5G roadblock: labor

Tue Dec 31 15:29:30 UTC 2019

On Tue Dec 31, 2019 at 08:10:20AM -0600, Mike Hammett wrote:
> I would still find it hard to believe you would need that kind
> of speed, today, in any reasonable situation.

Who said it's all for you? Marketing may tell you it is to
get you to buy but it's really for everyone else. In some places
4G is quite congested, a lack of enough low spectrum leads to
congestion and the expensive clearance and recycling of 700Mhz
from TV to mobile (UK currently doing this)

Moving as many as possible to 5G gets operators out of a hole,
equipment manufacturers are doing dual 4/5G kit to make dynamic
use of the limited low spectrum

So you don't need it but they need you to believe you do.

> Also, today's infrastructure can more than handle that in most places

Rural for lack of anything better is being sold (in UK) LTE
home routers and VOD is popular so the sooner they can move
low (they will never get high) spectrum to 5G the better. We
do still have a lot of rural without 2G though so it's not
clear what they will do there

There is also a 5G land grab of other uses making it out as
good for lots of things (IoT, factories, rural access), I
presume that is the same elsewhere?

> I'm not saying what we have will work for us forever, but it
> will solve no current problems. There is no need to rush like
> the network is on fire. 

It is in places, they predict it will be elsewhere if they get
the customer base they are aiming for. So they do want it to put
out the fires they are starting plus with equimpment cycles their
best hope it to get as many to upgrade with the newness hype
otherwise they will join the long tail and be difficult to move
later once they find it wasn't necessary.

brandon