4 ms·

In dense permanent environments a bunch of cables will most likely be cheaper than having enough 5G cells to give everyone few hundred Mbits of transfer. In sc

by ilyt 4y ago

In dense permanent environments a bunch of cables will most likely be cheaper than having enough 5G cells to give everyone few hundred Mbits of transfer. In scattered environment the range is too short to excuse the cost of covering it with 5G There is no niche for it except for "my landlord didn't install proper internet so I use 5G" coz it happened to be alreadhy in range

spookthesunset 4y ago
I mean you aren’t wrong. But cable has a monopoly on most peoples home internet today. If you could (theoretically) kick their ass with fast internet that completely bypasses asshole cable companies, more power to you.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  If you hate the cable company, try the phone company. The cable stops 2 miles down the road from where I live so I have ADSL from Frontier. It was terrible for a long time, I didn’t do much better than 1 Mbps until they added some analog hardware to the line that got it close to 3. Recently they put in ‘fiber to the node’ to a nearby crossroads, I now have two 18 Mbps lines which, fortunately, give about 100% of the rated performance so I can’t complain much. I can even use Docker now, YouTube, Netflix, and online gaming are all pretty good. (The Samsung TV, outside of game mode, and some monitors, like the monitor on an Alienware ‘gaming’ laptop, add more lag than the DSL does.). I have a load balancer that sends different connections on different lines so collectively the system meets the FCC broadband definition. Still the people down the road get better speeds without the load balancer for less money. I’d say it is not just a ‘lack of competition’ but ‘pernicious competition’ that is going on here. For instance, the cable company has less reason to serve my valley because people who want TV can get it from satellite. There are plenty of old and poor people who would rather spend $65 a month for 1 Mbps DSL than $70 for 300 Mbps cable and they will go to public meetings to try to keep the better service away. So in some sense competition from legacy satellite and legacy telco makes service worse. (TV of course is a great case study of ‘pernicious competition’ because of the structure of the industry. Your local OTA TV station tries to keep a secret that you can tune in free with an antenna because they get cash when you subscribe to cable. There is cable, multiple satellite providers, plus a number of IPTV providers but they all provide the same bundle at the same price. There is no way I can say I want CNBC and Bloomberg and the BBC but CNN, Fox and MSNBC can all go to hell. Given that they get paid no matter if people watch they have no need to maintain quality or a brand promise. CNN tried to go direct-to-consumer but decided it didn’t want to threaten the current cash cow even though it may be a doomed business…. It’s hard to tell because there are powerful forces that will try to rebuild the bundle out of Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus and all that.)
rocqua 4y ago
I could imagine some place like new york, where everyone rents and you are dependent on landlords for your internet contract as well as your actual ethernet connection, 5g for home network could work.
- distances 4y ago
  Why would a renter be dependent on the landlord for Internet? I rent (non-US) and have my own Internet, electricity, and gas contracts.
  - kenhwang 4y ago
    The utilities need owner approval to initially run the lines into the building and into every unit. You're welcome to get your own contract, but if they don't have permission by the owner to dig into the ground and drill into walls to run the lines to you and a place to put meters and equipment, you're not getting the internet/gas.
    - distances 4y ago
      Sure, but the gp clearly didn't mean that as they specifically mentioned the contract and the connection separately: > everyone rents and you are dependent on landlords for your internet contract as well as your actual ethernet connection
      - zinekeller 4y ago
        Unlike in sane countries where the government has either an independent provider (like Australia's NBN) or mandates the previous monopoly to open up their lines to competition (like UK's BT's Openreach or Japan's NTT), there is no equivalent concept in the US. For calls, sure, there is a concept of an incumbent local exchange carrier, but there's no such thing as an ILEC for internet services.
        distances 4y ago

by ilyt 4y ago

spookthesunset 4y ago

I mean you aren’t wrong. But cable has a monopoly on most peoples home internet today. If you could (theoretically) kick their ass with fast internet that completely bypasses asshole cable companies, more power to you.

PaulHoule 4y ago
If you hate the cable company, try the phone company. The cable stops 2 miles down the road from where I live so I have ADSL from Frontier. It was terrible for a long time, I didn’t do much better than 1 Mbps until they added some analog hardware to the line that got it close to 3. Recently they put in ‘fiber to the node’ to a nearby crossroads, I now have two 18 Mbps lines which, fortunately, give about 100% of the rated performance so I can’t complain much. I can even use Docker now, YouTube, Netflix, and online gaming are all pretty good. (The Samsung TV, outside of game mode, and some monitors, like the monitor on an Alienware ‘gaming’ laptop, add more lag than the DSL does.). I have a load balancer that sends different connections on different lines so collectively the system meets the FCC broadband definition. Still the people down the road get better speeds without the load balancer for less money. I’d say it is not just a ‘lack of competition’ but ‘pernicious competition’ that is going on here. For instance, the cable company has less reason to serve my valley because people who want TV can get it from satellite. There are plenty of old and poor people who would rather spend $65 a month for 1 Mbps DSL than $70 for 300 Mbps cable and they will go to public meetings to try to keep the better service away. So in some sense competition from legacy satellite and legacy telco makes service worse. (TV of course is a great case study of ‘pernicious competition’ because of the structure of the industry. Your local OTA TV station tries to keep a secret that you can tune in free with an antenna because they get cash when you subscribe to cable. There is cable, multiple satellite providers, plus a number of IPTV providers but they all provide the same bundle at the same price. There is no way I can say I want CNBC and Bloomberg and the BBC but CNN, Fox and MSNBC can all go to hell. Given that they get paid no matter if people watch they have no need to maintain quality or a brand promise. CNN tried to go direct-to-consumer but decided it didn’t want to threaten the current cash cow even though it may be a doomed business…. It’s hard to tell because there are powerful forces that will try to rebuild the bundle out of Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus and all that.)

rocqua 4y ago

I could imagine some place like new york, where everyone rents and you are dependent on landlords for your internet contract as well as your actual ethernet connection, 5g for home network could work.

distances 4y ago
Why would a renter be dependent on the landlord for Internet? I rent (non-US) and have my own Internet, electricity, and gas contracts.
- kenhwang 4y ago
  The utilities need owner approval to initially run the lines into the building and into every unit. You're welcome to get your own contract, but if they don't have permission by the owner to dig into the ground and drill into walls to run the lines to you and a place to put meters and equipment, you're not getting the internet/gas.
  - distances 4y ago
    Sure, but the gp clearly didn't mean that as they specifically mentioned the contract and the connection separately: > everyone rents and you are dependent on landlords for your internet contract as well as your actual ethernet connection
    - zinekeller 4y ago
      Unlike in sane countries where the government has either an independent provider (like Australia's NBN) or mandates the previous monopoly to open up their lines to competition (like UK's BT's Openreach or Japan's NTT), there is no equivalent concept in the US. For calls, sure, there is a concept of an incumbent local exchange carrier, but there's no such thing as an ILEC for internet services.
      - distances 4y ago