The problem isn’t the technical standards: Right now in my living room I get around 10 Mbps download on 3G (HSPA) and around 20-30 Mbps on 4G (LTE). Latency between the two is almost the same: 1 to 2 ms difference. In some places 3G is still better due to better signal conditions.
I remember getting those speeds back in 2009, ten years ago, when the maximum speed I could get on cable was 3 Mbps.
Main difference, and I guess the real business growth motivator, are the data caps. Back then I had a data allowance in the low hundreds of megabytes which made streaming music and video an expensive endeavor, while the cheapest plans now start at a couple gigabytes.
Cable latencies in the last mile won’t help when your patient is half a world 250ms away due to the speed of light. But it might enable gaming and other real time uses, though.
I remember getting those speeds back in 2009, ten years ago, when the maximum speed I could get on cable was 3 Mbps.
Main difference, and I guess the real business growth motivator, are the data caps. Back then I had a data allowance in the low hundreds of megabytes which made streaming music and video an expensive endeavor, while the cheapest plans now start at a couple gigabytes.
Cable latencies in the last mile won’t help when your patient is half a world 250ms away due to the speed of light. But it might enable gaming and other real time uses, though.