Vodafone and 5G

[monabri]

For the holders of VOD.

"LONDON (Alliance News) - Vodafone Group PLC said Wednesday it will roll out 5G testing across seven UK cities later this year."

"5G provides faster and more reliable connections for smartphones and other wireless internet devices. Peak download speeds on 4G networks are only 300 megabits per second, less than a third the speed of 5G, which offers 1 gigabit per second."

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exch ... 09800.html

So, potentially good news for VOD.

Hopefully BT will do something similar! My concern (as I've mentioned elsewhere) is that many people pay for a landline because they need/want internet access. Introduction of a new, faster 5G system with increased data allowances might mean people can ditch their BT landline.

This is something I would seriously consider as most of the BT calls are nuisance "overseas" calls ("surveys") which BT do nothing to block - essentially I'm paying BT to allow these companies to phone me up and pester me! (whinge over).

On occasions, I've used my mobile phone (4G network) as a hotspot to provide internet access - I've found the download speed to be very similar to my broadband connection (fibre to cabinet !). Hence, when 5G comes along, do I need a BT line or could I just use a mobile as a hotspot to provide internet access and save some money (on an annual basis - the saving would represent the equivalent of several thousand pounds of VOD/BT shares in dividends )


musings:
12 months at £20 landline = £240

savings ~ equates to a VOD dividend of a new investment of £3000 into VOD at 7% dividend = £245

[Pastcaring]

I don't have a land line now but the constant calls like that down here in OZ were great

I would answer in a very broad Geordie accent and they ask if there was anyone the that could speak English.

[UncleEbenezer]

4G - where available - is broadband speeds comparable to regular cable or fibre. It's now my regular 'net connection. Not to mention 'phone, including my "landline" number.

AIUI (and ICBW), 5G is not really about a big jump in existing services like this. It's more about supporting vastly more devices, as envisaged in the growth of IoT. Vodafone will be looking for a lot more deals like the one with Amazon that gives Kindle users mobile connectivity. Most of those devices will individually have low requirements.

[melonfool]

Moderator Message:
I have moved this thread as it seems to be about phones and phone packages, not about shares at all. I have gone on to remove posts about moderation. I moved it and then had to go to a meeting and was ready to post the mod box when I came out but the software stopped working for a while. I left a shadow in the old place so it can be seen. Mel

[Slarti]

4G - where available - is broadband speeds comparable to regular cable or fibre. It's now my regular 'net connection. Not to mention 'phone, including my "landline" number.

AIUI (and ICBW), 5G is not really about a big jump in existing services like this. It's more about supporting vastly more devices, as envisaged in the growth of IoT. Vodafone will be looking for a lot more deals like the one with Amazon that gives Kindle users mobile connectivity. Most of those devices will individually have low requirements.

It is that "where available" to which I'd add, where reliable, that is the problem.

For me, I'll stick with landline for the foreseeable future as I far prefer the reliability,

As for Vodafone shares, it doesn't seem to have improved their value, other than a bit of a spike earlier in the day.

Slarti

[UncleEbenezer]

It is that "where available" to which I'd add, where reliable, that is the problem.
Slarti

Here it's turned out much more reliable than Virgin cable. Much to my surprise (and disgust at the latter).

[strowger]

There's much to worry about with BT, but "permanent shift from landline to mobile" isn't a big problem.

Consumer Internet access has been with us for 25 years now, and the constants throughout this time have been:

Bandwith growth - connections always get faster. Right now I have about 20000x the download rate I first accessed the Internet with - 100000x being possible if I had a Virgin Media or FTTP service.

New applications - there are always new things to use the newly-available bandwidth for. First was text, then pictures, then audio streaming, then video streaming, later will come higher resolution, 3D, VR, all manner of things which haven't been invented yet.

Superiority of fixed-line - mobile and fixed access technologies advance at the same rate, but fixed has consistently provided 1 to 2 orders of magnitude more bandwidth than mobile. Yes, your mobile connection might have peak download speed equal to your fixed one - but you can use your fixed one at that speed for hours every day, whereas the mobile one has a cap.

People will want BT fixed line connections for many years yet. Whether BT can provide them efficiently enough to make a profit and not infuriate their customers so much that they get broken up or confiscated, is their challenge.

Vodafone's challenges are profitably building, and trading, stakes in overseas telecom businesses (their forte' - are they overpaying for the Liberty Global assets?), managing competition from new entrants (India is stuffed and it looks like Italy is stuffed too), not overpaying for 5G licences, and not stuffing up the operation of their businesses (they're bad at this - "Vodafail" in Australia cost billions, as did the eye-off-the-ball mess they made of the UK OpCo over the past few years).