5 ms·

It is kind of sad to see. The carriers saw "hey all these people are giving away WiFi for free and not giving us money", so they fixed the glitch and just made

It is kind of sad to see. The carriers saw "hey all these people are giving away WiFi for free and not giving us money", so they fixed the glitch and just made their own version of WiFi that they get money for when you use. Imagine a world where the WiFi alliance said "fuck it, 802.11 is dead, we're going to use modern technology" and just developed 5G technology but in an open way that anyone could use? Things would be a lot better. But here we are, with backwards compatibility for 802.11b that eliminates any chance of ever getting good performance (except in an RF test chamber), and so companies are just routing around the damage and turning WiFi-alike into a profit center. At one point the mobile carriers were just planning to just flat-out steal the unlicensed band: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_in_unlicensed_spectrum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_in_unlicensed_spectrum I haven't heard any arguments about how 5G is going to come to rural areas, however. I think the backhaul requirements are pretty heavy. So in Manhattan, probably going to work out quite well. In the middle of nowhere? We'll see about that.

evdndjsusgwh 7y ago
>I haven't heard any arguments about how 5G is going to come to rural areas, however. I think the backhaul requirements are pretty heavy. So in Manhattan, probably going to work out quite well. In the middle of nowhere? We'll see about that. Presumably it will come there by being built? Rural is a crap market that only sort of gets serviced, I don't see how anyone can make a good faith argument that rural users should hold out for... I don't even know what. There's political momentum around 5g which means that there's money on the table for a rural 5g rollout. Why would any industry player waste their time laying cable in the countryside more than they have to? 5g in cities is promising not for the reasons you mentioned but simply because it's a work around for local monopoly laws.
- lallysingh 7y ago
  Starlink is probably Rural's best bet.
garaetjjte 7y ago
What's wrong with 802.11?
- macawfish 7y ago
  Nothing at all! 802.11ax is fast and efficient!
- jrockway 7y ago
  Listen-before-talk instead of CDMA (or better).

evdndjsusgwh 7y ago

>I haven't heard any arguments about how 5G is going to come to rural areas, however. I think the backhaul requirements are pretty heavy. So in Manhattan, probably going to work out quite well. In the middle of nowhere? We'll see about that. Presumably it will come there by being built? Rural is a crap market that only sort of gets serviced, I don't see how anyone can make a good faith argument that rural users should hold out for... I don't even know what. There's political momentum around 5g which means that there's money on the table for a rural 5g rollout. Why would any industry player waste their time laying cable in the countryside more than they have to? 5g in cities is promising not for the reasons you mentioned but simply because it's a work around for local monopoly laws.

lallysingh 7y ago
Starlink is probably Rural's best bet.

garaetjjte 7y ago

What's wrong with 802.11?

macawfish 7y ago
Nothing at all! 802.11ax is fast and efficient!
jrockway 7y ago
Listen-before-talk instead of CDMA (or better).