Ivylog wrote:
theoldwizard1 wrote:
The satellite version of DirecTV is a "dead man walking". If Starlink doesn't kill it, expanding 5G cell phone service. Both offer TWO WAY communication, something DirectTV can not.
Don’t hold your breath that 5G is a solution… it needs an antenna every mile for coverage which is possible in a large city but you can forget it in rural areas.
5G is just a name for a collection of encoding methods and software stacks, carriers can be everything from 600MHz which will cover dozens of miles to 30GHz which requires an antenna every few hundred feet. It's about 10% more efficient than 4G and has lower latency, plus it allows providers to stitch together many more pieces of separate spectrum. Also one of the big advantages of carrier aggregation for rural use cases is that it can upload on lower frequencies where the low power radio in your phone can cover distance more easily while putting downlink on higher frequencies where the more powerful radios from the cell tower might still be able to talk at your phone. Other than cost and currently some battery drain issues there's no real downside to going 5g. That said much of the early hype was vastly overblown because some of the biggest wow moments for 5g were the blistering speeds that mmWave (20-30GHz) allows, but at cost of poor coverage, building penetration, and insanely high buildout costs. All of that is why the only time most people will ever use it is at a sporting arena or similar venue where the providers expect very, very high total bandwidth usage in a small area and where the limited range is actually a virtue because it allows for lots of spectrum reuse.
