<
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/06/23/5g-was-an-over-hyped-dud-prepare-for-nobody-to-learn-absolutely-anything-from-the-experience/>
"We’ve noted for several years how the “race to 5G” was largely just hype by
telecoms and hardware vendors eager to sell more gear and justify high U.S.
mobile data prices. While 5G does provide faster, more resilient, and lower
latency networks, it’s more of an evolution than a revolution.
But that’s not what telecom giants like Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T promised.
Both routinely promised that 5G would change the way we live and work, usher
forth the smart cities of tomorrow, and even revolutionize the way we treat
cancer. None of those things wound up being true (I enjoyed talking to one
medical professional who basically laughed in my face about the cancer claim).
When 5G did arrive, it didn’t even live up to its basic promise, really. U.S.
implementations were decidedly slower, spottier, and more expensive than many
overseas networks, thanks to the usual industry consolidation and U.S.
regulatory fecklessness. The end result: wireless carriers associated a
promising but not world-changing technological improvement with hype and
bluster in the mind of consumers.
In a bit of a retrospective,
Washington Post tech columnist Shira Ovide looks
back at the 5G hype and hopes that maybe, just maybe, somebody in industry will
“learn their lesson” from the experience:
We and companies that make technology must acknowledge that not every new
technology changes our lives — at least not in a way that makes for a
compelling science fiction movie…5G was an incremental technical improvement
that companies tried to tell us was a revolutionary leap. It wasn’t.
The sentiment of the piece is absolutely correct. Industry claims should be
grounded in reality to ensure consumers, markets, investors, and the public
have a realistic, fact-based understanding of a technology’s potential.
But in case you hadn’t noticed with NFT, crypto, AI, and every other technology
hype cycle that rolls through, there’s no financial incentive for measured
introspection of this type in the attention economy we’ve created. You don’t
get the kind of headlines and attention companies and VC’s crave by explaining
what a technology actually does, you increasingly get it by being monumentally
full of shit."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
