5G aims to allow for completely new applications that were not possible before, and hoping that's where the money will come from. Ultra-reliable and low latency, and massive machine type communications are two new areas 5G is pushing into. The first will allow applications like self driving cars, remote control with immediate feedback, and combined with the increased speeds, augmented and virtual reality. The second area is for the smart city/home type of applications.

This is all from my digital communications professor with ties to Ericsson, but on a personal note I'd be hype to explore distant places in real time by wearing a vr headset and controlling a drone with a 360° camera and <10ms latency. You could be anywhere in the world and actually interact with the environment with just a 5G enabled headset and a 5G-drone renting app. Racing through an abandoned mall! Drone laser tag in a redwood forest!

A blurb like this can be found everywhere where 5G is talked about. It sounds technical and knowledgeable, but it actually makes zero sense whatsoever. Self-driving cars? No. If the fundamental assumption is that every single vehicle everywhere is communicating, that system is fundamentally flawed and will never take off. Remote control? This has been possible for over 100 years. You can literally do that with a spark-gap transmitter, let alone current 4G tech. Immediate feedback? In what context? Augmented and virtual reality? Now you're just blasting buzzwords to sound smart. Come on. Smart city/home is another common buzzword, but that's actually where the vastly increased capacity of 5G starts to become relevant.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/4G-LTE-Advanced-Pro-Road-5G/dp/012804...

Not to mention the security implications from both angles. As an end user do you want random cell phone traffic egressing through your network. And that easily opens up the network to cell site spoofing moreso than they already are.

A big reason LTE, GSM, evdo etc were successfull was because the full stack, from the backbone to endpoint/user was managed by the carrier.

Offloading that to home users who actively put routers in between interference sources like windows, fridges, washers/dryers and then tey and extend their signal with repeaters is a questionable goal at best.

Why? You could easily enforce a policy that only who use your fiber network at home qualify for these femtocells. Considering that majority of backbone fiber is an oligopoly already, this wouldn't be an issue.

> Most users home routers are garbage for latency and loss sensitive applications, of which voice would qualify.

Do you have any source on this claim? IP network has become just as fast and resiliant as the pure teleco network (reason why 5G is based on IP in the first place). IP calls from Facetime, Google Duo, Skype, Zoom, Whatsapp and others work just as good as regular calls if you have decent coverage. And you can easily implement QoS for calls through your own network, which is what the old 3G/4G tech was already doing.

> And that easily opens up the network to cell site spoofing moreso than they already are

How common is WiFi spoofing in your experience?

> A big reason LTE, GSM, evdo etc were successfull was because the full stack, from the backbone to endpoint/user was managed by the carrier

The reason they had to do that was because IP stack wasn't good enough 2 decades or even a decade ago. Unless you are in a 3rd world country, IP network is just as good as 3G/4G stack today.

> Offloading that to home users who actively put routers in between interference sources like windows, fridges, washers/dryers and then tey and extend their signal with repeaters is a questionable goal at best.

Okay, you might want to revisit that thought couple of years from now :)

There are limited markets where verizon or att offer both broadband and cell service.

And the other big cell carriers don’t have a broadband market.

To your other point. Most gpon modems are arris or some other brand all in ones these days that carry voip converters/cable television and then normal tcpip traffic. They are bought to maximize profits and rental fees and not with packet forwarding in mind. There are acceptable levels of loss and latency on residential networks that don’t generally carry over to campus or business services.

Add in they also run dns, dhcp and firewalling and often some “extra” parental controls and sometimes a vlan for guest access.

It’s not the residnetial customers fault for the placement either. But most demarcs for telco and internet, even in new construction is in a utility room that is generally right next to other utilities. At least in single family homes.

In apartments sure they may be better placed but still often next to the air handler. And give. The range of 5g, the first floor or two is all that matters.

[1]the biggest difference of 4G over WiFi is concentrated coordination , but this could be achieved for Wi-Fi too.

* The higher data density of 5G per spectrum allows you to just upgrade towers instead of having to place more dense towers with 4G. This is the "5G is cheaper" point as it allows you to avoid having to build more towers.

* Due to the increase in data demand in some few places places, you'll have to place 5G towers very densely to meet it, more densely than in the age of 4G. Not because of the technology just because it's now a different era where demand has increased even more.

So this seems like only a theoretical possibility since in practice they'll just have faster towers instead of fewer of them.

> Due to the increase in data demand in some few places places, you'll have to place 5G towers very densely to meet it, more densely than in the age of 4G. Not because of the technology just because it's now a different era where demand has increased even more.

For millimeter wave it is because of the technology. Those frequencies don't penetrate as well so regardless of how many users there are or how much bandwidth they're using, the towers have to be closer to the devices which means you need more of them.

With constant demand, you can service a higher amount of people with the same tower density thanks to 5G. If the number of customers is increasing, it means you get more money but you only have to upgrade the towers instead of having to put them more densely. That's how it's cheaper.

> For millimeter wave it is because of the technology.

Good point.

Also helps when FRBNY in conjunction with the Tresury dept via state street and blackrock is buying their HY bonds (TMUS US87264AAT25 [Ba3], S US85207UAK16 [B1], CTL US156700BC99 [Ba3], LVLT US527298BF96 [Ba3], VOD US92857WBQ24 [Ba1] for just a few examples, all trading way over par) on you, the taxpayers behalf, on leverage, in the secondary market and thus helping to lower their ongoing borrowing costs.

No gross mis-allocation of resources or moral hazards as far as one eyes can see… surely the companies will use these funds much better this time for capex… lol

Perhaps if VC's funded many more things to the same notional as the uncollaterized debt extended globally (not "valuations", not re extending to the same companies after previous funding from the same one), I would agree to degree , if they faced 100% loss of value extended if the endeavors they funded didn't pan out (not considering firesales of assets that may have been used in such endeavors during the bankruptcy/liquidation process).

The point is that as more services migrate to higher bands or more spectrum is made available (TV spectrum partially reallocated, 3G is sunset), there is more capacity available for rural locations that need that lower band.

Lots of work on alternatives to fibre for those last few miles e.g. dedicated wireless links to local distribution nodes in villages.

>The main benefit of cellular is when you're away from WiFi.

For you maybe.

The billions you mention are a result of government auctioning, it doesn't mean anything to users besides added cost.

I have a 90 sqm two storey house with a detached garage, workshop and quite a bit of land around it and I need 6 WiFi routers to get a signal everywhere, and even then it's spotty and slow.

Sometimes makes me wish I just had a data SIM on all devices and be done with it.

Open source 4g/5G stuff that was posted a while ago looks really nice, but apparently it would be illegal to operate :/

Edit: apparently 5G does not use UWB

Think video delivery kiosk - I'd like to rent a movie please or I'd like today's daily news videos/VR. Downloaded in 3 secs from a vending machine?

It's not just the bandwidth. UWB has a peak power density limit of −41.3 dBm/MHz. 5G is 55 dBm.

Note the many, many, many orders of magnitude difference...

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/4/18295310/amazon-project-ku...

Seamless access/mobility and accessibility to maritime, airline, remote satellite phones etc is one of the ways 5G is hoping to sell 'access anywhere' and diversify from just mobile.

Most NTN access is via a terrestrial satellite basestation acting as a gateway into the mobile networks.

I think one day the communication 'transport' will be a worldwide mesh and operator profitability will be solely about business services on top of that.

Already seeing that to some extent with multiple operators sharing towers, radio front haul and spectrum. At the moment its early days of course.