4 ms·

> "You will almost always get cheaper and faster internet (for both you and the company providing internet) over a cable to your house." Not true for me, and I

> "You will almost always get cheaper and faster internet (for both you and the company providing internet) over a cable to your house." Not true for me, and I live 10 minutes walk from the financial centre of a major world city. Because there's no fibre installed to my building, unlimited ~300 Mbps 5G wireless internet is both cheaper and faster than any available fixed alternative. Even if fibre was available, the 5G would probably still be cheaper!

bargl 6y ago
>If you can't get that, then maybe a cell tower is better, if that doesn't work, then a land based beaming internet may be better, after that I'd look to space based internet. It is cheaper for a company, to run fiber to your house than to build a cell tower that handles ALL the people within that region given a certain density of houses. It doesn't mean it's cheaper for your building to do it. In the context of space vs ground infrastructure. Ground (including cell tower) is much cheaper. And they'll add 5G to the financial centers of the world before they add it to Wyoming. The reason companies don't "advertise" hostpots as an alternative to fiber/cable is bandwidth. It works great if you read HN, but if everyone did it, they'd start running more fiber, or cost of cell data would go way up.
- Reason077 6y ago
  > "companies don't "advertise" hostpots as an alternative to fiber/cable" They do around here! http://www.three.co.uk/store/broadband/home-broadband http://www.three.co.uk/store/broadband/home-broadband https://www.vodafone.co.uk/gigacube/ https://www.vodafone.co.uk/gigacube/
  - bargl 6y ago
    Sorry, My experience is mostly US based. I looked into this heavily in my area 2+ years ago. T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon say their hotspots are not meant for this in my region. At least that was 2 years ago in Sub-urban Seattle and 3 years ago D.C.
    - somethingwitty1 6y ago
      Seattle has had a hotspot "broadband" internet provider for 10+ years now. And t-mobile advertises isp service: https://www.t-mobile.com/isp https://www.t-mobile.com/isp
boyter 6y ago
Sydney?
- Reason077 6y ago
  London!
jagger27 6y ago
The sad part about what you said is that there is definitely fibre in your area. After all, there’s a 5G tower within spitting distance.
- ac29 6y ago
  Cell towers are often connected with microwave links, though in a dense city, its more likely fiber.
- Reason077 6y ago
  In fact, I'm pretty sure there's fibre running down the road directly outside the front door of our building. Probably multiple different providers! There's conduits under the footpath and I've seen them threading reels of cable down there late at night. That said, I'm very happy with 5G. There are some key advantages over fibre: - Cheap. I pay £30/month with no fixed contract terms. Any fibre around that price is slower and comes with a 12 or 24 month minimum contract. - Very high reliability. If a cell tower goes down, it will simply switch to another one. At my last flat, the cable internet would seem to go down for 15 or 30 or 60 minutes pretty regularly, perhaps every 1-2 months. And that's just the times I was home and noticed! - Portability. Wouldn't be much use in a large household, but for personal use it's great that I can just pick up my battery-powered router and take it with me for fast WiFi anywhere. Including roaming around Europe (5G roaming in selected countries!)

bargl 6y ago

>If you can't get that, then maybe a cell tower is better, if that doesn't work, then a land based beaming internet may be better, after that I'd look to space based internet. It is cheaper for a company, to run fiber to your house than to build a cell tower that handles ALL the people within that region given a certain density of houses. It doesn't mean it's cheaper for your building to do it. In the context of space vs ground infrastructure. Ground (including cell tower) is much cheaper. And they'll add 5G to the financial centers of the world before they add it to Wyoming. The reason companies don't "advertise" hostpots as an alternative to fiber/cable is bandwidth. It works great if you read HN, but if everyone did it, they'd start running more fiber, or cost of cell data would go way up.

Reason077 6y ago
> "companies don't "advertise" hostpots as an alternative to fiber/cable" They do around here! http://www.three.co.uk/store/broadband/home-broadband http://www.three.co.uk/store/broadband/home-broadband https://www.vodafone.co.uk/gigacube/ https://www.vodafone.co.uk/gigacube/
- bargl 6y ago
  Sorry, My experience is mostly US based. I looked into this heavily in my area 2+ years ago. T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon say their hotspots are not meant for this in my region. At least that was 2 years ago in Sub-urban Seattle and 3 years ago D.C.
  - somethingwitty1 6y ago
    Seattle has had a hotspot "broadband" internet provider for 10+ years now. And t-mobile advertises isp service: https://www.t-mobile.com/isp https://www.t-mobile.com/isp

boyter 6y ago

Sydney?

Reason077 6y ago
London!

jagger27 6y ago

The sad part about what you said is that there is definitely fibre in your area. After all, there’s a 5G tower within spitting distance.

ac29 6y ago
Cell towers are often connected with microwave links, though in a dense city, its more likely fiber.
Reason077 6y ago
In fact, I'm pretty sure there's fibre running down the road directly outside the front door of our building. Probably multiple different providers! There's conduits under the footpath and I've seen them threading reels of cable down there late at night. That said, I'm very happy with 5G. There are some key advantages over fibre: - Cheap. I pay £30/month with no fixed contract terms. Any fibre around that price is slower and comes with a 12 or 24 month minimum contract. - Very high reliability. If a cell tower goes down, it will simply switch to another one. At my last flat, the cable internet would seem to go down for 15 or 30 or 60 minutes pretty regularly, perhaps every 1-2 months. And that's just the times I was home and noticed! - Portability. Wouldn't be much use in a large household, but for personal use it's great that I can just pick up my battery-powered router and take it with me for fast WiFi anywhere. Including roaming around Europe (5G roaming in selected countries!)