I’d like to be able to put things like raspberry pi weather sensors, etc outside of the range of WiFi. I know in a lot of places especially on larger properties, there is going to be cellular coverage but it is prohibitively expensive to install WiFi.

I’m honestly tired of all of these ‘but why do you need it?’ arguments. The same was said about electricity, long before anyone envisioned dishwashers, game consoles, blenders, etc. But why aren’t gas lamps good enough?

Heck, the same thing could be said about WiFi. 10 years ago no one would think a WiFi network should need to support 100+ devices, but here we are in 2020.

Well, this isn't like having electricity or not. Mobile internet already exists. What would 5G offer you that 4G doesn't? All I've read about its shortcomings in range tell me implementation will be difficult, and reliable 4G is barely implemented where I live in the second largest city in the U.S. Not trying to be critical, just interested in learning a bit more, how will 5G be any different practically speaking?

The shortcomings in range is just the mmWave 5G. Which is the same trade off as 2.4ghz vs 5ghz wifi of higher bandwidth for less range/pentration. You can still run 5G on the same old spectrums as 4G for the same range, and only slight improvements in speed (not the 1 gigabit that you'd get on mmWave).

This has been possible for almost 20 years if you're talking data rates for things like weather sensors. GPRS radios first hit the market in 2003. Many networks are turning off their older GPRS networks leaving 3G as the baseline but buying 3G modems to hook to a Pi or Arduino can be had for pretty cheap. I'm no 5G hater, but why is 5G required for weather sensors?

Also, if you're interested in deploying longer-range wireless around a large property for things like weather sensors and other smaller data rate devices, cut out the cell network and go with LoRa. You'll get a few km of range for a tiny amount of power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa

> I’d like to be able to put things like raspberry pi weather sensors, etc outside of the range of WiFi.

Weather sensors and such are pretty low-bandwidth. Why not just get a 3G/4G hat and a SIM with <1GB monthly bandwidth?

See: https://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html

We aren't talking about the difference between electricity and gas. We are talking about the difference between a fast cellular network and slightly faster cellular network.

Then would something like the difference between 1 gbps and 10gbps ethernet apply? In the large majority of American households that have wired computers, 1gbps could handle almost any task including fast file transfers, yet 10gbps is something you can purchase if you think you need it and using it will result in even faster speeds.

Do you think the difference between 1gbps and 10gbps is a similar jump forward, in terms of progress, as the advent of electricity as a replacement for gas?

I understand that the GP's argument is that the effects of a particular technological advancement cannot always be understood at the time of, or before, its introduction. But we aren't talking about gun powder here... We are discussing an incremental change to an already existing technology.

As Asimov explains, the velocity of "progress", specifically in areas we already have come to understand in some way, diminishes with each step forward.