You only need 5G towers on every street in places where there are many customers. In other places you can place towers less densely. In the places with many customers, you also see lots of revenue.
Hmm yeah that's a bit confusing. I think there are two effects here at play:
* The higher data density of 5G per spectrum allows you to just upgrade towers instead of having to place more dense towers with 4G. This is the "5G is cheaper" point as it allows you to avoid having to build more towers.
* Due to the increase in data demand in some few places places, you'll have to place 5G towers very densely to meet it, more densely than in the age of 4G. Not because of the technology just because it's now a different era where demand has increased even more.
> The higher data density of 5G per spectrum allows you to just upgrade towers instead of having to place more dense towers with 4G. This is the "5G is cheaper" point as it allows you to avoid having to build more towers.
So this seems like only a theoretical possibility since in practice they'll just have faster towers instead of fewer of them.
> Due to the increase in data demand in some few places places, you'll have to place 5G towers very densely to meet it, more densely than in the age of 4G. Not because of the technology just because it's now a different era where demand has increased even more.
For millimeter wave it is because of the technology. Those frequencies don't penetrate as well so regardless of how many users there are or how much bandwidth they're using, the towers have to be closer to the devices which means you need more of them.
> So this seems like only a theoretical possibility since in practice they'll just have faster towers instead of fewer of them.
With constant demand, you can service a higher amount of people with the same tower density thanks to 5G. If the number of customers is increasing, it means you get more money but you only have to upgrade the towers instead of having to put them more densely. That's how it's cheaper.
> For millimeter wave it is because of the technology.
Part of it might be how they're basically using the network upgrade as a chance to deploy new towers jam packed with surveillance equipment and other junk (e.g. San Diego) that other firms / agencies might be interested in and willing to split costs on, and/or throwing subsidies at (costs of which can be conveniently ignored in many conversations).
