[molf]

It's only a matter of time before laptops get 5G. Macbooks have been rumoured for a while to get cellular modems. [1]

This will probably help adoption. On the one hand it will generate more IPv6 traffic. On the other hand it will expose more developers to IPv6; which will expose them to any lack of support for IPv6 within their own products.

[1]: https://9to5mac.com/2025/08/14/apples-first-mac-with-5g-cell...

[venzaspa]

Dell, HP and Lenovo have had laptops with cellular modems for maybe 15 years at this point.

[theandrewbailey]

I can confirm this. I work at an e-waste recycling company, and the vast majority of my inventory is corporate IT decommissioned gear. About 1 out of 10 laptops I tear down has a cellular modem, going back to about Intel Core 5th gen.

[vel0city]

I've had laptops with cellular modems built in going back to Pentium IIIs. The Compaq N600c had a "multiport" bay on the lid, one of the options was a GSM modem.

[brcmthrowaway]

Jesus, what a waste

[gempir]

*A few select models got celluar modems.

I have owned several Dell, HP and Lenovo Laptops in the past 15 years and I have never had a cellular modem.

When Apple makes a change like that it impacts a lot of customers because they have way fewer skews.

[dlcarrier]

I've never had a modern laptop with a cellular modem, but every one I've owned has supported them internally. Even when they aren't provisioned with them, they're usually still supported as aftermarket options.

[dlcarrier]

Yeah, but any given technology hasn't been invented yet, until Apple releases it.

[Sweepi]

| Macbooks have been rumoured for a while to get cellular modems.

Maybe they are finally coming, however the rumors are older then the iPhone. Example from 2008: https://pcr-online.biz/2008/11/03/3g-macbooks-on-the-way/

[nottorp]

> It's only a matter of time before laptops get 5G.

So you want laptops to cost <whatever the laptop costs> plus a measly 19.99/month for internet connectivity?

What's wrong with just tethering to my existing phone?

[Glemllksdf]

Thats quite surprising thing to me and weirdly obvious.

If you are single, have a phone contract, you would need some extra contract for a landline internet and wifi router because thats what a lot of people just do and now they can just add an esim and pay a little bit more.

Interesting that this sounds/feels a lot more right or useful than it did 5 years ago.

[traderj0e]

5G services all give you an ipv4 too, so devs won't be exposed to lack of v6 support.

[panny]

I can't imagine a worse privacy nightmare. Always on backdoored baseband in 5G with a unique permanent IPv6 address assigned to the machine. Okay, maybe it could be worse if each user account is assigned its own unique IPv6 perma-cookie.

[Dagger2]

You're thinking of MAC addresses. Machines don't have permanently-assigned v6 addresses, rather the IP is assigned by whatever network they're currently attached to and will change based on that network's whims, just like it does in v4.

[merpkz]

As if people doesn't already carry always online machine in their pockets

[nottorp]

> Okay, maybe it could be worse if each user account is assigned its own unique IPv6 perma-cookie.

They will. One from facebook, one from google, one from tiktok, several from Palantir and its partners...