5G allows for more granular management of network capacity, so you could think of a stadium deployment as somewhere between existing LTE and a WiFi mesh network

5G allows for more granular management of network capacity, so you could think of a stadium deployment as somewhere between existing LTE and a WiFi mesh network. The carriers can look at dashboards and maps, and figure out where people are getting slowdowns so they can put up some more 5G nodes. This granularity can mean more precise location data/telemetry and some interesting opportunities for edge caching and edge compute. Existing GPS, in my experience, is far from perfect for geocoding more dense areas, so the idea that 5G can reliably put you out in front of a restaurant, or even in a particular floor and room of a building is promising (and a bit scary). What if your games were streamed from a local edge node, and you only played with people on the same node at near-zero latency? Or maybe you're at a stadium, and your phone is streaming replays of the game directly from the stadium without going over the internet. And your phone knows exactly where the nearest vending machine is, and the vending machine is used as an edge device to give you live stock data and process the transaction. I think it's a good supplement to LTE. People are going crazy because it's not an in-your-face speed improvement, but the reality is that it can mature to keep dense urban areas connected in a way that LTE wasn't really designed for. In terms of it replacing WiFi/fixed line, I think one good reason it might is that it's simple. Down the line, some people might look at the process of "getting internet installed" and setting up a modem/access point as archaic, when you can just buy a device and have it connect. I kind of like having a separate fixed internet line though, because if one goes down for some reason, I still have the other.