121–130 of 376 posts
Someone I know at a mixed-signal company many of whose chips go to 5G deployments said their revenue really slowed down last year due to 5G deployment uptake decreasing significantly.
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?
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…
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 y…
>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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In downtown Columbus Ohio the only internet provider (Spectrum) maxes out at maybe 5 mbps up (down 50-100x that), it's not just a rural issue, non-competitive ISPs even in urban cities want you to pay for business accounts to get any kind of upload whatsoever
Is it really a technical capacity issue, or just market segmentation? Usually, it's possible to get so-called business service with higher upload bandwidth, even at residential addresses.
>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.
Same for mobile infrastructure would be great as well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The last bit is just stuff I wanted to whine about. I obviously know it is faster, you don't need to explain that concept. I have just never had need of any significant internet speed on my phone. I don't download things, and only sometimes stream video. Most of the time I am just checking emails, or calendars, or something trivial like that. Unless I do some kind of benchmark, I can't notice the difference between 4…
If 5G lived up to everything it was touted to do, you could use a 5G hotspot for your home internet would could be a huge positive in areas that only have one ISP available. However, 5G does not live up to the promises, and your traffic is much more heavily shaped than non-wireless ISPs.
I can grant that a typical usage of wireless bandwidth doesn't require more than 10Mbps. So, what does "even faster buy you"?
The answer is actually pretty simple, at any given frequency you have a limited amount of data that can be transmitted. The more people you have chatting to a tower, the less available bandwidth there is. By having a transmission standard with theoretical capacities in the GB or 10GB, or more you make it so you can service 10, 100, 1000 more customers their 10Mbps content. It makes it cheaper for the carrier to roll out and gives a better experience for the end users.
>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.
Having 5 competing infrastructures trying to blanket the country means that you end up with a ton of waste and the most populated places get priority as they constantly fight each other for the most valuable markets while neglecting the less profitable fringe