[thatcat]

You're right about the money argument. However, everyone is effected by this infrastructure so the roll out should require some justification regardless of who's money it is.

The 95% of people who own cell phones don't necessarily need internet faster than 4g on their phones and would be happy with that working reliability, which it doesn't.

>It enables technologies like tele-robotics. It would allow rural areas to invest in a surgical robot.

That sounds good and all, but shouldn't we just build out the fiber network so that we have actually reliable infrastructure instead of janky bullshit running on a proprietary cellular modem? What level of reliability should a surgical robot be? I'd say 9 9's for myself to use it. Can a cell signal transmit perfectly 99.9999999% of the time with those low latency numbers ? I don't think so since it's relying on atmospheric conditions and no interference to function.

Ironically, 5G will further reduce incentive for the clearly useful technology of fiber to be deployed at scale.