this post was submitted on 19 May 2026
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Wireless will never ever beat wired unless something about our understanding of physics fundamentally changes. It will also not be practical to do this kind of thing over significant distances inside the Earth's atmosphere.
The data carrying capacity of any signal is proportional to the carrier frequency you use, the higher the frequency the more potential bandwidth. Additionally, higher frequencies bounce off of things (including water vapor and particles in the air) much more easily. In other words, you need to use high frequencies to transmit a lot of data but high frequencies can't travel long distances without insane amounts of power, and even lots of power doesn't work very well.
Just use gamma rays, duh. What's a little ionisation for a tangle free future?
And then we all get stretchy purple boxers!
It already did beat it for commercial usage in parts of the world. Ie. In my country wired internet is dying quickly because it's mostly capped at 100/200Mbit, while 5G goes beyond that and tends to be cheaper.
EDIT: I pay 25€ for this. Same ISP on 5G router at home, commonly see speeds around 40MB/s
That's not comparing similar technologies though. Modern wireless like 5G would be more comparable to fiber optic speeds, which are way faster than 5G. Even if that wasn't the case fiber would still be much more reliable and power efficient.
But I am comparing my options in a given price range (average for a household), which is likely the most common criteria. Fiber tends to be expensive and rarely pre-installed, which comes with high costs
OK, but that's not what this article is about and that's not what I'm talking about either.
My bad, I thought the article is talking about wireless network and the guy above was talking about wireless in comparison to cable, and so I gave my 2 cents, but apparently nothing I say is relevant
EDIT: It was you not some other person, but my point is that I disagree with your initial statement about wireless never winning over fibre because when it comes down to real life, costs is everything and apparently no one cares about power used anymore. I believe in future the cables will be mostly used for data-centers and other specific needs.
You're talking about 5G vs cable or DSL. This article is about the upper bounds of wireless technology. Those aren't the same topics at all. One is about physics and computer science, the other is about the business plans of telecom companies.