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Sprint To Launch 5G Service in 4 Cities in May (techcrunch.com)
Sprint has shared some of its plans when it comes to 5G service in the U.S. The company announced at MWC in Barcelona that mobile customers in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and Kansas City can expect 5G service as soon as May 2019. From a report: If you don't live in one of those cities, maybe you live in Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix or Washington D.C. Sprint also promises 5G coverage in those cities soon after the initial launch, at some point before the end of June 2019. Overall, Sprint expects to cover 1,000 square miles in nine cities by the end of the first half of 2019. It's going to take years to roll out 5G coverage across the U.S.
The release spec of 5G wont be ratified by that point. The early release will be ratified by April, one month before they expect to roll out. How do they expect to go in one month from a ratified paper spec to real hardware that is deployed and working in multiple cities? And that's not the finalized spec, that's due out next year. This reminds me of all of those "pre-N" wifi routers from 10 years ago. Each supported its own non-spec extension of G that was compatible with nothing and failed to give any real world performance gains.
I'm not sure what good it does to offer absurdly high bandwidth to mobile devices while capping data plans to insignificant amounts. Exceeding a data cap even faster doesn't sound all that appealing. I'm not sure when I've needed something delivered to my phone at higher than 20mbps and LTE is more than capable of doing that.
The benefit is that the ISP can effectively advertise faster rates than you truly get. It would be better is there were no data caps and providers simply sold rates based on what level of network saturation they could maintain. But if they did that then they would loose profits. Its no secret ISPs, wired and wireless both over subscribe their networks. They bank on not everyone using full bandwidth at the same time. It would be great if the FCC would do its job but as long as government appointees can be corrupted with kickbacks and cushy jobs from the industry leaders it ain't happening.
Let's hope Sprint doesn't hitch their wagon to the wrong 5G horse, like they did with WiMAX for 4G.
Unfortunately, the merger needs to happen, since AT&T and Verizon are giants and consolidating equipment and frequency ownership is really the only compelling option for either Sprint or TMO to continue to operate. There just isn't a path forward for either one unless they start to work as a single entity.
The FCC is very much pro-industry right now and I don't think there's a right-left bias in this particular consolidation so much that every time anyone gets a look at Sprint's books and up-close business practices, it's a pretty ugly story that by rights should scare away investors.
Sprint is GOING to be bought. As a Sprint customer, I'd rather see it join with TMO to make a third viable competitor in the US. Giving either ATT or VZW utter market leading dominance would just be the excuse to make service plans and bandwidth allocations that much worse for everyone else.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
America does not produce this. So, did they go with China or Europe?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.