Re: Long range weather forecast
"Mobile networks could massively increase capacity within a year if they wanted to without additional spectrum. Increasing cell tower density, MIMO, simultaneous transmission and reception on the same frequencies (assuming neighboring frequencies wouldn't be affected), increase the number of sectors per site. It's in their interest to ensure they keep supply and demand finely balanced so as to ensure they can offer tiered products and also to keep their capex as low as possible which keeps the shareholders happy."
Trouble is, just about all those things you describe will require infrastructure investments: costly infrastructure investments (particularly more towers, which require permits, land/space acquisition, maybe regulatory clearances, etc.). Others have to wait for new phones to come onto the market capable of using the new tech, which means a lag time of at least a year. As for metered data, customers are already touchy about those since the "unlimited" genie left the bottle years ago. It won't be long before they hold the mobile companies to the promise. And any attempt to rescind the unlimited promise will be met with resistance: likely from competitors eager to cut in. So it's an even more delicate balancing act between keeping customers sated and raising enough capital to plunk down for those soon to be needed infrastructure investments.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
