That sort of decoupling could be fascinating. IMO, the walls may be as much a function of economics as physics.
Running a small number of powerful radios on low-frequency spectrum is a cost-effective way to cover large areas. Physics constrains how much of that can happen in the same area. But if networks are willing spend cash, they can get a ton of capacity by densely deploying high-frequency radios. Don't think we're anywhere near hitting the walls on what's possible there.
Putting this another way, networks provide enough bandwidth for everyone in Manhattan. It's just expensive.
I'm sympathetic to a lot of the points here, but a key part of the story got left out:
T-Mobile's performance used to suck vs. Verizon and AT&T.
When T-Mo's network was crummy, the company to differentiated itself by being cheaper and less gimmicky than its competitors. I'm not too surprised T-Mo is adjusting its strategy as the company's network narrows the gap w/ VZW + AT&T.
T-Mobile's performance was probably trending in a good direction even w/o the merger, but acquiring Sprint (and Sprint's spectrum) likely helped improve performance a good bit.
I think it'll continue to be. T-Mobile needs to differentiate services somehow & last I checked, subscribers on T-Mobile's older in-house + low-cost brand, Metro, generally received low priority relative to customers on T-mobile-branded plans
No, but I won't be surprised if the plans stick around longer. Speculating here, but I think odds are good T-Mobile continues to offer them for longer than required & just stops the annual data increase it has been doing
I don't have that info in the current datasets, but I could imagine down the road having a data source with latency information.
Network congestion is another beast. It's unfortunate, because I'm with you that it's really important. Only the network operators can measure congestion directly, and they don't share those metrics. I've wondered if I might be able to roughly guesstimate congestion levels in different areas, but I haven't come up with any terribly satisfying approach for that yet.
It's a bummer. Congestion is super important to the customer experience & super hard to assess short of actually buying and trying out a plan.
Running a small number of powerful radios on low-frequency spectrum is a cost-effective way to cover large areas. Physics constrains how much of that can happen in the same area. But if networks are willing spend cash, they can get a ton of capacity by densely deploying high-frequency radios. Don't think we're anywhere near hitting the walls on what's possible there.
Putting this another way, networks provide enough bandwidth for everyone in Manhattan. It's just expensive.