>>Let’s explore the implications of these two things: the need for a standard and the need for fiber. I respect Susan Crawford's writing and am in general agre

>>Let’s explore the implications of these two things: the need for a standard and the need for fiber. I respect Susan Crawford's writing and am in general agreement with her consistent drumbeat for fiber upgrades as one of the competitive edges for any country that can afford the capital costs of deploying last-mile dark fiber to more homes and buildings. This particular article misses the history of how every standard ratified by 3GPP has always been characterized by telecommunication providers and vendors jockeying for influence and position to realize their vision of a standard that aligns with their own agendas. HTTP/2's ratification building upon Google's reference SPDY implementation is a more extreme analogy of a single player seemingly exerting much more influence or contributions to a particular standard[1]. Crawford acknowledges this reality towards the end of her article: "Ericsson is teaming up with SK Telecom to test 5G applications [...] [and] they’re probably hoping to force the adoption of a global standard that matches their own commercial plans so that they can get a head start." Carriers will execute plays from the same playbook by generating hype for 5G devices, while commencing commercial and technical explorations over the next few years as we get closer to 2020 3GPP 5G standards ratification. As the hype builds and initial flagship/anchor cell sites/cities come online, data caps will only be raised gradually, not at all commensurate or proportional to the increase in speeds that 5G promises (when standing right next to the tower). "Cheap, fast and ubiquitous" is Crawford's article tagline, but carriers are for-profit businesses and generally for new technologies exclusively choose the last two and drop the first since only high-ARPU early adopters with disposable incomes can afford the new 5G devices that will be released. One final point is that will help carriers manage 5G tower field deployments are WiFi offloading. Despite known short-range limitations of higher frequency spectrum, improved WiFi/cellular handoff technology[2] and convergence of fixed and wireless assets under single organizational umbrellas will give some [US] carriers more ammunition to play up the 5G hype while backhaul, aggregation points, peering and long-term capital outlays become a reality over the next decade. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP/2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP/2 [2] https://www.qualcomm.com/news/snapdragon/2015/01/05/lte-wi-fi-and-back-call-continuity-brings-next-generation-calling https://www.qualcomm.com/news/snapdragon/2015/01/05/lte-wi-f...