Topic: 5G
Apple Seeks Permission to Test 5G Network Technology (May 23, 2017)
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★ T-Mobile Announces Plans for Rapid Nationwide Rollout of 5G in 600MHz (May 2, 2017)
T-Mobile this morning announced plans to roll out 5G services nationally starting in 2019 on the 600MHz spectrum it acquired in the recent FCC auction. T-Mobile is here taking a different tack from the other US operators and many international operators, which are instead using high-band millimeter wave spectrum to test and eventually roll out 5G. T-Mobile’s approach is very much more incremental in nature, not providing the kind of dramatic speed and latency benefits which have been associated with previous generational shifts in mobile, in contrast to the fiber-replacement services being tested by AT&T and Verizon. On the other hand, T-Mobile will be able to claim that it has widespread 5G coverage long before the other carriers, which will have to roll out the infrastructure-dense high-band version much more slowly. There’s a danger that T-Mobile’s more modest ambitions for 5G set low consumer expectations for the technology and that other carriers will have to work hard to raise those expectations with their own rollouts, and there’s a certain irony to the prospect of T-Mobile building a network with the broadest coverage but lower speeds given its current reputation for providing a fast but not ubiquitous LTE network. Some of the other non-speed-related aspects of 5G will still be realized, which should allow T-Mobile to launch some interesting new IoT services, which will helpful as its growth from phones continues to slow. See also my longer comment for media here.
via T-Mobile
AT&T Starts Using 5G in Marketing for LTE Services (Apr 25, 2017)
AT&T announced today that it’s bringing what it calls 5G Evolution to over 20 metro areas by the end of the year, starting with Austin. However, as I’ve said before, 5G itself hasn’t been standardized yet, so the best anyone can claim to have today is pre-5G technology. But what’s more worrisome about this AT&T announcement is that it’s actually using that 5G Evolution brand as an umbrella term that includes some technology that has nothing to do with 5G, notably the faster LTE technology in the new Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+. What we’re starting to see is the same marketing-led muddying of the water over a new wireless generation we saw with 4G a few years back, when Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T all used the term 4G to describe non-standard 4G network technologies (WiMAX and HSPA+ specifically). We’ve also already seen the gigabit LTE label thrown around, and though it’s technically accurate in terms of maximum throughput, it’s likely to disappoint consumers who actually use it. While carriers might want to steal a march on competitors, this does nothing for consumers, who will likely require significant education when real 5G does launch without being further confused by labeling non-5G technology with a 5G-related moniker. It also means that when 5G does launch, consumers will wonder what they’ve been using all this time, making it hard to develop strong marketing messages around real 5G. I’m hoping this doesn’t spread, but past experience suggests it will.
via AT&T
AT&T Buys Straight Path in $1.6 Billion Deal for 5G Arsenal – Bloomberg (Apr 10, 2017)
Though 5G standards haven’t been finalized yet, it’s already clear that some major networks will be running in much higher frequency bands than previous generations of technology, and specifically in what’s known as the millimeter-wave bands between 30 and 300GHz, mostly in the lower part of that range. As such, spectrum in those bands has suddenly become much more valuable, and companies are starting to snap it up. AT&T already bought some earlier this year and now is spending $1.6 billion to buy up a holding company which owns a decent chunk of it. Straight Path hadn’t actually been putting it to use as required by its purchase contract, and so has been forced by the FCC to hand it over to someone else, precipitating a sale process. Given how little spectrum is available generally, this is a decent price for an increasingly valuable asset, and it will likely increase interest in other holders of higher-frequency spectrum, including DISH. We’re still very early in the 5G rollout phase, but we’re going to see lots more purchases like this (including some of actual businesses rather than mere holding companies) over the next couple of years as the big existing players and some new entrants line up 5G spectrum.
via Bloomberg
5G Schedule Moves Up to 2019 – PCMag (Feb 27, 2017)
As I expected, 5G seems to have been a big theme at MWC this year, with lots more marketing type announcements but also some actual products being announced, albeit ones which should technically be described as pre-5G. The headline here is a bit funny, because of course it’s in these companies’ interests to suggest 5G is more imminent than previously thought, but it’s not up to them how quickly the technology gets deployed – that’s entirely up to the carriers, and I’m still very skeptical that we’ll see 5G available to more than a handful of locations before 2020 in the US (or probably anywhere else). And of course the idea that Qualcomm’s 5G modem would premiere in an iPhone seems laughable – Apple has been deliberately slow to adopt both previous wireless generations (3G and 4G), because the early trade-offs between performance and battery life make early entry unappealing. I don’t see that changing with 5G. But as a previous piece suggested, 2017 is going to be the year of pre-5G commercial trials, which is an important step along the path to eventual mainstream rollout and adoption.
via PCMag
Verizon offers taste of 5G as it expands network trials – CNET (Feb 22, 2017)
Though the headline doesn’t do it, the article itself makes appropriate use of quotation marks around “5G” – there is no official standard for 5G yet, so everything being rolled out or trialled in the meantime is pre-5G based on companies’ anticipation of what the standards will say. We’re very much in the marketing phase of 5G at this point – for the reasons just stated, no-one can actually roll out 5G yet, and everything that is being rolled out is very much in the trial stages rather than production rollout, but that’s not stopping companies like Verizon from issuing lots of press releases about it as a way of establishing perceived leadership in this space. As with previous generations of mobile technology, there are multiple phases that need to happen before real people start seeing real benefits in real numbers: the standards have to be finalized, network equipment vendors need to release standards-based equipment, carriers have to deploy that equipment into their networks at scale, and most importantly end user or customer premise devices need to begin incorporating the technology. We’re years away from mass deployment still. The good news is that LTE has tons of runway left ahead of it in terms of increased speeds; the bad news is that we’ll all get so bombarded with 5G marketing in the interim that many people won’t recognize it when it actually arrives.
via CNET