Re: 'Frugal 5G' bring broadband Internet to half world's population?
Not everywhere has the type of population density you are thinking about. Everywhere outside 'city limits' is a better candidate for fixed wireless broadband than it is for running fiber. You have the towers already, its just another antenna. AT&T sees it as a way to fund running fiber to those rural towers, which isn't cost effective if they are used for cellular only.
There are already deployments in the US using LTE (not even LTE-A) that do 20-30 Mbps at peak times. They use bands that aren't shared with mobile/cellular use so oversubscription rates are as easy to manage as wired. Once 5G appears it will be practical to offer hundreds of megabits this way, which is fast enough. There is no use case for gigabit to the home, and if/when there's actually a need for it faster wireless will be available (i.e. 6G, 7G etc.)
I agree with you in the city, houses are way too dense and the only way it would work is if they put a microcell on every other block (maybe practical in areas with utility poles, but where utilities are underground that's not an option)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
