[traceroute66]

> New towers aren't backwards compatible, and the bandwidth has been largely reduced.

Yup.

In tech-speak there is 5G NSA (Non-Standalone Architecture) and 5G SA (Standalone Architecture).

5G NSA is a kludge, it is 5G radios operating on a legacy 4G core. Inherently backwards compatible.

5G SA is 5G radios on 5G core. Clearly not backwards compatible.

5G SA is the preferred route for good reason:

    1. It delivers reduced power consumption at both operator and user-device level
    2. It delivers improved latency and bandwidth at both operator and user-device level

[izacus]

In other words - noone in real life is deploying 5G only infrastructure right now and won't for awhile.

MSR base stations are the norm in the industry, not a rarity.

[jeroenhd]

NSA can be rolled out with almost nothing more than a firmware update. For any existing carrier network, it was the obvious place to start 5G rollout.

If you're building new towers, things change, obviously. That said, a lot of industrial/IoT hardware still requires 4G so it's not entirely unreasonable to deploy 4G in new coverage areas.

[moffkalast]

And it also planned-obsoletes 4G only devices, a big win for the operators that can then sell new 5G capable ones. Such a racket I swear. Can't wait to go through this shit again for 6G in about 5 years, like we did for 3G.

[uni_baconcat]

They can replace 2G/3G IoT with LTE, but cannot with 5G (due to energy consumption).

5G RedCap is the solution, but that will need new infrastructure and chipset. LTE will stay at least for another ten years.