A Banana Puts The Final Nail In The Coffin Of 5G Hype

Overhype

from the they're-putting-5g-in-bananas-now? dept

We’ve long noted how 5G wireless is more of an evolution than a revolution. Yes, it results in faster, better networks, but it’s not a technology that’s truly transformative.

Knowing this, the wireless industry spent years coming up with all kinds of outlandish claims about how 5G can cure cancer or solve climate change in a bid to drum up interest and sales. My favorite type of this marketing involves taking something that doesn’t actually need 5G to work, and pretending that only 5G innovation made it possible. Then watching as a lazy press just regurgitates the claims.

Like when T-Mobile got a bunch of credulous press coverage for a robot that could give remote tattoos over 5G (which could have been done over 4G, or Wi-Fi, or even DSL). Or when a Korean coffee brand got oodles of free press for a “5G powered robot barista” (which could have been done over Wi-Fi). Or when the industry claimed that 5G and AR would revolutionize fashion by letting folks watch fashion shows in AR or VR (which could have been done… you get the point).

Mindless 5G medical hype has been a particularly healthy niche. Like when Verizon hyped “5G-powered” medical gear that not only didn’t actually require 5G to work, but wasn’t likely to be used by actual medical professionals who generally prefer fiber, Ethernet, and gigabit Wi-Fi due to the less reliable nature of cellular.

There’re just endless examples of this kind of marketing symbiosis between wireless carriers and a lazy, gullible tech press.

The latest and potentially greatest example of this art form involves the claim that 5G helped conduct a remote surgery on a banana between London and Los Angeles. A video purportedly showing the procedure has been making the rounds for a few years, often resulting in clickbait stories all over the internet about how this was only made possible by the low-latency, innovative potential of 5G!

More recently, The Verge’s Nilay Patel did some very basic due diligence and found that the entire thing was bullshit. So much bullshit, in fact, that played absolutely no role in what was shown:

“This video does not in any way show a robotic surgery being done over 5G. The video was first posted to TikTok during the pandemic by Dr. Kais Rona, who is a bariatric and robotic surgeon at Smart Dimensions Weight Loss in Southern California, and he’s been actively telling people that it’s not 5G ever since.”

Usually, a company like Verizon or Huawei will conduct an elaborate marketing scheme involving doing medical procedures over 5G to pretend that it’s the 5G making it all possible. Press outlets, some of them reputable, will then regurgitate the claims without noting that 5G isn’t actually making this possible, or that the procedure just as easily could have been done over Wi-Fi, or preferably, fiber optics and Ethernet.

This kind of media gullibility is helpful to a wireless industry keen on obscuring pesky facts like Americans pay some of the highest prices in the world for 5G that’s a half-cooked mess when compared to overseas deployments. It’s hard to find many stories about how U.S. wireless is expensive and mediocre due to monopolization, but you’ll find no shortage of “news” reports lauding 5G’s overstated or outright fraudulent innovation potential.

In this case the 5G bullshit didn’t even need the industry’s involvement. All that was required was a single fake claim on a posted video for the hype to resonate across AI-generated clickbait mills for all of eternity. A pump primed years earlier thanks to uncritical telecom trade mags, and lazy, underpaid reporters who can’t be bothered to ask basic questions or pick up the phone.

Filed Under: 5g, banana surgery, broadband, high speed internet, hype, marketing, surgery, wireless