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by cwe 2652 days ago
5G is on the way, and will enable this stuff anywhere. MWC had tons of demos of 4k, multiplayer, and VR games streaming via 5G. A lot depends on how/when/if it's all rolled out, but unless you're currently 194 years old, it's gonna be a lot sooner than you think.
2 comments

If 5G is anything like LTE, it will work some of the time, cut out at other times, rapidly degrade into crap quality before coming back to full speed at random intervals. And bear in mind I live in Orange County, CA, hardly the backwoods.

We are a long, long, long way away from having constant, fast, reliable, high-bit rate connections for mobile devices.

(Note, I am on an IPhone XR in OC on ATT)

Still, always-online connections are still subject to typical tech issues. We're not living in the world of Ready Player One, and the country is extremely spread out. Add to the fact that a few mega corps own all the infrastructure in the country and for business reasons don't want to spend a dime, and I don't really see how any of this is possible, or even practical.

In other words, we have the technology (and it'll get better, I mean) to have handheld gaming devices. Even if they are digital only, it's extremely inefficient to generate video hundreds/thousands of miles away and beam it down to a device.

To me, this sounds like mailing a letter to your next door neighbor, going through the entire US Postal system, vs. just walking over and putting the envelope in their mailbox.