The Disappointment of 5G
Ignoring all the hype and BS, all the cell infrastructure really comes down to a battle between user bandwidth needs and available spectrum (multiplied by spectral efficiency and density of towers). Get this wrong and customer service tanks as cell sites get congestied.<p>There are virtually no new applications enabled IMO with 5G speeds vs LTE speeds/latency, assuming they are both not congested. 100mbit/sec LTE with 20-30ms latency is fine for nearly everything; gigabit with 5ms latency on 5G doesn't really change much, at least for the next few years.<p>5G NR (the access layer of 5G) isn't hugely more spectrum efficient than LTE on a bitz/hz basis, at least on a downstream basis where the most demand is (upstream is really important too though, especially for TCP, I'm not discounting that). [1].<p>We are getting diminishing returns on spectrum efficiency. Which means more and more spectrum required to keep up with demands, which is really what 5G enables (more channel bonding, much wider channels). However, we are totally running out of spectrum to allocate to mobile services. The spectrum that is available in large quantities is extremely high frequency and can't really penetrate walls (it will even struggle with rain).<p>So long term the only thing that carriers can do is densify their cell sites, which is extremely expensive from a capex perspective. Some carriers have realised this, some haven't (or don't have the funds to do it). In the UK 3UK is doing it; with thousands of planning applications to add new sites (with huge NIMBY backlash everywhere).<p>1: <a href="https://www.5g-networks.net/5g-technology/spectral-efficiency-5g-nr-and-4g-lte-compared/" rel="nofollow">https://www.5g-networks.net/5g-technology/spectral-efficienc...</a>