Hi All,
I have been letting the hamster run on the wheel for a little bit too long and some recent trends are becoming apparent to me, potentially. As a technologist like many of you, I am concerned with staying relevant, informed, and making money.
5G wireless is coming. This technology both good and bad will shape how we do business, how people communicate, and what control they have over personal networks vs open air registered products.
The Internet Of Things and 5G wireless will be a death-nell and blessing for our industry. Why would a client care if their network is owned/controlled by them if they can just purchase a cheap product from Amazon and set it up to the cloud and 5G network (located on a giant cell outside their front-door on then end of their driveway). Theoretically you will be able to register all of your network appliances to the larger network provided by your trusty ISP- Cutting us out of the accessory market for things like Routers, APs, and many other products I can;t think of.
Maybe I am being too pessimistic, maybe we can still make money by selling high-end speakers, and TVs? Maybe awesome new products like Brilliant-Tech will allow us to marry all of the products in a home together over our designed WiFi.
I don't know what else I'm trying to say here other than we are in for a wild ride, again.

* Overall I was trying to illustrate that consumers will connect IOT wireless devices (Sonos, Nest, Ring, etc..) to 5G and register their products that way, so sort of account based not on a local network.

Considering how many of our clients live in exclusive locations that can NOT even get regular cell coverage now.... LOL, I'm not worried at all.

The odds of anyone getting 5G coverage that isn't living in a huge metropolitan area, is next to none for the first few years. Then it will be a long spotty roll out, with many people NEVER getting 5G coverage - even in 10+ years.

Again, those living in dense metro area like NY, DC, SF, etc... This might actually be a thing in the next few years for you. But for the majority of the US, it will be something that will change completely to something else by the time it reaches us in a decade or two.

I agree to an extent, what if the demand is greater than anyone expects? What if someone minimizes the antenna system or it ends up on the side of the house next to the electric panel?
Big ISPs and the support manufacturers are ramping up for this, fights against it, and courting consumer product manufacturers to help usher this in.

I plan on retiring before 5G takes hold here. lol for real.

me too

Everything rolled out doesn’t work worth a shlt. Heck, my cell phone works worse than when I had a bag phone way back. When was that, late 80’s

After 30 years,

I've already got one foot out the door!

My gf keeps kidding me about all of this turning into skynet. From what I see, so much stuff doesn't work right, or (our latest case) a supposed master salesmen sells equipment to work together that he knows won't work together... how can there ever be skynet if it takes scads of people, every day, to keep this stuff working AT ALL?

We've heard for years that there will always be jobs, but they'll just be higher technology jobs. We're the ones who can most easily profit from that, if we can just put up with what we have to do! Who thought when we were working to balance speaker levels in various rooms of a house that we'd be nsisting to our clients that we take over their home computer networks just to guarantee that they'll work?

Did anyone watching Elon Musk on Joe Rogan podcast last night? I'm not going to sleep for a few weeks.

no but ive watched tesla stock drop by over a $100 a share over the last few weeks.
He should skip the pod casts get back to righting the ship.
Hell the head accountant quit after a month on the job.

Fiduciary responsibility and all, I get it. He's done amazing stuff. I think his strength exist in innovations more than leadership. True for a lot of inverters and entrepreneurs. If he wasn't such a figure head and visionary, if suggest he turn the reigns over to an energetic CEO. He's burned out for sure, but he's only human (I think). I think he deserves a lot more props than critique. He's made a lot of people extremely wealthy and doing amazing things for Earth.

I totally agree that he has made some amazing advances in multiple areas. I'm still looking at the Tesla roof when I build in the next year or so.

Your most likely correct on him being burnt out though. The guy should definatly hand the day to day over to someone and take a long vacation in Bora Bora and unplug for a couple of months.

This conversation rolls around over and over again. I don’t know everything there is to know, but I have been in the industry for over 40 years, and I think as long as there are people who don’t want to mess with technology but just enjoy it, we will have work. Just because people CAN set something up, does not mean that they want to.

Since products and technology is ever-changing, your job as an integrator is to keep your ear to the ground and have new things that you can offer your clients. Whatever you are doing now, you may not be doing in 10 years at all.

But you will still have people that do not want to do it themselves, at all, ever. They just want to sit down and enjoy it after a long day of work.