Most people today are limited to one, if they're lucky two Internet providers for their home. One or a small number of providers results in poor service and high prices. Verizon Fios was to be an alternative to cable for many local communities, but Fios has years ago stopped expanding its wired Fios footprint.
Verizon has stopped expanding Fios because the end of wired Internet is upon us. Nicola Tesla was the first to show us that you could send electicity wirelessly. We transmit electricity and data over the air many ways today, for example we can charge our cell phones wirelessly. As we improve wireless technology home Internet is soon going to move from a cable or fiber to the air.
Most people currently use two sources for our Intenet, our 4G cell phones for mobile access and in our homes we use wired Intenet from Cable or Fios. The 3G and 4G speeds at our handsets are currently limited. 4G will support your phone and a some small number of computers or tablets attached to your phone, but 4G not enough to provide Internet for the modern home. Your wired Internet provider, provides 200, 400Mbps, even 1Gbps (1064Mbps) speeds. You use your wifi router, to split that speed to the 20 or 30 or more devices in and outside your home. Becaue you don't use all the devices at the same time, and your router is designed to take packets from the busy devices and prioritize those, each device can get the 50, 100 or even 150Mbps it needs to provide quick service.
4G Cellular Internet Speed = 50Mbps
Home Internet Speed = 200-1064Mbps
5G seems it may be the answer to homeowners issue of having limited providers of wired Internet. 5G service will be much more like Wifi than cellular.
First we should note that 5G is actually 3 types of technology. Low-band, Mid-band and Millimeter. Mid-band 5G will provide up to 1GB service and good range while millimeter will provide very high speeds but about a 1/4 mile of coverage. Millimeter is heavily effected by building walls. In the US, Verizon is begining with millimeter service but the providers and the analysts seem to believe that Mid-band is the 5G sweet spot.
5G will require cell towers, likely smaller than our current towers, every 1/3 to 1/2 mile. The benefit to this it will operate similar to Wifi. 5G technology will allow you to use a cellular 5G device in place of your current wired modem, giving you 500Mbps or more service over the air. Its also possible that each of the devices in your home, each TV, phone and computer, could connect to the 5G network directly the way they connect to your Wifi network now. Optimum and many other providers have similar capabilities today public Wifi hotspots. Given the limitations in the sheer number of connections to the 5G required to support the 30-40 devices in a typicall home, I forsee having a 5G device replacing your home cellular modem the more universal solution. Your modem and router consolidating your home devices into a single IP address. I believe we'll see a hybrid solution to allow remote devices, like a video camera at the end of a long driveway.
You can buy devices off Amazon to replace your Internet modem with cellular today, and T-Mobile is providing cellular based Internet service and equipment in select locations https://www.t-mobile.com/isp. T-Mobile's solution is a great start but its limited in the locations its available, and to LTE speeds.
What you'll get from this is that in the US alone, each home should have 5 or more potential Internet provicers - Cable, Fios, Verizon Wireless , AT&T, and T-Moble/Sprint (now one company). The competition for your home Internet, between Wired and Cellular carriers should improve speed and reduce cost. Stay tuned - the answer to "my Internet service is expensive and terrible" is coming..
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment