Ask Lemmy

30 miles south of LA, my choices were:

• $65 for DSL through AT&T
• $75 for Cable Internet (That they called Fiber) through Charter's ancient network
• $30 for TMo 5G when added to my family plan.

The TMo had more than double the speed. We need competition in this space. All the legacy companies are fat, slow, and lazy.

Because these idiots keep putting services on top of ISP-heavy areas instead of deploying where there is zero competition. I.e., where they could potentially gain actual new business.

Sorry. I’m a little jaded after decades of access to only one viable ISP.

The reason this doesn’t make sense to me is 5G will always have a much higher latency than any wired alternative

Not true. Really crappy wired solutions (because the provider's network is poorly maintained, or poorly designed) can easily be worse than a wireless solution. However for the sake of argument, lets assume that both the wired and wireless provider both have well designed and maintained systems.

A wired solution can absolutely have lower latency, but what latency are you okay with and are you willing to pay for much lower latency that you don't need? Consider the following scenario:

• wired provider latency = 20ms at a cost of $100/month
• wireless 5G provider latency = 40ms at a cost of $35/month

Assuming equal bandwidth would it be worth it to you to pay $65 extra dollars per month for 10ms less latency? How many consumers do you think care that much that are only streaming netflix, checking email, playing phone based mobile games? Those are real example costs from my area. If you are a Verizon cell phone customer can get from 100Mbs to 300Mbs at about 40ms latency for $35/month.

— it really only makes sense to sell this stuff in rural areas without the infrastructure. What’s more is the most recent carrier has a reputation for extraordinary coverage but their network is CDMA so their network speed is one of the worst in the city.

We're talking 5g here. It would be a really bad solution for rural areas. 5g is fast, but because of the broadcast frequencies the signal doesn't travel very far. Thats why you see so many more smaller 5g towers than tall 4g. A single 5g tower in a dense urban area can serve hundreds of customers, where that same tower in rural may serve 10 or less because the distance to customers is so much larger.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to sell this stuff elsewhere?

Nope, cities are the perfect market for 5g home internet. Zero wiring costs in high density urban residential spaces especially where incumbent wired providers have been abusing their customers for decades means customers are open to alternatives, especially at lower prices with better customer service.

Because people buy it.

Most folks are not as tech savvy as the people on Lemmy.

Most people don’t know the difference between cable, fiber, DSL, or wireless. It’s just “internet.”

They should do it remotely. Also Jehovah's witnesses should do their rounds remotely. Then I can just route both towards each other or right into the pihole.

Many times, these aren't direct representatives of the company providing the service, but mlm type organizations.

Because they already built the towers, so going door to door to pick up more revenue makes sense, even if your market is saturated.

Maybe someone is fed up with their current experience, maybe they are gullible, maybe they just want to talk to some nice salesman and will buy the product for the company.

I think the 5g value really depends on like the exact neighborhood you're in, based on proximity to the towers, so it makes sense for them to target by address. Also, as a Nextdoor reader, I can tell you lots of people have no idea what their options are and if they weren't exactly the same people who think a doorbell is a prelude to murder these sales might actually make sense.

Because our government used tax dollars to create the net and then they sold it out to private entities so we could keep paying for what we already did to develop. Also, ISPs are cancer. It'd be much cheaper and better as a utility.

Because they want to be lazy and get your business at the same time for measurable worse internet speeds and latency.

Much lower overhead than running fiber or anything else in the ground since it's only 1 pole that serves a larger area.

Put up a No Solicitors sign?

I think this is likely a sort of Cutco Knives type thing (less the pre-buying of inventory). But at least in parts of Oregon they'll hire people for cheap and give them lofty allures of commissions - which never really happen before the salesperson burns out and quits.

I only know this because my friend got sucked into it for a year before realizing nobody was buying or cared.