Showing posts with label Country USA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Country USA. Show all posts

Monday, 11 December 2023

AT&T's Plans on Open RAN and 6G

AT&T was in news recently for their announcement about acceleration of Open and Interoperable Radio Access Networks (RAN) in the United States. According to their press release: 

This industry-leading move, in collaboration with Ericsson, will further the telecommunications industry efforts and help build a more robust ecosystem of network infrastructure providers and suppliers. AT&T’s spend could approach roughly $14 billion over the 5-year term of the contract with Ericsson. 

AT&T’s Open RAN plan is for 70% of its wireless network traffic to flow across open-capable platforms by late 2026. The company expects to have fully integrated open RAN sites operating in coordination with Ericsson and Fujitsu, starting in 2024. This move away from closed proprietary interfaces will enable rapid scaling and management of mixed supplier hardware at each cell site.  Beginning in 2025, the company will scale this Open RAN environment throughout its wireless network in coordination with multiple suppliers such as Corning Incorporated, Dell Technologies, Ericsson, Fujitsu, and Intel.

At the Brooklyn 6G Summit (B6GS), Chris Sambar, who leads AT&T’s Network organization and teams responsible for designing, engineering, building, and operating AT&T’s next generation mobile and fiber networks, gave a keynote on "Network: The Innovation Platform". The narrative of the talk says: 

Today’s 5G build is the foundation of 6G. Flexible and open architecture being developed and fine-tuned with 5G will be central to 6G, and maintaining a customer-centric, forward-looking mindset will be critical as we scale and deploy technologies such as Stand Alone core, edge computing, AI, and NTN integration. Implementing the lessons learned in the 5G era and ensuring we have end-to-end alignment across the 6 pillars of our architecture will be vital to making 6G a success.

RCR Wireless provides a concise summary of the talk here:

AT&T has spent $40 billion on spectrum in the last few years; Verizon has spent more than $50 billion; and T-Mobile US had to acquire another major operator to get its spectrum holdings. With 5G not even at its midway point and the industry already trying to figure out what they might have to spend on 6G, “it can’t be a bottomless-pit industry,” he said.

That said, Sambar did also discuss the promise of 6G for extended and virtual-reality immersive experience for training public safety and military members, and the potential of better network-focused AI and ML to save network operators “hundreds of millions or billions of dollars” if things like self-optimization of networks can be done better and faster. That in itself represents a major challenge. Sambar says that he has thousands of employees in network operations, between AT&T’s wireline and wireless networks and “hundreds” of algorithms that do very simple if-then work and essentially send tickets to humans when a scenario comes up that fits its if-then criteria. If one of those algorithms breaks, he said, “we have to go figure out where it is, what server it’s sitting on, what’s wrong with it and how do we fix it. I would love a machine to manage that for me”—or even better, to stitch the capabilities of multiple algorithms together for more efficient and effective AI/ML applicability to network operations.

The video of the talk is embedded below, thanks to IEEE TV:

Related Posts: 

By at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, 24 January 2023

AT&T and AST SpaceMobile plan to extend coverage for consumers, businesses & first responders

AT&T has been working with the satellite pioneer AST SpaceMobile for a white as reported by Light Reading back in 2020. In a new video, AT&T gives AST SpaceMobile a big, public shoutout. The video is embedded below.

The following is from CNET article:

T-Mobile has partnered with SpaceX to boost its coverage through SpaceX's Starlink satellite network. Verizon has been talking about working with Amazon's Project Kuiper program. Now AT&T has announced a new satellite partner of its own. 

On Tuesday the carrier announced a new partnership with AST SpaceMobile, a satellite company, to use its low Earth orbit satellites to help bolster AT&T's terrestrial coverage. In a video about the partnership, Chris Sambar, AT&T's president of network, says that the wireless carrier has received "conditional approval" to use some of its wireless spectrum to connect cell phones to the satellites. 

In the video, Sambar quickly goes through a few broad applications ranging from helping its FirstNet first-responder network to business applications like "remote agriculture" and "remote machinery." 

AT&T already has a satellite partnership with satellite company OneWeb to offer connections to the wireless carrier's business users but hadn't announced any consumer-focused satellite service. 

Sambar does, however, hint at a possible consumer application as he describes how his mother-in-law's drive from rural Virginia to Richmond to "see her kids and grandkids" includes a road that currently struggles for coverage from "any wireless carrier." That drive, he says, could potentially be covered by a "space-based mobile solution." 

AT&T tells CNET that it plans to use the service to offer "integrated, complementary and real connectivity from satellite-based solutions for voice, data and video services." 

As for device support, AT&T says the service is "intended to integrate with all of our customers' devices using LTE and 5G broadband on our existing mobile network." The carrier, however, says it is "too early" to say if it will charge extra for the service or include it with customers' existing plans. 

As for when AT&T and AST SpaceMobile's service might start to appear, AST SpaceMobile has previously talked about testing its "direct-to-cell satellite capabilities" during the first quarter of next year before launching its first five commercial satellites in "late 2023." AT&T plans to join this testing in the first quarter. 

Scott Wisniewski, chief strategy officer at AST SpaceMobile, tells CNET in a statement that after the launch of those satellites next year it will be able to "offer intermittent broadband services in 2024." 

Light Reading article points out:

The video is noteworthy because AT&T is one of the biggest wireless network operators in the world, and Sambar controls a large part of the operator's multibillion-dollar network spending budget. The fact that he made a five-minute support video for SpaceMobile will likely go a long way toward convincing regulators and investors to provide both the necessary approvals for SpaceMobile's satellite launch plans as well as the money it will take to get the company's satellites into low-Earth orbit (LEO).

It would be interesting to see how all these satellite connectivity complementing the terrestrial networks and connectivity work out. There is a huge potential but the path towards that is a really tough one.

Related Posts: 

By at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Thursday, 24 November 2022

UScellular 5G Progress and 6G Plans

At the Annual Brooklyn 6G Summit (B6GS) last month, Robert Jakubek, Vice President of Engineering and Network Operations for U.S. Cellular, presented deployment strategies for the next generation of wireless communications.

Sue Marek details the talk in Fierce Wireless as follows:

Speaking at the 2022 Brooklyn 6G Summit, which is jointly hosted by Nokia and NYU Wireless, Robert Jakubek, VP of engineering at US Cellular called for the industry to figure out how to get more functionality out of mmWave. “CPEs [customer premises equipment] need to get more sophisticated,” Jakubek said. “Help us solve some of the challenges of mmWave fixed wireless and make it more effective.”

The request is notable because Nokia, which is a sponsor of the event, is a key supplier to UScellular and provides 5G radio gear for the company’s low-band and mmWave networks. Nokia also is working with UScellular on its deployment of standalone 5G (SA).  Jakubek said that UScellular is moving “full speed ahead” with its SA core. Nokia has said previously that it should be deployed by year-end.

Jakubek added that UScellular has had success with a couple of extended range trials where its FWA signal used mmWave spectrum. In 2020 the operator and its partners Ericsson and Qualcomm completed an extended range 5G mmWave data call over a distance of more than 5 kilometers (around 3.1 miles) at speeds over 100 Mbps. And in 2021 the company set a record of 10 km (about 6.2 miles) in tests with Nokia and Qualcomm.

UScellular has deployed a Home Internet+ product that uses 5G and mmWave spectrum to deliver FWA to customers in more than 10 cities. It launched that product last April. In addition,  the operator offers a FWA product over the company’s LTE network to its entire footprint. At the end of 2Q, UScellular said it had 57,000 FWA customers, but it doesn’t break out those on mmWave vs. those on the LTE network.

Besides FWA, Jakubek said that the company is looking ahead to deployment 5G voice over new radio (VoNR) but that isn’t likely to happen until 2024 or later.

And of course as it is a 6G summit, you couldn't do a presentation without talking about what is needed from 6G. The talk is embedded below, courtesy of IEEE TV.

Related Posts:

By at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,

Sunday, 28 February 2021

USA 5G C-Band Spectrum (3.7 GHz to 4.2 GHz) Auction Results


The US regulator, FCC, announced the final results of the C-Band Auction 107 on the site here, with the details available here.

Mike Dano from Light Reading was one of the first people to tweet the details (see above) and Light Reading have a nice detailed analysis here. 

The Register has provided a nice simple summary here. Quoting from that:

Radio spectrum doesn’t come cheap. Just ask America's communications regulator, the FCC, which just announced the winning bidders in its long-awaited auction of C-band spectrum, which hauled in a cool $81bn.

The comms body auctioned off 280Mhz of C-band spectrum, originally used by communications satellites, split into fourteen 20Mhz blocks in the 3.7Ghz to 4.2Ghz range.

This territory is highly coveted by telecoms providers transitioning to 5G, as it provides a high level of coverage for each cell site, albeit at the expense of speed. This is crucial if you want to extend coverage to rural areas, or sprawling suburban towns where not-in-my-backyard types may grumble at the sight of a cell tower on every street corner. Compare that to mmWave, which operates in the high gigahertz spectrum, and offers faster speeds but minuscule coverage.

Satellite comms providers who previously used parts of the band were last year promised "incentives" to vacate the spectrum [PDF], with "reasonable relocation costs" amounting to up to $9.7bn to be paid by the licensees. According to the FCC's final C-band order, Intelsat will receive about $4.87bn; SES about $3.97bn; Eutelsat about $507m; Telesat $344m; and Star One $15m.

The FCC allowed 57 providers [PDF] to bid for the spectrum, including all of the large carriers, as well as the smaller rural telecoms providers (like the quaintly named Mark Twain Rural Telephone Company). As expected, it was the big providers that took home the bacon (or, in this case, spectrum).

Verizon Wireless (referred to as Cellco Partnership in the FCC documents [PDF]) easily spent the most, with a total bid of $45.4bn for 3,511 licences. AT&T and T-Mobile also spent generously, forking out $23.4bn and $9.3bn respectively, in return receiving 1,621 and 142 licences. US Cellular, a relatively small-fry player, paid "just" $1.2bn for 254 licences.

Why are the carriers prepared to spend such eye-watering amounts? Basically, if they want to be anywhere in the US 5G landscape, they had to cough up. "Carriers were apparently willing to spend whatever it took to acquire spectrum in this auction because the alternative was worse — becoming an also-ran in the race to 5G," Sasha Javid, a former chief data officer at the FCC, told the FT a few weeks back.

The previous record amount netted for the sale of US airwaves – $45bn – was set six years ago.

Per the terms of the auction, bidding parties must pay 20 per cent upfront, with the remainder sent before the end of March. Verizon, for example, will have to wire the FCC $36.3bn by March 24 of this year – a figure greater than its consolidated operating revenues (at $34.7bn) for the entirety of its final reported quarter for 2020.

Rupert Wood, lead analyst for Fibre Infrastructure and Wireless Infrastructure research programmes at Analysys Mason opens his analysis piece with a very poignant reminder, "The high prices of C-band spectrum have sucked Verizon and AT&T into a spiral of ever-greater dependence on 5G, even as their share of consumer telecoms looks set to decline." The article continues:

The real cost to the operators is even higher than USD80.92 billion: there are relocation costs, estimated to be a further USD3.3 billion, which licence holders will incur to relocate the satellite incumbents, and potentially USD9.7 billion more to accelerate the clearance of those incumbents on the blocks that are not due to be cleared until the end of 2023. Total mobile operator revenue and capex (excluding spectrum) in the USA in 2019 stood at USD179.3 billion and USD29.1 billion respectively, so the sum paid is collectively 2.8 times higher than annual capex.

The 3G auctions in Germany and the UK in 2000 are a point of comparison – operators spent USD82.1 billion on a population base about half of that of the USA. The licence to previous year’s capex ratio for Vodafone UK (which spent the most in the UK) was 7.4 times, but this was when strong revenue growth in mobile was guaranteed. Before the US C-band auction, no established operator had spent more than 1.7 times the previous year’s capex on C-band spectrum.

Sascha Segan from The PC Magazine says:

Comcast, Charter, and Dish each got nothing or almost nothing, which signals that they don't have real ambitions to compete, on a network level, with the three big providers. However, there's another auction coming up for 100MHz of spectrum between 3.45-3.55GHz, this October. They could play there.

The investor groups have played in spectrum before; their general game is to hold onto it for a while and then lease or sell it at a higher rate to wireless carriers who get desperate. With 5G, there's another possible play. 5G allows for "private" or corporate networks, so the investor groups could lease spectrum to companies providing network services to other companies for their own internal use.

The next big task for the operators is now to figure out how to make money.

Related Posts:

By at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,

Friday, 13 March 2020

Yahoo Mobile Recycling a brand or an actual innovation?

Verizon is launching a mobile phone service through the Yahoo brand called Yahoo Mobile.  It offers subscribers unlimited data, calls and texts for $40 a month on the Verizon’s network. In addition, the plan comes with access to Yahoo Mail Pro, the ad-free version of the email service, which comes with 1,000 GB of storage.

Verizon acquired Yahoo in 2017 to help it expand into the digital advertising space. So the unveiling of today's mobile phone plan may be an attempt to get more users on Yahoo properties to increase ad revenue.The deal included the Yahoo brand and major web services like Flickr and Tumblr. But Verizon was mainly interested in Yahoo’s ad technology, and it’s done little with Yahoo. Both Flickr and Tumblr have since been sold off, and Yahoo’s biggest announcements have been payouts for data breaches.

It seems unlikely the free access to the $3.49-a-month Yahoo Mail Pro will lure anyone to try out the new service. However, the $40 monthly rate for unlimited data may entice consumers looking for a cheaper plan. It is a good price; Verizon charges $65 per month for a prepaid unlimited plan, and AT&T charges $45 per month.

However there are restrictions for example hotspot use being limited to one device at a time, speeds capped at 5 megabits per second and customers will be restricted to Verizon’s 4G LTE network at a time when the operator has been rolling out its faster 5G service across the country. Apparently support for 5G is coming later in 2020.

On the plus side, Yahoo Mobile will give subscribers free access to Verizon’s mobile hotspots whenever available, although speeds will be capped at 5 Mbps. In addition, the carrier says customers can cancel the plan whenever they want.

Family plans are not yet available but they may come later. Verizon says that while the focus is on individual plans for now, "Yahoo Mobile will evolve to meet consumers' needs as it continues to grow."

 Yahoo will be selling phones, though you can also bring your own. A compatibility checker on Yahoo Mobile's site will allow you to see if your phone will work on the network.


However this does feel like a lazy attempt to recycle the Yahoo brand, Yahoo Mobile is basically just a rebranded version of Visible, which is another spinoff phone service operated by Yahoo.
 The singular plan is the same, their websites match up beat for beat, and Yahoo Mobile even offers Visible’s phone insurance plan under Visible’s name. However Visible does not even have the cap that Yahoo Mobile does.
Spinoff carriers like Yahoo Mobile and Visible let Verizon diversify its business and test out new ways of selling wireless service. Verizon isn’t exactly a beloved brand, but Visible has hip branding and a simple pricing structure — something that might appeal to younger customers. Yahoo Mobile offers another take on that, just with the added bonus of  subscription Yahoo Mail. However is that enough to lure customers and gain a foothold in the market?


Related Posts:

By at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Wednesday, 11 March 2020

USA has an interesting mix of different types of 5G


The US operators always had an interesting strategy for their 5G rollouts. Verizon for example was always focused on mmWave 5G as we wrote about earlier here. T-Mobile was pushing for a nationwide 5G using 600 MHz back in 2017. Sprint always planned to use its 2.5 GHz C-Band spectrum for 5G. AT&T was more focused on LTE and they rolled out 5Ge. In fact as we wrote in our post on Telecom Infrastructure blog, during Superbowl, there was no AT&T 5G available in the stadium.

The fact is that as you can see in the layer cake picture above, the lower the frequency, the further the signal propagates. At the same time, due to only lower bandwidths being available in the low frequency, the throughput it can deliver is restricted. So there is a trade-off between coverage and throughput.

In the Telecoms Infrastructure blog post, we discussed the winners and losers based on Ookla Speedtest results as can be seen in the picture above.

OpenSignal has performed a more detailed analysis on the US operators that they detailed in their blog here. The following is a summary from that post:

In these tests, average 5G download speeds from Verizon were 15 times faster than the slowest 5G offering

 Opensignal recorded the fastest average 5G download speed of 722.9 Mbps on Verizon’s 5G mmWave network, followed by T-Mobile’s mmWave with 243.1 Mbps, and Sprint at 183.0 Mbps on its 2.5 GHz 5G network in known locations where 5G was present. AT&T and T-Mobile’s low-band 5G networks clocked average download speeds of 59.3 Mbps and 47.5 Mbps respectively, confirming that the type of 5G service and the spectrum used for 5G has a major impact on the speeds a user will see.
We analyzed T-Mobile’s mmWave 5G service separately from its 600MHz 5G service because at the time of our testing in December and January a potential customer had to choose a 5G smartphone model that either supported mmWave 5G on T-Mobile or one that supported 600MHz 5G on T-Mobile. There was no model available that supported both. The first phone to offer that capability will be the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G which is available from March 6 which uses a newer 5G chipset.

 The speeds Opensignal found reflect U.S. operators’ different deployment strategies for their 5G networks:
  • mmWave high-band 5G: Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T launched mmWave 5G networks across a number of cities, although AT&T’s service is only available to business customers and select early adopters. 
  • Mid-band 5G: Sprint is using its mid-band 2.5 GHz for 5G and possesses enough spectrum to deliver hundreds of Mbps in speed, with a decent signal propagation. Sprint states it has citywide coverage in locations where it has launched its service.
  • Low-band 5G: T-Mobile and AT&T re-used 4G spectrum from their 850 MHz and 600 MHz holdings and launched 5G services using low-band spectrum in December 2019. U.S. operators have been more conservative in their speed claims for low-band 5G services, but they will offer much wider coverage when compared to high and mid-band 5G.

Devices connected to T-Mobile & Sprint’s lower-band 5G five times as often as to Verizon’s mmWave 5G

 Opensignal also conducted tests around the downtown areas of cities where U.S. operators had stated they had launched their 5G services to understand how often speed tests would be on 5G. In our testing, finding a 5G signal often proved challenging.

 On T-Mobile’s 600Mhz 5G network we saw the greatest time connected to 5G of 53.0%. We were able to connect to a 5G signal just over half of the time during our testing on T-Mobile’s 600 MHz and slightly less on Sprint’s 2.5GHz 5G networks. With both T-Mobile’s mmWave and AT&T’s 850 MHz 5G networks we spent 10.6% of the time connected to a 5G signal during the walk tests, while we connected to a 5G signal on Verizon’s mmWave 5G just 6% of the time.

Opensignal recorded the fastest average combined 4G/5G download speeds on Sprint’s network

 In Opensignal tests we saw speeds of several hundred Mbps on 5G mmWave networks but devices found a 5G signal 10.6% or less of the time on this type of 5G, while devices connecting to low-band 5G networks found signal about half of the time but saw far slower speeds compared to high-band 5G.

 We calculated a combined 4G/5G download speed taking into account how much time devices spent connected to each 5G network during the walk tests, to understand which 5G service had the biggest impact on the download speeds we observed.

Taking into account both time on 5G and average download speeds, out of the five consumer 5G services tested, only Sprint exceeded the 100 Mbps threshold in average combined 4G/5G download speed tests. Despite offering slower average 5G download speeds than mmWave, Sprint’s mid-band 5G had a much greater impact on our combined download speed — which averaged 109.8 Mbps — because we were able to connect to 5G almost half of the time.

 What these early 5G test results really mean

 It’s still just the start of the 5G era, so it’s early to draw definitive conclusions on the future of 5G. But some trends are starting to show:

 U.S. carriers’ 5G services are held back by 5G spectrum availability. Without the availability of new 5G mid-band spectrum, U.S. wireless operators have launched 5G services on a variety of spectrum frequencies that they had available, spanning from 600 MHz to 28 GHz. We believe that all U.S. operators will need to complement their holdings with more mid-band spectrum to take advantage of the sweet spot which 3-6 GHz frequencies provide in the trade-off between low bands’ wide reach and high bands’ super-fast speeds. At the moment, Sprint — soon the new T-Mobile when the Sprint/T-Mobile merger closes — is the only operator that owns spare mid-band spectrum that can be used for 5G.

 mmWave 5G really is extremely fast. Speeds will depend on the type of 5G — low frequency band, mid-band or mmWave — and consequently on the amount of spectrum that operators have available for their 5G users. Opensignal measured how different spectrum band provides different benefits: mmWave allows for high capacity and super-fast speeds which would be advantageous in specific areas like crowded stadiums, whereas low-band 5G’s biggest benefit — its extended reach — allows for the creation of a diffused 5G coverage layer, with a limited uplift in terms of speed.

 Users should not automatically expect speeds of several hundred Mbps on 5G. All of the 5G speeds we see are fast by U.S. standards, but seeing a 5G icon on the screen is no guarantee of 5G, or of speeds of hundreds of Mbps, instead real-world testing at scale will be needed to quantify the true 5G experience. Users need to look at the real-world 5G experience of each operator to understand what 5G means.

Mike Dano, Light Reading's Editorial Director, 5G & Mobile Strategies recently did a long presentation on titled Defining actual 5G, and what it might do, looking at the 5G deployments and strategies in the USA. His slides are available here and the video is embedded below.


 Related Posts:
By at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday, 15 February 2020

Verizon Highlights from their Investor Day Presentations

Verizon hosted an investor meeting with Chairman & CEO Hans Vestberg, CFO Matt Ellis and members of the senior executive team. Their presentations covered a discussion of their strategy, network leadership and 5G progress. The webcast and presentation from the event is available here.

In this post we will look at some of the slides to understand what Verizon is doing in their network. Starting with the slide shown above, you can see their planned transformation journey. In the last couple if years they have transformed the network to what they refer to as Verizon 2.0. There is a lot of improvement planned for the next few years, including scaling UWB & 5G Nationwide and expanding 5G Public & Private Edge.
Verizon will continue to extend Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) across consumer & business offering an alternative to cable and satellite broadband. New solutions, access to 3rd part cloud ecosystem, developer ecosystem and business models will provide it with an edge over rivals.
2020 commitments include driving the 5G growth, mainly deploying 5 times more 5G small cells in addition to the year-on-year increase. In addition Verizon will roll out Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) nationwide and build over 60 5G UWB mobility cities. This means that 5G would be seamlessly available, especially on the roads and the streets. Over 10 5G UWB home cities would be created with 5G NR and nextGen CPE. This means that Verizon will take the FWA fight to these places. Finally, over 10 5G commercial MEC centers would be available for next generation services.
This slide clarifies and details the points mentioned above, especially with regards to MEC (Multi-Access Edge Computing).

Finally, when Verizon claims '5G Built Right', what does that mean? It means different options for connectivity including Fiber, Wireline, Wireless and Private Networks; different Platforms including Telematics, IoT, Computer Vision and 5G Edge; different Solution including Managed Network Services, Security and Edge Apps and SaaS.
Also, 5G buillt right across every industry vertical be it Retail, Manufacturing, Venues, Healthcare, Smart Communities, Transportation, Construction or Logistics.

Related Posts:

By at No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Wednesday, 24 July 2019

Sprint & HAPSMobile Will Perform 4G Aeriel HAPS Testing


FierceWireless Reported:

Sprint plans to test a High Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS) communications system for six months starting in November. 

Documents filed (PDF) with the FCC show the carrier has asked for a “special temporary authority” to conduct demonstrations of experimental transmitters using spectrum frequencies ranging from the 1.9 GHz personal communications service (PCS) band and the 2.5 GHz broadband radio service (BRS) and educational broadband service (EBS) bands. 

The tests will be conducted with HAPSmobile, a joint venture between Sprint’s parent Softbank and AeroVironment that was formed in 2017. 

Sprint said it will be testing a HAPS system’s ability to maintain a stable LTE link with ground equipment over the island of Lanai, Hawaii. It will also test handover capabilities with end user equipment and signal coverage over the island. 

Mobile World Live added:

Though initial tests would focus on LTE, Sprint’s proposed use of 2.5GHz spectrum raises the possibility it has an eye toward using the technology for 5G.

Related Posts:



By at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Sunday, 21 July 2019

C Spire: Connecting the Rural Unconnected in USA



C Spire is the United States' sixth-largest wireless provider, operating in the three states of Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee.

C Spire started out in the 1950s as  a local exchange carrier, later adding cellular service. In recent years, it has broadened its scope to include building middle-mile fiber and fiber-to-the-home networks and data centers and also offering a wide range of residential and business services throughout Mississippi and other parts of its service area. Many of these developments were made with the aim to spur on economic development in those areas.

C Spire is based in Mississippi one of least connected and most rural states in the country. 
 In 2017 study from the Mississippi State University Center for Technology Outreach that found the state’s lack of broadband access, and slow internet speeds result in rural counties losing millions of dollars each year in deferred economic benefits.

As a result of these disparities and economic losses C Spire along with Airspan Networks, Microsoft, Nokia, and Siklu formed a group in late January 2019 in order to find new approaches to solving the broadband gap. The group also aims to create new business models that regional fixed and wireless broadband providers, and utilities can use to enhance adoption in rural areas.

The group launched a website to house updates on the consortium’s testing and deployment efforts with broadband technologies including TV white spaces, massive MIMO using Band 41 LTE spectrum, and C Spire’s fixed wireless 5G product. And published a white paper (PDF) with information about the rural broadband access issue.

C Spire’s Chief Innovation Officer Craig Sparks said in a statement that the consortium is on track to achieve its goal of developing a new blueprint for closing the broadband access gap, with work initially focused on the state of Mississippi. 


Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee make up the primary territory served by C Spire
and are fairly rural states, ranked 47, 42, and 33 respectively in terms of urban population. Not surprisingly, broadband access in Mississippi is one of the lowest in the nation; it is currently ranked 46, while Alabama and Tennessee are ranked 40 and 25 respectively. Today, approximately 28% of Mississippians (829,000 people) lack access to fixed broadband. As with the rest of the US, lack of access in the state is much higher in most rural counties. 

The primary challenge to bringing broadband to rural communities is economic. Rural areas are less densely populated. The cost to serve each customer increases as customer density decreases. This results in either a much longer return on investment (ROI) period or a
much higher price for services for the rural neighborhood compared to the denser neighborhood. With fewer customers and less available revenue, competition becomes less common in less populated areas.

 There are also technology challenges, including very rough terrain, power and backhaul availability,and distance limitations to fiber and wireless transmissions, etc. that are a struggle to overcome even with an infinite amount of money. It is entirely possible that some areas of the United States (and the world) cannot be served until those technology problems are solved. Therefore broadband adoption initiatives such as this one by C Spire and their partners is of vital importance. 
By at No comments:
Labels: ,

Monday, 10 June 2019

US mmWave Spectrum Auction Results in 24 GHz & 28 GHz


Fortune reported:

The federal government’s latest auction of airwave rights that can be used for super-fast 5G mobile phone service brought in only $2.7 billion, a fraction of the amounts raised in earlier sales for 3G and 4G airwaves.

AT&T and T-Mobile were the top bidders, with each spending almost $1 billion for rights in the 24 GHz and 28 GHz bands, the Federal Communications Commission said on Monday. Verizon, which already owned a considerable amount of airwaves in the 28 GHz band before the auction, spent $521 million.

Meanwhile, United States Cellular spent $256 million, Boston-based wireless broadband startup Starry spent $48 million, and data carrier Windstream spent $27 million. The auction didn’t draw any bids from cable companies and big tech players that have previously shown an interest in wireless.

The total was far less than the $20 billion to $45 billion that the wireless industry spent each at auctions over the past decade covering airwaves in the 600 MHz, 700 MHz, and 1700 MHz bands. Sometimes referred to as the millimeter wave bands, the high frequency airwaves sold at the latest auction can carry a tremendous amount of data, but they don’t travel nearly as far as lower frequency bands and can be blocked easily by buildings and trees.

FCC website:


  • Auction of 24 GHz Upper Microwave Flexible Use Service Licenses Closes; Winning Bidders Announced for Auction 102

Tables from Light Reading Article here.

Pie charts at the top from Allnet Blog post here.


Related Posts:


By at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Saturday, 18 May 2019

Sprint Keynote from #B5GS 2019 - Power of Massive MIMO and Band 41 5G NR


Sprint CTO, John Saw, talked about their 5G plans and how this new ecosystem promises to disrupt a number of market verticals such as agriculture, health care, and manufacturing at the Brooklyn 5G Summit 2019. He specifically focussed on Massive MIMO and shared a use case of its integration of 4G with 5G.

In case you are not aware, Sprint has a big chunk of Band 41 (above picture) available that they have been using for variety of stuff (see 3G4G blog post on HPUE & Small Cells blog post on MagicBox)
Sprint will be launching 5G on 31st May in 4 cities with LG V50 and HTC 5G Hub. You can learn all about 5G devices from my MWC post on The 3G4G blog here.

Here is the video, courtesy of IEEE TV




Related posts:
By at 1 comment:
Labels: , , ,

Monday, 5 November 2018

AT&T: Winning the Connected Car market in the USA


AT&T has trumpeted their connected car achievements in a recent news article on their website. Their main achievements:

  • Added more than 2 million cars in Q3 2018
  • Bringing the total number of connected cars to nearly 24 million
  • Connect more than 3 million fleet vehicles
  • Relationships with 29 top global brands 
  • Over a million customers on unlimited data plans where they can convert their connected cars into Wi-Fi hotspots
  • Since the introduction of unlimited plans in 2017, subscribers have used 45 million Gigabytes (GB) or 45 Petabytes (PB) of data
  • AT&T global SIM provides IoT connectivity across 500 carriers and 200+ countries and territories. 
  • AT&T connects cars in 57 countries, including 12 where infotainment is enabled through Wi-Fi hotspots.

According to Fierce Wireless:

A number of those automotive companies physically install an AT&T LTE modem into their cars, thus giving customers an option to pay AT&T $20 per month (or $10 per month for existing customers) in order to create a bubble of Wi-Fi connectivity using AT&T’s LTE network for backhaul. (AT&T said it may slow network speeds for customers who use more than 22 GB per month.)

For those motorists who don’t have a car equipped with an AT&T modem, the company recently introduced the Harman “Spark” device that plugs into the on-board diagnostics port (OBD II) in most vehicles built after 1996 and provides Wi-Fi connections alongside vehicle diagnostics and security. (AT&T’s Spark arrived on the market years after Verizon launched its similar Hum device and T-Mobile began selling its SyncUp Drive device.)

In addition to the above achievements, AT&T are very active in V2X standardisation and implementation. Here is what they say:

We’re serving in leadership positions across the industry, joining with other tech leaders to resolve key standards issues. This includes 5GAA, a cross-industry association between the cellular and automotive industries, the Automotive Edge Computing Consortium  of automotive, information technology, telecommunications, and cloud computing sectors, and the Auto-ISAC for automotive cybersecurity information sharing.

We expect vehicle-to-anything (V2X) connectivity technologies will help driverless vehicles to make virtually real-time decisions based on information that goes beyond the individual sensors onboard the vehicle itself.

Vehicles will be able to “see” around corners, in front and behind other vehicles – and at greater distances. This will eventually allow vehicles to quickly make sense of their surrounding environment as well as road ahead to help guide safe and efficient operations on the road.

For self-driving cars to interoperate with their environment and surrounding areas, it will be critical to have connectivity between vehicles, roadside units, pedestrians, and other infrastructure elements while navigating the roadways. Data analysis and decision capabilities will be largely processed onboard the vehicle utilizing various data sources from the vehicles and the surrounding intelligent transportation system.

But one of the most exciting aspects of automated vehicles is their ability to learn from other vehicles’ driving experiences in ways that human drivers simply cannot. This is where our 5G network comes into play. 5G will eventually allow for the necessary distribution of processed data to meet and exceed the needs of the automated vehicle.

The algorithms that govern AV operation can be continually improved as automated vehicles encounter new driving situations. For those improvements to be made, data must be collected, analyzed, and synthesized into improved algorithms to then be distributed to other vehicles. 5G will ultimately help create faster and more efficient exchange of this data, allowing these automated vehicles to distribute and receive data and function even better.

5G multi-gigabit speeds, distributed edge networks, and low latency services can help these capabilities to become a reality in years to come.

And self-driving cars and 5G will ultimately usher new opportunities for in-vehicle entertainment and engagement when drivers have more time on their hands.
By at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Monday, 8 October 2018

USA gets two faux 5G networks

From Android Headlines, back in July:

Regional wireless carrier C-Spire claims it already launched 5G service in the United States, having announced it’s now offering a next-generation fixed wireless access solution in select locations across Mississippi earlier this week. While the company is referring to its solution as 5G, it’s not basing it on the 3GPP’s Release 15 or any other standard released by the wireless consortium. Instead, it’s using proprietary hardware and a set of close-sourced IEEE 802.11 specifications, so while the service offers faster speeds compared to 4G LTE, it likely wouldn’t be considered as “true” 5G by anyone outside of C-Spire.


Another one from Android Headlines regarding Verizon's 5G Fixed Wireless:

A number of officials from the stateside wireless segment dismissed Verizon’s claim of having the world’s first commercial 5G network and customers. Speaking with AndroidHeadlines under the condition of anonymity, several industry veterans pointed to the examples of Qatari carrier Ooredoo and Mississippi operator C-Spire as clear evidence that Verizon’s claims about the uniqueness of its 5G Home service are entirely false. Much like Verizon, C-Spire and several other telecom companies abroad already launched fixed wireless access solutions reliant on a proprietary specification that’s in no way associated with the 3GPP, the organization responsible for standardizing the next generation of cellular connectivity.

Here is what John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile USA had to say about Verizon's 5G launch

Related Posts:
By at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Thursday, 9 August 2018

T-Mobile, USA: 5G, LAA & Small Cells


T-Mobile has a bold vision of providing nationwide 5G network. They have 600 MHz band available which can provide them with a nationwide 5G coverage layer but would that be enough? I have done some analysis on this topic on 3G4G blog here. They have a nice video on their 5G vision as shown below:



Recently they have also deployed a 5G tech truck to bring these benefits to end users.


According to TmoNews:

The T-Mobile Tech Truck hit the road today, beginning a journey that’ll take it across the country to help people experience the benefits of 5G as well as other tech being developed by T-Mobile. The exhibit will include connected drones, interactive displays to show how smart cities will become cleaner and more efficient, and AR and VR experiences that T-Mo says will improve how we communicate.
In addition to 5G, T-Mobile has been deploying small cells with LAA or License Assisted Access. This is helping them reach Gigabit LTE.

With Verizon and AT&T working towards 5G in high throughput mmWave band both T-Mobile and Sprint can differentiate themselves with nationwide 5G. In fact this is the main value proposition for T-Mo and Sprint merger, that they complement each other with regards to 5G bands and if they merge than US could be 5G leader.

Source: ZDnet

We will have to wait and see who wins the 5G race in the USA.

Related Posts:
By at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,

Sprint: Small Cells and 5G

Sprint has been in news for their small cells and 5G, in addition to possible merger with T-Mobile. In a recent blog post, Jon Saw, CTO of Sprint mentioned that they have over 15,000 outdoor small cells and over 65,000 magic boxes. Here are some links regarding small cells:

Sprint are also building on their legacy TD-LTE experience to deploy massive MIMO for LTE and 5G. The fact that Sprint has a lot of 2.5 GHz spectrum will help them massively in 5G rollouts.

To make their subscribers aware of their 5G vision, they have also created a new Sprint 5G YouTube channel. The playlist below expands further on their vision.


Related posts:
By at No comments:
Labels: , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)