allowed to do so - and then their improvements have to be folded into the network somehow if there is to be only one network.

Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#112

Post by javier2 »

fny wrote: post #110
suddenlybananas wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that it should be run as a public service like utilities and should be as cheap as humanly possible. Why not?

Because competition drives innovation. 5G exists as widely as it does because carriers were driven to meet the standard and provide faster service to their customers. This article is essentially arguing innovation is dead in this space and there is no need for bandwidth-related improvements. At the same time, there is no 5G provider without a high-speed cap or throttling for hot spots. What would happen if enough peo…

Well, 5G is unlikely to be built in my area for the next decade, meanwhile 3 operators are building networks in the slightly more populated areas.

Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#113

Post by oytis »

suddenlybananas wrote: post #94
pr337h4m wrote: post #88

>Regulators may also have to consider whether fewer operators may be better for a country, with perhaps only a single underlying fixed and mobile network in many places—just as utilities for electricity, water, gas, and the like are often structured around single (or a limited set of) operators. There are no words to describe how stupid this is.

I think that it should be run as a public service like utilities and should be as cheap as humanly possible. Why not?

Internet is treated this way in Germany, and it's slow and expensive. Eastern European countries that put their bets on competition instead of regulation have more bang for the buck in their network infrastructure

Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#114

Post by randcraw »

bsimpson wrote: post #70
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #8

> Transmitting high-end 4K video today requires 15 Mb/s, according to Netflix. Home broadband upgrades from, say, hundreds of Mb/s to 1,000 Mb/s (or 1 Gb/s) typically make little to no noticeable difference for the average end user. What I find fascinating is that in a lot of situations mobile phones are now way faster than wired internet for lots of people. My parents never upgraded their home internet despite there…

Verizon Fios sells gigabit in NYC for $80/mo. They're constantly running promotions "get free smartglases/video game systems/etc if you sign up for gigabit." Turns out that gigabit is still way more than most people need, even if it's 2025 and you spend hours per day online.

That's what I pay for FIOS internet 20 miles north of Philly. I suspect that's their standard rate for 1 Gb/s service everywhere in the US.

Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#115

Post by immibis »

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #8

> Transmitting high-end 4K video today requires 15 Mb/s, according to Netflix. Home broadband upgrades from, say, hundreds of Mb/s to 1,000 Mb/s (or 1 Gb/s) typically make little to no noticeable difference for the average end user. What I find fascinating is that in a lot of situations mobile phones are now way faster than wired internet for lots of people. My parents never upgraded their home internet despite there…

It's not that mobile is fast, it's that home internet is slow. It's the same reason home internet in places like Africa, South Korea and Eastern Europe is faster than in the USA and Western Europe: home internet was built out on old technology (cable/DSL) and never upgraded because (cynically) incumbent monopolies won't allow it or (less cynically) governments don't want to pay to rip up all the roads again.

Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#116

Post by [deleted] »

javier2 wrote: post #112
fny wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because competition drives innovation. 5G exists as widely as it does because carriers were driven to meet the standard and provide faster service to their customers. This article is essentially arguing innovation is dead in this space and there is no need for bandwidth-related improvements. At the same time, there is no 5G provider without a high-speed cap or throttling for hot spots. What would happen if enough peo…

Well, 5G is unlikely to be built in my area for the next decade, meanwhile 3 operators are building networks in the slightly more populated areas.

[deleted]

Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#118

Post by newsreaderguy »

Marsymars wrote: post #107
pr337h4m wrote: post #88

>Regulators may also have to consider whether fewer operators may be better for a country, with perhaps only a single underlying fixed and mobile network in many places—just as utilities for electricity, water, gas, and the like are often structured around single (or a limited set of) operators. There are no words to describe how stupid this is.

I dunno, it makes conceptual sense. Networks infrastructure is largely commodity utilities where duplication is effectively a waste of resources. e.g. you wouldn't expect your home to have multiple natural gas connections from competing companies. Regulators have other ways to incentivize quality/pricing and can mandate competition at levels of the stack other than the underlying infrastructure. I wouldn't expect tha…

IMO this can be neatly solved with a peer-to-peer market based system similar to Helium https://www.helium.com/mobile.

(I know that helium's original IoT network mostly failed due to lack of pmf, but idk about their 5G stuff)

Network providers get paid for the bandwidth that flows over their nodes, but the protocol also allows for economically incentivizing network expansion and punishing congestion with subsidization / taxing.

You can unify everyone under the same "network", but the infrastructure providers running it are diverse and in competition.

Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#119

Post by fny »

There is not a single 5G provider with unlimited high-speed access. Not one.

Perhaps this has something to do with limited mobile bandwidth?

Now imagine we add more bandwidth: what would happen to Comcast and other fiber monopolists if people started replacing fiber with 5G?

Re: 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows

#120

Post by dgacmu »

fny wrote: post #110
suddenlybananas wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that it should be run as a public service like utilities and should be as cheap as humanly possible. Why not?

Because competition drives innovation. 5G exists as widely as it does because carriers were driven to meet the standard and provide faster service to their customers. This article is essentially arguing innovation is dead in this space and there is no need for bandwidth-related improvements. At the same time, there is no 5G provider without a high-speed cap or throttling for hot spots. What would happen if enough peo…

Competition drives innovation, but also, we've generally seen that things like municipal broadband are _more_ innovative than an incumbent monopoly carrier. Large chunks of the US don't have much competition at all in wired services, and if we approach that in wireless, we are likely to see the same effects starting where the local monopoly tries to extract maximum dollars out of an aging infrastructure. Lookin' at you, Comcast, lookin' at you.
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