Why do wireless carriers knock on my door in a major city trying to sell 5G home internet service? - eviltoast

I live in a major city with cable internet everywhere along with fiber in some areas (unfortunately not mine), but I’ve had multiple instances of carriers’ salespeople knock on my door selling 5G home internet service.

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

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

  • MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net
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    4 months ago

    I average about 20ms (Comcast over WiFi). TMo was about 30ms. I just checked my cell connection (also ATT 5g), and matched your 80ms. Not sure what the Comcast ping would be wired, but I don’t run anything significant over Ethernet. The jump from 5ms to 30ms is noticeable with gaming for sure. But in my use case, the latency difference would have been negligible.