5G roadblock: labor

Mon Jan 6 06:39:31 UTC 2020

On 5/Jan/20 22:56, Michael Thomas wrote:

> It occurs to me that what we're really quibbling about here is where
> fiber ends.

Indeed.

The notion that wireless will replace fibre is misplaced. Wireless is
just so prevalent because folk don't want to be hooked up to some kind
of wire. It limits mobility. But make no mistake; at the front of that
wireless mobility is a wire carrying bits, and going forward, it's
mainly going to be fibre.

> Is it at every street corner, or is it directly into my house?

This will vary by market (both at a national and international level).
But everyone is working toward fibre. Whether it be up to the curb +
copper to your house, or all the way to your house, it will drive
significant bandwidth that any kind of wireless can never support as a
backhaul medium.

> It seems to me ftth is the long term win economically because not
> everybody cares about each upgrade to wifi and are happy to wait until
> they do care -- if ever.

Agreed.

Until about 4 years ago, I ran your usual crappy wi-fi AP's around my
house whose software you can only upgrade with a full hardware
replacement. Those had some kind of 802.11a/b/g/n hooked up to a 768Kbps
up/1Mbps down ADSL service I had. 1 year later, FTTH came to my house
and I was tired of getting locked into silly CPE vendor habits. So I
bought 2 Google OnHub AP's (802.11ac) + a Mikrotik CPE + home Ethernet
switches. I can do 100's of Mbps of bandwidth over-the-air, and my
100Mbps FTTH service more than caters for my and my family's needs.

I have no interest in 802.11ax for the foreseeable future, in my
domestic setting at least.

> Carriers, on the other hand, have to forklift in the new equipment at
> every G+1. That costs a lot of money which they have to recoup through
> higher fees. And they have to buy spectrum which is expensive. And
> they have to buy/rent real estate which is expensive.

All true! And deploying fibre + wi-fi costs far less than this if you
are looking to minimize latency + massively increase bandwidth toward a
large set of end users on a long-term basis, where you can sustain
ongoing improvements in performance as technology develops, without
having to flip your skin inside-out.

> But people say ftth is expensive. But expensive to all of the stuff
> that wireless carriers need to deploy? Color me extremely dubious.
> It's not like rent seeking is exactly a secret with carriers, and
> that's what this smells like to me.

FTTH being expensive depends on the unique dynamics of the environment
the market is in; and I'm sure this group knows those dynamics quite well.

I've given this issue a lot of thought over the last couple of years,
and I can't come up with any other way that we can ensure widespread
FTTH deployment to as much of a country as possible without some kind of
government involvement. And we have done this before, as governments
anyway, i.e., when electrification, road construction, water systems and
POTS services were all done with public funds for the delivery of what
was considered basic services.

Some will argue about whether the Internet should be considered a basic
service. However, if we are looking to diffuse it to folk like we did
water, power, road transportation and a simple copper voice line, we
can't rely on private businesses whose sole incentive is profiteering.

A great example that has always impressed me is the Stokab, which is
owned by the City of Stockholm:

    https://www.stokab.se/Welcome-to-Stokab/

Stokab have deployed dark fibre to each and every square foot of
Stockholm, as well as surrounding municipalities, and offers an open
access network to all operators on the same commercial terms. Despite
Ericsson being a Swedish company, I am not overly confident that
Stockholm residents are going to be battling about whether they perform
most of their Internet activities over 5G or fibre + wi-fi.

> The only advantage they have is that they can do handoffs which while
> useful, is not a deal breaker in a *lot* of situations. Other than
> that, I really don't want to use their air bits.

Like I said before, I personally don't think seamless hand-off is the
killer app. The kids don't call each other; it's uncool. Already, VoWiFi
hand-off to GSM doesn't work. And when the call breaks, we are all just
used to taking the hit and re-dialing. So if the MNO's are trying to
make seamless hand-off a selling point, they are better off spending
their time doing other things.

Mark.