
The Long Goodbye of Wi-Fi Has Begun - infodocket
https://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/wireless/the-long-goodbye-of-wifi-has-begun
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JohnFen
Before saying goodbye to Wi-Fi, we have to have something that could
adequately replace it. 5G isn't even close to a suitable replacement, in my
opinion, for a whole basket of reasons.

Perhaps it could in the narrow case of IoT devices that connect to someone
else's server, but that's not a use case that applies to anything that I do or
will be doing in the future.

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zeveb
I suspect that the endgame for the IEEE, the telcos, the government, FAANG &c.
is for essentially all devices to be IoT devices connecting to someone else's
server, with end-user-constructed and -managed networks to be within rounding
error. Centralised providers are easier to control, and the game is _all_
about control.

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JohnFen
That could be. I don't know. But I do know that I won't personally install or
use any such devices -- the security and reliability downsides are far too
severe -- so I'll need to keep WiFi. If for some reason WiFi becomes
unavailable and there is no suitable substitute (even if it's one that I build
myself), then I'll be back to stringing cables everywhere.

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zeveb
Oh, I’m with you. But I won’t be surprised if it gets increasingly
uneconomical to try to own my own technology. Already, phones don’t have
Ethernet ports — what will you & I do when they no longer connect to WiFi?

