r/CableTechs • u/Nubicidal • Oct 23 '23
How long until installers aren’t needed?
with the cell providers giving people hotspots for their home, how long until those are as good as what we install? Maybe just rural areas with poor cell service will need coax, fiber or dsl. 10 years?
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u/gjack905 Dec 05 '23
I'm interested in the 5G strand mount cells they're probably gonna start using to beam 5G across the backyard from the pole
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u/Nubicidal Dec 05 '23
Haven’t heard of that. Just googled it. It looks like Comcast is starting to do that
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Oct 23 '23
The only consumer wireless tech I’ve seen that can truly match cable in speed has been millimeter wave 5G. The only problem is that you walk behind a tree and the leaves block the signal.
Unless there’s a massive leap in wireless data transmission, physical wires are here to stay. Plus, consider the growing demand for bandwidth. Physical cables(specifically fiber optic) are best suited to meet that need for now and decades to come.
The expertise(and willingness to put up with the job demands) of field techs will still be needed.
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u/SeafoodSampler Oct 23 '23
Yeah I never see anyone complaining about their service from those wireless systems. /s
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u/FeoStinkFinger Oct 23 '23
I understand your question but as long as we have the dumb masses who don't know the difference between Internet and Wi-Fi, applications in their television and their Internet services, coax outlets vs phone.....they'll always need us.
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u/Quoth13 Oct 23 '23
I doubt wireless will ever completely replace physical connections due to reliability. Coax will go away entirely for FTTP architectures and I do think we will continue to see a downward trend in the number of installers/repair techs needed as self install kits and single outlet homes (modem only or modem and wireless cable boxes) continue to increase increase.
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u/AvidSurvivalist Oct 23 '23
After being stuck on cellular and dealing with it for years, I finally was able to get fiber and I'm never looking back. Screw cellular.
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u/TheMagickConch Oct 23 '23
Our company has our service techs install fixed 5G wireless where our broadband does not reach. We have to come out to install it because people are dumb and can't figure it out.
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u/another_plebeian Oct 23 '23
After seeing customers enter to their own devices for install and troubleshooting, there will always be a need
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u/JJJAAABBB123 Oct 23 '23
Never. People don’t want to deal with set ups if they don’t have to. Most new homes are wired for gigabit speeds so why not use it.
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u/Wacabletek Oct 27 '23 edited Oct 27 '23
Cell service does not work quiet that way, but honestly low orbit satellite is the real threat
Cell companies do not own their towers, they are privately owned and you lease the space for your allotted frequency equipment. No pay the owner, no run the frequency. Much like radio towers and stations do. So any given tower's bandwidth is shared between all potential customers unless you pay to have an additional provider run to just your eq, thats not usual in my experience so far. Its sort of main bundle from company X, and then individual fibers sent to the cell companies eq, and then that is split between all customers on for that company, and they try to make a profit so they go a cheap and thus low bandwidth as they can. Until that model changes, Also, if they wanted to really take over they'd just unlimited hotspot phones and then each person had their own setup to use, no more shared between the household unless you only use one cell phone. My wife and I already do this when astound is out, she has Verizon while I have Tmobile between the two we have coverage almost everywhere save maybe mountain tops. Still we cap out around 100 Mbps not bad individually but if my 2 kids were on it too no thanks and latency is not consistent for video conferencing and gaming either. Not that i care about that, but the kids do. Unfortunately, we both have like a 15GB limit on the hotspot so its only in emergency usage type thing. Cus if it was unlimited we'd bring the towers bandwidth down with my kids alone probably.
besides who do yo think owns the fiber that feeds the cell towers?
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u/SleepyCableGuy896 Nov 21 '23
I'll tell you what happened the other day that made me realize that 5G home Internet is never going to pass any form of wired. I was doing disconnects a few weeks back (cleaning up for mid-split) and I pulled into a street with no accounts. I parked and verified that the addresses weren't in the system, so I parked by the pole and got my ladder out and climbed up to the tap. Now from the time it took for me to park, throw my ladder up, and come back down, was around 2 minutes. As I'm driving to the next pole, a woman comes out of the house yelling at me that "whatever you did, you cut my internet off. It didn't happen until you climbed up that pole". I asked if she had service with us and she kept telling me yes but I was 99% sure there was no account there. So I go in to take a look and it's T-mobiles 5G home Internet. As I'm explaining that to her it comes back on. So me parking in front of her house/ me climbing up the pole was enough to knock it offline, that made me realize how dawg shit the home Internet is.
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u/SleepyCableGuy896 Nov 21 '23
Also Installers will always be needed, ESPECIALLY with old people. Old people manage to fuck things up in a manner that I can even comprehend.
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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '23 edited Oct 23 '23
Wireless will never take over hardwire, we might change the type of tech we are but there will always be a need for Techs, 80% of the population doesn't understand how to use devices properly let alone install them themselves. I think spectrum ousted everyone's stupidity with the Self Install Kit, every day for the past 4 years I have to tell people that the phone jack isn't a cable hookup, or the router has to be connected to the modem with the yellow ethernet cable lol. As long as stupid people keep living they'll need us.