> We have the same problem with LTE networks today.
Yes and no. Over the air bandwidth is a very very limited resource to what can be delivered by fiber and coax.
Which means that the only way LTE could be used to send the World Cup to you is by some sort of multicast that would simultaneously send the same content to many smartphones at once. That would be of great interest to many people.
But the laws of physics, as presented by Claude Shannon [1] back in 1948, and building on earlier work by people like Nyquist, say that in a "noisy" channel there is a finite limit to how much data can be sent. That precludes everyone being able to simultaneously receive different content over the "limited spectrum" allocated to LTE.
I say "limited spectrum" because the FCC has been allowing more and more of the old TV spectrum to be used for wireless. But it's still insignificant compared to what can be easily pushed over glass fiber.
Yes and no. Over the air bandwidth is a very very limited resource to what can be delivered by fiber and coax.
Which means that the only way LTE could be used to send the World Cup to you is by some sort of multicast that would simultaneously send the same content to many smartphones at once. That would be of great interest to many people.
But the laws of physics, as presented by Claude Shannon [1] back in 1948, and building on earlier work by people like Nyquist, say that in a "noisy" channel there is a finite limit to how much data can be sent. That precludes everyone being able to simultaneously receive different content over the "limited spectrum" allocated to LTE.
I say "limited spectrum" because the FCC has been allowing more and more of the old TV spectrum to be used for wireless. But it's still insignificant compared to what can be easily pushed over glass fiber.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy-channel_coding_theorem