5G Was An Over-Hyped Dud. Prepare For Nobody To Learn Absolutely Anything From The Experience (original) (raw)

from the it-only-gets-dumber-from-here dept

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.

That’s particularly true with a technology like 5G, that wasn’t a revolution so much as an evolution of existing tech. Not to say 5G doesn’t bring value, but faster, lower latency networks that are easier to maintain simply isn’t sexy, and to keep boosting marketing and investment returns in this increasingly unhinged attention economy, companies are routinely motivated to embrace the preposterous.

Filed Under: 5g, broadband, hype, networks, telecom, wireless