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Quoth · 03-06-2020, 01:28 PM

Try it somewhere busy and with more than one client.
Yes, it CAN work, also on 3G. BTW in the same bandwidth channel the 5G is NO FASTER at all.
A mast has usually three sectors. It has less bandwith for a sector than decent VDSL. Each VDSL connection is NOT shared. The total bandwidth of a sector IS shared to all connected.

Anyone having working streaming all the time on 3G / 4G / 5G is living near an underutilised mast. Also the likelihood of an entire family or an apartment block or house full of students even being able to stream at all is low.

It's not broadband. It connects on demand and shares very limited bandwidth. It is not a viable alternative to real broadband as it doesn't economically scale. You'd need far too many masts.

The 5G in most cases will make little difference, it mostly about combining infrastructure and line of site for mass gatherings.

Unfortunately Cable Broadband can't be deployed economically outside towns and cities. I have a friend that lives on a mountainside. Fortunately it's on a main national road route and near a mast so the road has coverage. So he has excellent 3G or 4G for streaming.
I live in a village of about 1,200 that has a mast in the village and near the bypassing motorway. The Mobile speed is rubbish.
The Mobile speed is quite good in the city centre nearly 10km away. But almost everyone has cable broadband and many have fibre to the home.

The Cable and Fibre suppliers add various streaming services here at a discount and have local servers at their main nodes. The Cable also has all the UK TV, 90 % of the TV watched in Ireland on Pay Satellite and Pay Cable TV is actually available FTA for over 15 years, either via an aerial (Irish HD) or a dish (UK). So even before Netflix, Amazon etc the Cable company was massively promoting FAST broadband and upgraded to HFC.
I worked in USA and frankly the cable TV was garbage then compared to the five UK FTA and three Irish FTA (all analogue then, many more of both FTA and all Digital).

Certainly USA Cable broadband used to be poor and Cable TV terrible. So the strategy is now to sell fast always on broadband.
In many European countries over the last 15 years, the operators are now selling multi-play of Fast Broadband (Cable using HFC, Fibre to Cabinet, Fibre to home, VDSL), discounted access to streaming, premium sports broadcast channels, Mobile packages, discounted VOIP with geographic numbers and DECT handsets).
Sky Satellite Pay TV saw this coming so now sell broadband and optional integration to a satellite box. Plenty of people can't get fast broadband and about 10% can't get any broadband.

Streaming Operators are carving a complementary niche to Broadcast TV and the best way to reliably consume streaming is via real Fast Broadband, hence Cable in USA belatedly changing emphasis to Broadband rather than piped broadcast TV.

03-06-2020, 01:28 PM	#16
Quoth Still reading Posts: 14,268 Karma: 105299897 Join Date: Jun 2017 Location: Ireland Device: All 4 Kinds: epub eink, Kindle, android eink, NxtPaper	Try it somewhere busy and with more than one client. Yes, it CAN work, also on 3G. BTW in the same bandwidth channel the 5G is NO FASTER at all. A mast has usually three sectors. It has less bandwith for a sector than decent VDSL. Each VDSL connection is NOT shared. The total bandwidth of a sector IS shared to all connected. Anyone having working streaming all the time on 3G / 4G / 5G is living near an underutilised mast. Also the likelihood of an entire family or an apartment block or house full of students even being able to stream at all is low. It's not broadband. It connects on demand and shares very limited bandwidth. It is not a viable alternative to real broadband as it doesn't economically scale. You'd need far too many masts. The 5G in most cases will make little difference, it mostly about combining infrastructure and line of site for mass gatherings. Unfortunately Cable Broadband can't be deployed economically outside towns and cities. I have a friend that lives on a mountainside. Fortunately it's on a main national road route and near a mast so the road has coverage. So he has excellent 3G or 4G for streaming. I live in a village of about 1,200 that has a mast in the village and near the bypassing motorway. The Mobile speed is rubbish. The Mobile speed is quite good in the city centre nearly 10km away. But almost everyone has cable broadband and many have fibre to the home. The Cable and Fibre suppliers add various streaming services here at a discount and have local servers at their main nodes. The Cable also has all the UK TV, 90 % of the TV watched in Ireland on Pay Satellite and Pay Cable TV is actually available FTA for over 15 years, either via an aerial (Irish HD) or a dish (UK). So even before Netflix, Amazon etc the Cable company was massively promoting FAST broadband and upgraded to HFC. I worked in USA and frankly the cable TV was garbage then compared to the five UK FTA and three Irish FTA (all analogue then, many more of both FTA and all Digital). Certainly USA Cable broadband used to be poor and Cable TV terrible. So the strategy is now to sell fast always on broadband. In many European countries over the last 15 years, the operators are now selling multi-play of Fast Broadband (Cable using HFC, Fibre to Cabinet, Fibre to home, VDSL), discounted access to streaming, premium sports broadcast channels, Mobile packages, discounted VOIP with geographic numbers and DECT handsets). Sky Satellite Pay TV saw this coming so now sell broadband and optional integration to a satellite box. Plenty of people can't get fast broadband and about 10% can't get any broadband. Streaming Operators are carving a complementary niche to Broadcast TV and the best way to reliably consume streaming is via real Fast Broadband, hence Cable in USA belatedly changing emphasis to Broadband rather than piped broadcast TV.