I feel like this is a false equivalence. Rather than compare the web to TV or radio I think it’s more accurate to regard the internet as a medium then compare that to RF transmission. Just as we went from text communication (Morse code) to audio transmission to video transmission over radio waves, we’ve gone from email to RealPlayer to Youtube and beyond.
I do find it somewhat ironic that television evolved from over-the-air broadcast to direct-connect cable, while internet technologies have gone from landlines to WIFI and 5G.
TV is largely now just IP anyways so in a way we’re kinda back.
5G internet is only really a thing because it’s so much easier to run fiber to one tower. Than to broadcast it out for miles than it is to run fiber to everyone’s doorstep. We switched from OTA to cable mostly because OTA sucked. But now that we’ve figured out long range, high bandwith, and most importantly high reliability RF we’re happy to use it. But for most people their internet will stay wired because it’s still the most reliable and fastest. The only people I know that use 5G home internet are in rural areas where the wired options suck, and my one co worker that’s just a cheap ass and he hates it.
Chiming in to say the 5G home internet I have is great. Cheaper and faster than broadband. Live in a metropolitan area. Wish fiber was an option, still.
My co worker that hates it is in a downtown area and that’s kinda why he hates it. 95% of the time it’s great and he gets >300Mbps with low latency. But when there’s a lot going on the network bogs down badly. Like if there’s ever a major sportsball game it chugs. Latency throughout the day is pretty hit or miss, but it’s normally fine as long as you’re not trying to play an online game.
Coincidentally my co worker that’s in a rural area has almost no issues because for whatever reason T-Mobile ran insanely good internet to his local tower and nobody is ever really on it so he pretty consistently gets great speeds. Suburbs might be good too since people are more spread out.
I’m in a rural area, super mountainous. Tmo has a tower near my home that allows for 5g home internet, but they won’t let us use it. Say we’re too far from the tower. So I signed up with a friend’s address and use it anyway. It works great. My only other options for Internet are dial up, sat, or PCs for people, which use one of those old school hotspot boxes (it’s income based, only 15 a month, and truly unlimited in case anyone is in need in the US). We used PCs for people for ages, but those boxes just aren’t as capable, and it’s pretty slow even with 4g/5g connection. Talking 3mbps was a really, really great day. I now get consistently 150-200mbps and have hit 250. It’s the fastest internet I have ever had.
Yeah I have that same issue about once every 2 months. A few hours a day the internet just kills itself. Slow network speed and huge latency; online gaming is impossible, only good for streaming video at 720p. Learned it was because the home internet has less network priority than people using their phones so the phone users don’t have call issues and such because some people are streaming 4K video or torrenting. Sucks majorly but thankfully rare in my situation. I live in a middle ground between urban and suburban, so great option for my situation. I can see why your co-worker living in a denser area hates it.
I feel like this is a false equivalence. Rather than compare the web to TV or radio I think it’s more accurate to regard the internet as a medium then compare that to RF transmission. Just as we went from text communication (Morse code) to audio transmission to video transmission over radio waves, we’ve gone from email to RealPlayer to Youtube and beyond.
I do find it somewhat ironic that television evolved from over-the-air broadcast to direct-connect cable, while internet technologies have gone from landlines to WIFI and 5G.
TV is largely now just IP anyways so in a way we’re kinda back.
5G internet is only really a thing because it’s so much easier to run fiber to one tower. Than to broadcast it out for miles than it is to run fiber to everyone’s doorstep. We switched from OTA to cable mostly because OTA sucked. But now that we’ve figured out long range, high bandwith, and most importantly high reliability RF we’re happy to use it. But for most people their internet will stay wired because it’s still the most reliable and fastest. The only people I know that use 5G home internet are in rural areas where the wired options suck, and my one co worker that’s just a cheap ass and he hates it.
Chiming in to say the 5G home internet I have is great. Cheaper and faster than broadband. Live in a metropolitan area. Wish fiber was an option, still.
My co worker that hates it is in a downtown area and that’s kinda why he hates it. 95% of the time it’s great and he gets >300Mbps with low latency. But when there’s a lot going on the network bogs down badly. Like if there’s ever a major sportsball game it chugs. Latency throughout the day is pretty hit or miss, but it’s normally fine as long as you’re not trying to play an online game.
Coincidentally my co worker that’s in a rural area has almost no issues because for whatever reason T-Mobile ran insanely good internet to his local tower and nobody is ever really on it so he pretty consistently gets great speeds. Suburbs might be good too since people are more spread out.
I’m in a rural area, super mountainous. Tmo has a tower near my home that allows for 5g home internet, but they won’t let us use it. Say we’re too far from the tower. So I signed up with a friend’s address and use it anyway. It works great. My only other options for Internet are dial up, sat, or PCs for people, which use one of those old school hotspot boxes (it’s income based, only 15 a month, and truly unlimited in case anyone is in need in the US). We used PCs for people for ages, but those boxes just aren’t as capable, and it’s pretty slow even with 4g/5g connection. Talking 3mbps was a really, really great day. I now get consistently 150-200mbps and have hit 250. It’s the fastest internet I have ever had.
Yeah I have that same issue about once every 2 months. A few hours a day the internet just kills itself. Slow network speed and huge latency; online gaming is impossible, only good for streaming video at 720p. Learned it was because the home internet has less network priority than people using their phones so the phone users don’t have call issues and such because some people are streaming 4K video or torrenting. Sucks majorly but thankfully rare in my situation. I live in a middle ground between urban and suburban, so great option for my situation. I can see why your co-worker living in a denser area hates it.
Throwing in RealPlayer really makes this work. The original bad-faith actor.