>New ford vehicles ship with a wireless hotspot

to be used by... other phones

>A lot of laptops come with sim slots

really only useful if you're working on a train or something because most stationary places you'd use a laptop at has wifi.

>Is a tablet a phone? What about a phone that has a usb-c port that can drive display port (or UltraGig) and supports bluetooth peripherals?

Not sure where you're trying to get at here, but everything you've described is already covered by your prior point about laptops.

>Why would anyone want to deal with cable or dsl when everything already runs over IP anyways and they already have a phone plan?

data caps? I'd take a 1TB data cap on cable/dsl over an "unlimited" 5g plan with some arbitrary FUP.

    Why would anyone want to deal with cable or dsl when everything
    already runs over IP anyways and they already have a phone plan?

It’s not anything to “deal with”, it’s pretty much “set it and forget it”. But if 5G or whatever is more competitive in terms of price and performance, I’d have no problem switching. I welcome more ISP competition. But $80/month gets me 1TB of transfer at ~150Mbps on Comcast, and I doubt I’ll get a better deal over 5G.

Time will tell, but theoretically, 5G should cost less over time. It's a hell of a lot easier to install a bunch of microcells and provision them electronically than to schedule house calls and send out techs. That's assuming there are no issues with the tech.

Because wired internet connections are faster and far more reliable - even taking into account 5G?

Maybe they want internet inside the house (or car) where the fast 5G is blocked by walls, windows, etc.