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What does "upgraded infrastructure" mean in this context? Most cell carriers use a shared infrastructure IIRC.
by ShabbosGoy 9y ago
What does "upgraded infrastructure" mean in this context? Most cell carriers use a shared infrastructure IIRC.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoThis isn't exactly true (EDIT: Although I suppose its an accurate statement if you're talking about MVNOs [+] riding on top of a carrier's infrastructure). Yes, they share the tower. Yes, tower position (higher is better) is dictated by agreements and dollars spent. Yes, on rare occasions backhaul is shared (remote cells via microwave). But that's where it ends. Each carrier's RF and networking gear is dedicated, and usually their backhauls are copper or fiber dedicated to themselves. The problem is people want to treat mobile data like it's not a shared RF medium with 1Gbps backhaul to each tower. This is not how it works. If you think it's hard to get fiber to your home, consider trying to get fiber to every cell site. These problems take years to solve, with construction crews trenching or using a ditch witch to run new physical cable to each tower from nearby termination nodes. [+] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virtual_network_operator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virtual_network_operato...
- mikeash 9y agoGetting fiber to every cell site sounds orders of magnitude easier than getting fiber to every house.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoInfrastructure is hard, just ask Google Fiber.
- mikeash 9y agoI'd never call either one easy. But running fiber to one cell tower sounds a lot easier than running fiber to each of the thousand buildings that tower would cover.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoYes, but you're still constrained by the RF that cell site covers. 1Gb cell tower backhaul? (and only 1Gb to cover all of those buildings) Or 1Gb to each building? Tradeoffs.