[kurthr]

I agree, and if a 5G base stations is really required on every corner... then screw it! You can't get decent coverage of more than one carrier over significant fractions of the country. I sounds like 5G is more likely to emerge as a super WiFi than as a cell phone standard in the US. Transitioning to greater use of MIMO within the 4G standard would significantly increase bandwidth without requiring more stations.

And it might just save us money... we need more 4G with good coverage than ultra-high bandwidth local service. We might get it and better WiFi, if the FCC doesn't sell off all the spectrum to our non-competitive tri-opoly. In China they've already committed build it so they will come, anyway.

The one new thing 5G actually helps with is low latency (less than 10ms rather than less than 100ms) ... which is mostly useful for dumb terminals, twitch games, and perhaps VR.