Everybody wants to be a "Content Provider" but it seems like no one has any interest in providing or maintaining the infrastructure to get that content from one place to another. Everybody is all excited about this new craze called 5G.... Go ahead, drink that kool-aid right up. Even my father is ranting about it... First off, it'll be years before that tech makes it to podunk New Hampshire, then what? Yippie, its fast internet, that's what EVERYBODY wants, right? Except it's still going to be considered cellular data and all the stupid data caps and pricing will still exist. Great, I'll have 10 gig speeds (or some over-hyped claim). It just means I can hit my 4 gig cap on my phone that much faster. But, my father says, it's an alternative to Comcast for the internet in the house.... Riiiiight.... With what sort of per gigabyte charge and what sort of data cap? They're going to want to pay for this new tech roll out somehow... We use better than 400 gigabytes (yes, bytes, not bits) of data over our internet connection every month in my house. There's no way that will be cheaper over some new-fangled network run by the greedy cell carriers. Not to mention, the range on this 5G is next to nothing so there's going to have to be nodes/tranceivers/repeaters on every third utility pole? You can't tell me there won't be fiber or something connecting them all back to some head end. Why not just take the same damned fiber and RUN IT TO MY HOUSE. I mean, seriously, how fast does data need to be on a handheld device. I find 4G LTE to be plenty fast enough for anything I do with a cell phone.
Since I'm on my little rant, I'll relate some observations I made when driving into Somerville, MA the other day. I was killing time waiting for a friend to come out of his apartment, so I was idly looking at the utility poles and the general decrepitude of inner city utility wiring and a thought occurred. You would never see this level of ineptitude in New Hampshire. I wish I had a picture of the rats nest of wires that were hanging in front of my friend's building. That's Verizon territory. They just do not care, and the company doesn't want their employees to care. You drive into New Hampshire and look at the condition of the outside plant compared to Massachusetts and it's night and day. Yeah, it's not perfect, but it doesn't scream IDGAF like I saw down there. CC has gotten pretty much all caught up on attachment moves, the splice cases have been fixed and sealed meaning no more trash bags taped over them, and the general workmanship is just better. Yeah, I gripe that there's no fiber where I am, but I'm still grateful to have a company in town that seems to give a hoot about their subscribers and their equipment.
Verizon should take notes.
