Well, that it certainly isn't going to do unless wireless providers suddenly decide to stop capping data so tightly. I don't think wireless providers are cheaper today if you include things like that in the calculation.

Not to mention many people already use AT&T and Verizon for their home internet...

Data caps will go away over time.

People with things like nest cameras routinely go over 1tb data cap on comcast fiber. These people started moving to att. Over time, i do expect competition to work its way, on data cap matters at least.

Take a look into 5g, eg Verizon, - it’s aimed to be last mile competition, and have the same caps. Comcast is capped at 200gb, I imagine 5g would be similar.

It seems the cap is not a universal constant - my cap with Comcast is actually 1024GB. I honestly thought 1024GB was enough that I'd never actually get very close to it, but wow, I don't have a single month under 200GB. In fact, most months are above 500GB for me.

Of course not everyone uses 500GB a month. But still, I think the data cap story has to change if 5G is really to compete with other last mile options.

Also, Today, wireless providers segment the crap out of their market, upcharging for basically anything, including "tethering." With Comcast, for all of their many faults, I can at least use my own modem, connect my NAS and have it accept connections from the open Internet, and of course connect a boatload of computers and network devices with no problems. Wireless providers, to gain parity, would have to suddenly cede control and offer plans that essentially offer no restrictions with dedicated IP addresses. It isn't clear to me that this will be priced any differently from existing last-mile providers. It's not like good wireless plans are cheap today in the U.S. as it is.

5G may in fact improve wireless speeds, but the hype has been that it will be game-changing and industry-shifting and I just don't see it. I'm sure the market will get segmented up such that many people will basically pay the same amount or possibly even more than they did for effectively the same outcome.

Verizon 5g home is uncapped, 300mps, and $50-$70/mo.

That’s already better than Comcast for me - faster and cheaper. Soon as they come to my town I’m switching.

But the main point is that competition will drive down prices even more.

I don’t think you appreciate what 5g is - it’s not just an improvement over 4g in speed (LTE is already fast enough), it’s a dramatic improvement in the throughput per square mile. The caps in place today are preventing small number of people from hogging the bandwidth in the area, which is no longer a problem.

https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/5g-home-faqs/

https://www.verizonwireless.com/5g/home/?cmp=KNC-C-HQ-PRO-R-...

OK. That does at least improve my outlook on 5G. I actually was just skeptical wireless providers would do better even if they could, but this looks interesting. Some thoughts:

>"A state-of-the-art router"

This is not going to be a sticking point for most people, but I hope they don't try very hard to lock you into some horrible modem-router combo. I don't even trust a Comcast modem, but here we are, with probably no standard 5G home modems... I know I can always just hook another router/AP on top, but it's obviously going to add complexity, especially depending on how head-ass the router portion of the device is, and personally as someone moving towards 10 GbE at home... it just feels like it would be unnecessarily complicated.

>300mps, and $50-$70/mo.

I think it's going to depend a lot on where you live. It would be $70/mo for me because I don't use Verizon phone plans. This does in fact beat my current Comcast plan: 250 Mbps at $96.95/mo. But despite how much I don't really like Comcast, I have to say: my uptime has been impressive, and the reliability of the performance has been good. I would not want to trade this for worse ping/jitter/reliability at a lower cost.

>But the main point is that competition will drive down prices even more.

This would be nice. It would be beneficial to people who don't even care about 5G.

The thing is, I think that it will only practically benefit people in regions where 5G exists. I remember hearing a lot about how fiber would drive down cable prices too, and it may have, but despite promises I pretty much know nobody who actually has fiber home internet.

Since 5G is wireless, perhaps it will have better odds than fiber. Still, it has a lot of challenges to go through. Even 4G is still not available consistently everywhere.

I'm less skeptical now, but I think I'll just wait and see. I'm still more or less ambivalent about the rollouts hitting roadblocks for now, until it's obvious that it really will be transformative. I'm sure mega corporations like Verizon that stand to gain a lot from this don't need our support to push this to market if its actually that big of a deal.

oh wait, two of those already are last mile providers in many parts of the country...

I'm not sure who exactly they're going to end up completing with.

Each other. Three providers better than one.