How Attractive is 5G Fixed Wireless?

How attractive is 5G fixed wireless as a substitute product for existing fixed network internet access? Substantial, according to a new Parks Associates survey. 

According to Craig Leslie, Parks Associates senior research analyst, "once the technology is explained to them, almost half are interested in replacing their fixed-line internet service with 5G home services."

As always, consumers say they will take certain actions, and then do not; or say they will not do some things, and then do them. So it is difficult to make too-certain predictions about consumer behavior related to 5G fixed wireless, when consumers are not required to consider price, retail packaging and other elements of service. 

On the other hand, substituting 5G fixed wireless for fixed network service does not require, as does 5G mobile phone service, investing in new handsets with substantial costs. In all likelihood, the effective cost of switching fixed internet access service should be minimal, if, as expected, ISPs make customer premises gear available at low recurring charges, at subsidized prices and in ways familiar to consumers. 

Demand for mobile 5G service likewise seems relatively high, with the caveat that respondents likely were not told they would have to buy new smartphones to use 5G, and in various price ranges possibly up to $1000 or more. 

That noted, more than 33 percent of U.S. broadband households (perhaps 80 percent of all homes) cite some level of familiarity with 5G and over 40 percent of U.S. broadband households are interested in 5G, according to Parks Associates. 

Ultimately, 5G will be used by nearly all consumers, as 4G now is. 

source: Parks Associates

Only 13 percent of respondents reported they would pay higher fees for 5G service, which is not a surprising finding, nor necessarily indicative of actual future behavior, once the concrete value propositions are commercial realities. 

And that transition could come fairly rapidly. According to Parks, 20 percent of broadband households bought at least one new smartphone in the first quarter of 2019. At that rate, a substantial opportunity to introduce 5G devices exists, once the networks are more developed, the supply of handsets is diverse and value propositions clearer.

What is DOCSIS 4.0?

Cable TV operators believe their hybrid fiber coax networks can keep increasing bandwidth. DOCSIS 4.0 supports 10 Gbps speeds. 

U.K. Connectivity Service Providers Score Poortly for Customer Service

Telecom service providers tend to score among the worst U.S. industries for customer satisfaction. Apparently, things are similar in the United Kingdom.  U.K. consumer product reviewer Which? Found that three of the five firms ranked worst for customer service in 2019 are connectivity service providers.

Mobile provider 02 did rank in the top half, however. 

source: Which?

What Will be Distinctive about 5G?

In a nutshell, the key to profitable 5G deployment is to invest as though the value is bandwidth reinforcement for 4G, in areas of greatest need, without all the futuristic stuff, so cost is contained. 

That overlay approach would focus 5G investment on cell site coverage areas where there is greatest demand, using dynamic spectrum sharing and other tools to gradually introduce 5G on a network-wide basis. That allows 5G investment to happen largely within existing capital budgets. 

Still, the new platform creates the foundation for distinctive new use cases that are virtually certain to emerge. 

That has been the case for every prior mobile generation. Where the lead app for analog mobile was simply voice “on the go,” for business users and well-heeled consumers, 2G added text messaging. 

source: Qualcomm

The 3G network added mobile web access and mobile email. The distinctive 4G experience is the ability to consume video. It is not clear what might emerge in the 5G era for consumer apps. Most observers believe enterprise apps and internet of things (machines talking to machines) will be distinctive features of 5G.

Jim Keller of Intel Says Moore’s Law is Not Dead

Jim Keller of Intel helped architect Athlon64 and Ryzen processors. And he says Moore's Law can continue.

Maybe Moore's Law is Not Dead

Maybe Moore’s Law is not dead. Jim Keller, an architect of Intel’s Athlon64 and Ryzen chips, believes that Moore's Law has not died. 

He said Intel currently has a plan to stack 50 times more transistors than it currently has in its processors. 

source: Intel

Non-Thermal Effects of Non-Ionizing Energy Have Not been Looked at

Up to this point, most studies of non-ionizing radio signals--either well done or not--have focused on thermal effects, as the specific difference between non-ionizing and ionizing radiation is tissue heating in the former case, potential cell or other damage in the latter case.

Non-ionizing energy can warm tissue, but cannot dislodge electrons from an atom or molecule, potentially causing genetic damage, as ionizing energy from X-rays and so forth can do. 

So far, research on non-ionizing energy has not focused on non-thermal effects. It bears watching, though, as always, it will be difficult to show that correlation is causation, there being no way to isolate the impact of all the various sources of energy exposure. 

All that said, prudent behavior is not a bad idea. Though we do not have conclusive evidence that using mobile phones is a hazard, and even if exposure levels in the mobile era have not increased,  it does not hurt to limit exposure to the extent feasible. 

Also, exposure levels in the real world are not the same as levels in some studies of non-ionizing radiation. Drinking water is essential for life. But drinking too much water can kill a person. The same general rule arguably applies to human exposure to all sources of non-ionizing energy in real life.