T-Mobile sunset of LTE has begun

[davidgcet]

i work for a cell carrier. 3G took a couple t1 circuits to backhaul, then as data became a bigger need the move to ethernet backhaul using MW/fiber/etc. was needed but still less than 100 meg total bandwidth for all but the busiest sites. 4G takes several hundred meg and 5G takes Gig and up backhaul. the question is does consumer demand force the new tech, or the other way around? all i know is 7 years ago when i took this job it was rare to need to increase backhaul speeds at sites, now all the time i see sites hitting the reports showing they are approaching or exceeding the threshold where we bump them up. Heck even some of our sites where we don't yet have 5G on are using massive amounts of data, that is 100% because of user demand. So if the tech does not evolve to use limited RF spectrum then at some point the users will not be able to do what they want/need. By shutting down LTE in favor of 5G SA this allows the spectrum to be reused to support the increased needs. it sucks, but that is the way of the world.