5G roadblock: labor

Wed Jan 1 14:29:20 UTC 2020

Given the deployment of Wi-Fi into so many different applications - your statement that 5G is to "replace" WiFi seems overly ambitious.  Perhaps preventing WiFi from further penetration is a better way to look at it?

-----Original Message-----
From: NANOG <nanog-bounces at nanog.org> On Behalf Of William Allen Simpson
Sent: Wednesday, January 1, 2020 9:23 AM
To: North American Network Operators Group <nanog at nanog.org>
Subject: Re: 5G roadblock: labor

This thread has devolved into "Why 5G"?

A lot of folks are missing the bigger picture.

5G is not for better voice calls.  AFAICT, it won't help voice at all.

5G is not for better integration with WiFi or IP data.  5G is to
*replace* WiFi, and FTTH, and ISPs, and WISPs, and bring all data back to the telco.  ATT really misses owning the network monopoly.

5G is also about upstaging Amazon and Google and other data center providers.  Read up on "Edge Computing".  The "edge" isn't in your network or your customers' internal networks.  The edge is a telco data center.

That's what they mean by "reducing latency": moving your data processing into a telco data center means it is topologically closer to a cell tower.

5G is mostly about getting more unregulated data-related fees.

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History lesson:

When I designed CDMA IS-99 (circa 1993-95), IP data was sent over the Operations and Management (O&M) interface.  You could do voice simultaneous with data.

Every original CDMA cell tower had an IP router in it.  Our initial implementation significantly out-performed ATT's CDPD.

I'm also the original author of Mobile IP, and the first implementer.
IS-99 gave easy and fast IP roaming between interconnected cell towers.

Turns out, the big telcos didn't like this model.  In fact, they really didn't like a distributed traffic model at all.  They wanted to centralize and monetize access to data, which they viewed as a value-added service, because they could bypass regulators and charge whatever the market could bear.  Voice was regulated.  Data was not.  More money was to be made.

Same issues, 25 years later....