- Nothing is a bigger scam than 5G. Latency is little improved from 4G. 5G: It still does nothing important. The 5G Emperor has no clothes.
- Open RAN will probably be a good thing, but sales will be modest for years. Still many challenges. Nokia & Ericsson blocking essential interop testing.
- Telco Edge Networks are minuscule outside Asia.
- 5G will not change life in India. The pundits and politicians have been scammed.
Verizon canceled its 1000 server, 10-15 ms Edge network in 2020. Instead, it has a big marketing push but only a few dozen centers with 20-35 ms latency. Edge is finding very few buyers. They basically serve as connection points for Amazon, Google, & Microsoft, which offer powerful hybrid networks that companies want.
Private networks have unproven demand. So many companies are jumping in, completion will be fierce and profits elusive.
More spectrum will have little impact on deployment for years. Mid-band is so productive that telcos have overcapacity almost everywhere, so will not need the spectrum until late in the decade. Small cells can serve congested areas inexpensively.
5G is expensive to build. NTT CTO Seizo Onoe in 2018 told the Brooklyn 5G Summit that capex for 5G will be about the same as 4G. Only usual situations, like Verizon catching up after years of cutting capex, capital spending has been roughly flat around the world.
Coming: No expensive traffic in Europe; ACP didn’t connect people; Giving Musk a billion would not allow more people to connect; expanding into other businesses rarely adds to telco profit