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by Arbalest 2211 days ago
There's a reason China is so keen on it (let's not get on the state surveillence bandwagon yet). Their population and population density is consistently high in so many cities, that they face contention problems more than anyone else. If we're talking relatively sparse cities found in many places around the world, then no, the extra local capacity is probably not in high demand.

I would bet that 5G has cut down base stations which operate similarly to 4G, but the option to not use a new generation only works for maybe 1 generation before it gets too far behind. Data consumption is still going up after all, and some countries (such as Australia) have already mandated the shutdown of older generations, with 2G switched off to refarm spectrum, and 3G scheduled for switch off.