The issue with LTE is that spectrum is limited. With 30MHz of spectrum, ~2 bps/Hz spectral efficiency and 3 sectors per tower you can provide at most 90Mbps of

The issue with LTE is that spectrum is limited. With 30MHz of spectrum, ~2 bps/Hz spectral efficiency and 3 sectors per tower you can provide at most 90Mbps of total downstream capacity per tower. With a density of 10k+ people per km2, a tower serving a one km2 area is easily overloaded. With towers costing hundreds of thousands of USD, things get pretty messy. Wifi doesn't replace LTE, complements it. No doubt that the UX is still crappy, but SIM-based authentication can solve that. Also, unlike LTE, wifi spectrum isn't licensed, anyone can set up a hotspot without paying billions to the government. Sure, we could all solve that by switching the entire world to an unlicensed, pay-as-you-use system, but that's unlikely to happen any time soon. In other words, spectrum is the major constraint in urban areas.