5G roadblock: labor

Mark Tinka mark.tinka at seacom.mu
Thu Jan 2 05:34:50 UTC 2020



On 31/Dec/19 16:10, Mike Hammett wrote:
> I would still find it hard to believe you would need that kind of
> speed, today, in any reasonable situation. Also, today's
> infrastructure can more than handle that in most places. Where it
> can't, 5G isn't going to be there for a very long time or some other
> method would fix it first (such as improved backhaul or site
> densification with existing technologies).

In South Africa, I average between 30Mbps - 50Mbps on my phones (two
different carriers, each doing 4G and LTE).

The only time I use that kind of bandwidth is when I'm in the country,
but neither at home nor the office, e.g., tethering my laptop at at the
car wash, the barber shop, in a hotel, at a coffee shop, e.t.c. It is
more reliable than trying to ask some establishment for their wi-fi access.

The only time I rely more heavily on wi-fi (even for my phone) is when I
am outside the country, because data roaming is colossally expensive and
painfully slow, since MNO's like tunneling stuff back home for billing.

Ultimately, what I'm saying is that - at least on my end - I routinely
can achieve way more than 25Mbps on my phone, but unless I'm spending 5
minutes watching a Youtube clip, I'm certain I'm not using more than
2Mbps - 5Mbps on average. Trying to catch up on Netflix on my phone is
not a plan, since MNO's are so tucked in with their concept of "selling
data".

Mark.
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