Welcome to episode 150 of the G2 on 5g. This is the start of our fourth year, our fourth season. And I are really excited to be recording this right before the 4th of July. It's always the latest insight scoop on everything 5g. We cover six topics in about 20 minutes and it's brought to you by more insights and strategy.

I'm Will Townsend, and joining me again this week is fellow analyst Ancho Sag. Let's get started with my first topic and I wanna talk about Huawei and I've been hearing, rumors from them around something called five 5g, and that, reminds me of, in the LTE world, LTE advance, but.

They have publicly announced that they're planning to launch a number of different infrastructure products next year. That is focused on what they're calling five point 5g. So it would be helpful to define what Huawei is saying here. And basically they're stating that five 5G will bring improvements in areas such as integrated sensing and communication level four autonomous driving.

All scenario iot concepts in green I C t, which the latter has been a theme of theirs for quite some time. They're claiming that they'll be able to improve latency tenfold better position accuracy and reliability as well for things like autonomous driving. But the big question is, See they have a market for this.

We've talked on prior podcasts, and I think you covered this on our last podcast. That the, the European Commission, the European Union is very, is getting very aggressive about trying to block them. Now, certainly China is a huge market given the population and the rest of Asia.

But I'm wondering, based on the amount of, non-engineering resource expense that they're gonna have to recover from, this doesn't make good financial sense. So I'll just throw it to you cause I know you'll have an opinion on this. Yeah, 

Huawei's been talking five point 5G for quite some time.

Yeah. I feel like this is once again another marketing term. They did this with 4g, if you remember they did four point 5g. Very good. Yeah. I think they're just looking for a way to control the narrative. Realistically five point 5g is really just for lease 18. So what you're looking at is we've already done release 15, that's the original 5G standard release 16 was an update to that.

Release 17 was a major upgrade and release 18 is what's being called 5G advanced, which is the halfway point to 6g, which is why I could see why Huawei could go and say five point 5g. But we're still very far from having any release 18 devices. So having, talking about release 18 networks and release 18 equipment and release 18 in general, since this hasn't even been, ratified yet.

And I believe we probably won't know release eighteens like actual spec until next year. It just seems a little premature. But I think that this is just Huawei trying to go back to its old ways of being aggressive on marketing, aggressive on naming, aggressive on releasing products early. Yeah. Just being in general more aggressive because I think if you remember before all of these vans went into place on Huawei.

They took a step back on their aggressiveness and took more of a, a caretaker role where they were continuing to release products, but maybe being a little more confident in their position and not being overly aggressive on marketing and positioning. And I think they're going back to being more aggressive in that sense.

And that's why I think we're seeing a lot of this five point 5G talk, even though it's 

a little premature. And it's interesting I was actually invited to attend mobile World Congress Shanghai. But given that I had traveled three weeks straight this month, I declined that request. But.

It's not surprising that this announcement around a five point 5G portfolio, to your point, they've been talking about five point 5g, but to basically announce, and state that they're gonna have infrastructure that supports these types of features next year, it, that's also a little ambiguous.

There's really no pinpoint date. That could be, I think that could be December of next year. Is interesting. And I think, my, Sort of my feet on the street, told me that we're actually in attendance at Mobile World Congress Shanghai, Huawei had a very bold presence at the event.

They were very visible. And so I think this is just something that they're that they're keen on to to continue that momentum and be very aggressive. But at the end of the day, can the Chinese market and can other smaller markets in Asia support whatever investment they're making in this time will tell.

But we'll keep tabs on this because again, it's an announcement, it's not general availability. But let's go to your first topic. And I know halo is near and dear to your heart. You wanna talk about. What they're doing with T-Mobile. Yeah. So 

Halo has, been in the news already for having a semi-autonomous car service where they were allowing remote drivers to deliver electric vehicles to drivers and allowing 'em to drive the car to where they want to go, and then the car will go, to the next driver and, that's, that, that was their whole business.

Yesterday, I believe they announced that they will be no longer using pilots to drive these vehicles and they will be fully autonomous from one driver to the next. This is a car delivery service where the car delivers itself to you, you drive it where you wanna go, and then it will go to the next person.

And this service uses T-Mobile as its primary network, but it also uses at t and Verizon as backups. Which is totally understandable almost all autonomous vehicles that have a 5G connection have at least one fallback. The interesting thing is that Halo is the first one to do this kind of autonomy.

And they're using T-Mobile's 5G network. And they are, really excited cuz this is what they've been promising for quite some time now. But it is still restricted to the downtown Las Vegas area. And they plan to expand that capability across the city. And I'm hoping that I'm able to go to Vegas for something that's not c e s, so that I can try this out for myself.

But it's really interesting to hear how this has evolved and that they're now actually able to, make these electric cars available to people without needing to have pilots, driving them around using a video stream. 

Yeah. It's cool, we've talked about them before.

They're utilizing the full extent of T-Mobile's layer cake spectrum availability in Las Vegas. And so this was, this isn't surprising to me. I was expecting this, to be the next step there. But yeah, I mean it's it's super compelling. I'll actually be in Vegas for Mobile World Congress Las Vegas, so I don't know if you're gonna be making it this year or not.

I'm actually do, I'm actually serving as a judge for T-Mobile for a second year in a row for their unconventional awards. This is a T-Mobile for Business event. But I will be there and I will definitely check out Halo. And I've actually spoken with the CEO in the past, so I may have to Ping him before I arrive in Vegas and see if I can get a ride there.

But 

I might 

even join you. You'll, you should join me. Maybe we can do a live podcast while we're in the car. But let me move to my second topic and I'm actually gonna provide our viewers and listeners a double shot with Nokia. So it's been a while since I've spoken about them I caught the news this week that they're moving their 5G cloud core to Red Hat, and it got me thinking like, why would they do that?

Because Cloud ran, cloud core. These are all important elements to the traditional infrastructure providers. It provides scale, there, there's, there's no question that, at and t leaned into it and they actually at and t transferred. Not only some intellectual property, but some some human resources.

I believe it was to Azure for 5g qualified core. And so this is analogous to that but what's interesting, as I read through a couple of the articles so th this includes Nokia's Cloud Core. It also very similar to what at t did with with Azure. They're moving three 50 plus employees over to Red Hat as well.

And what Nokia is stating is that they felt like that cloud, cloud infrastructure obviously is very important given the nature of applications and SaaS and that sort of thing. But they felt that The market was moving towards more horizontal solutions in that Nokia needed to find a way to accommodate that.

So Red Hat was a natural consideration there. So I think it's interesting red Hat obviously, they're very present and prolific in the open source community. There's a lot of benefits I've written about open source networking on many occasions. It's at the core of Open Ran as well with the disaggregation there.

And it caught me by surprise, but at the same time we've seen similar things happen in the past. So I don't know if you caught the news or if if you have any thoughts on it, but would love to hear your perspective. 

I did not catch the news, and I'll be honest with you, I don't have any thoughts.

Okay it's just boring infrastructure, you get to play with all the cool devices and the ar vr stuff. We'll jump right to your second topic, which sounds pretty cool to me. You wanna talk about Boeing and how they're using 5G and drones within, their manufacturing process, right?

Yeah. This is an evolution of what they've been doing with. Like improving aircraft maintenance. Yeah, this was a story I saw in breaking defense. And basically it's a combination of the augmented training, operations maintenance program with the auto autonomous Aircraft Inspection program.

So it's two different programs okay to save on labor and cost. Make it easier for the Air, air Force and other branches of the Army, Navy, et cetera to maintain their aircraft and keep them airworthy. Cuz I think a lot of, a lot of civilians aren't really aware for every like hour of plane is out, there's 10 hours of maintenance.

Yeah. And that's just something that like, people are just not aware of. And that's what keeps aircraft safe and operational. And yeah, so there's a lot of maintenance and that's actually like the most, the biggest cost associated with these kinds of aircraft. So what they're doing is they're combining like photogrammetry, using drones to fly around the aircraft and create a full scan of the entire aircraft.

And then being able to go in and identify, different PO points that need to be addressed. Okay. Being able to use ar headsets to look at the data and determine what needs fixing, what you know, if everything looks right. And a big component of what I read was that, Using 5g, they're going to be able to quickly connect those scans to the people who might not be at the aircraft at that moment.

To be able to look over the data, look over the images quickly, okay. And be able to give feedback to people on the ground. Okay. And be able to make decisions more quickly. And they're really using that for training as well, for similar reasons. Having somebody at the plane while somebody else somewhere else is able to talk them through it virtually.

All of these things are becoming more popular. And it looks like they've pop they they've partnered with a company called Duo who has a C 17 training module, which is already uploaded into the HoloLens. Interesting thing is Microsoft's HoloLens is on the way out. So it would be interesting to see what headsets they might end up adopting as Microsoft's kind of laid off most of the people related to HoloLens.

So I would assume that the US military doesn't want to use a headset that no longer really has much support. Yeah. So I think they'll probably transition to something like Digi Lens. Or another standalone headset using a snap track and chip set. Admittedly this, the HoloLens does run windows, so that might be a bit of a challenge in terms of reporting software.

But I think long-term HoloLens is gonna be on the way out. But it's still clear that, spatial computing is very valuable for training and these kinds of maintenance situations. And 5G is just a really good accelerator 

of that. Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah, so I misunderstood. So it was definitely maintenance and training and not production, but I would expect.

That 5G would be a consideration within, the whole manufacturing scenario because you can, you replace the cables and you can reconfigure lines. Although I would guess, if Boeing's building, let's say, a triple seven or 7 87 or whatever the latest aircraft is, once you set those manufacturing cells, there probably doesn't need to be a lot of changeover, but, being able to replace cables and do things, wirelessly with 5G in a sort of a private network scenario could be interesting.

So that might be an area for you and I to dig into further. And boy, it'd be cool also to see if Boeing would be interested in coming on a podcast and talking about what they're doing with respect to what you just spoke to about. The maintenance and training aspect. But with that, let me go to my third and final topic.

And I, as I mentioned, a double shot of Nokia, I wanna talk about their launching of a purpose-built 5G fixed wireless access receiver for the North America market. And you may not know this, but Nokia powers, some of the largest mobile network operator, F W A services in the world.

And so when I caught this news and you caught it as well, What I found interesting about this is that. The reason why it's purpose-built for North America, and by the way, they're calling this their fast mile 5G receiver. It supports all North America, 5g, mid and low spectrum bands, as well as L T E and C B R S, including unlicensed.

This provides a Swiss Army knife with respect to deployment in the North America market. That would include Canada as well. And as we've educated our viewers and listeners over the years Different mobile network operators have, different swaths of spectrum.

And hey, from my perspective, this looks pretty promising me. Fwa, we've talked about it being the first killer 5G use case. And now Nokia has created something that They can potentially market, to any mobile network operator in North America. So I find it's pretty compelling.

And, fwa subscribership continues to grow. T-Mobile continues to lead that. As I've mentioned, Verizon once they get their mid band assets built out, I think their performance will improve. It's pretty crappy right now. I think that's why they were, we're bundling it for an extra 25 bucks a month.

T-Mobile sells its service, it's consumer service for 50 a month. And and as I've mentioned too, I do believe at t at some point they've been offering fwa for their business customers. I do believe at some point just reading between the tea leaves and what c e o John Stanke and other executives have said, I think they'll likely have, some sort of consumer solution before too long.

Purely my speculation and guess I'm not sharing anything that's been shared with me under nondisclosure with at and t but it's interesting. It's another piece of boring infrastructure, but what do you think?

I think it's really important that there's a component of innovation on the device side or on the user side. The receiver's capabilities ultimately determine. What, what kind of user experience they get. If it's easily to install. That's a huge component as well. Size is a huge factor.

So I think just constantly improving on the user equipment and making sure that, we have a solid connection to the network. Everything else just follows along after that. So I just think keep keeping to continue, improve on 5g. Fixed wireless will make it a viable competitor to cable, which we know it already is, but longer term, offering better speeds and continuing to offer, a differentiated experience that the cable operators 

are afraid of.

Yeah. And I'm in my home in Bastrop. I'm sitting at my kitchen table again because my office is still in the process of being set up. Hopefully that'll be done in the next couple of weeks and I'll be in my new studio. But I am transmitting to you via a fixed wireless access solution from T-Mobile.

I think I've mentioned that in the past. Yeah, so it's it's definitely viable. It's one of the reasons why I think cable operators are getting into the wireless space as well. I don't think they'll necessarily go do f w A, they're gonna do more, mobility and device and that sort of thing, but, Yeah, it's interesting how how the market's evolving, but let's let's wrap up on this episode right before the fourth with your third and final topic.

And you wanna talk about China. I started off with Huawei and China, but you wanna talk about China and the government allocating spectrum in the six gigahertz band for both 5G and 6g. So what's up with the 6G thing, man? I thought that was terra Hertz. 

So 6G is going to be A combination of multiple bands.

Yeah, just 5G is not one band. Everybody, 5G is a millimeter wave, but it ended up being, millimeter wave plus 3.5 gigahertz, plus some low band 600 megahertz. So yeah, a Miller situation where maybe we get terahertz. But realistically we'll probably get like something in the 12 gigahertz span.

Maybe that's still a, maybe six gigahertz I think was already China's plan for 5G and 6g, which is why you can't get six gigahertz in China for wifi. Which is a problem because that's what wifi seven uses for the third band. And that's the reason why I wanted to talk about this because the Chinese government.

Has blocked the use of six gigahertz band for wifi. And will be using I think 6.4 to 7.1 or portions thereof. I'm reading from the Chinese official state media. Yeah. And they're talking about using it starting July 1st. And they keep talking about 5G in here and 6g, so very clearly, I think.

China may want to use a Spectrum four 6g because it's an easy marketing thing. 6G six gigahertz. Yeah. But also there's other bands that will occur as well and everything. 5G will roll over to 6G as well. We'll have some holdover, but there will be re reform spectrum. Yeah. And maybe they'll start with 6G or six gigahertz for 6g.

And maybe only allocate a little bit for 5g. But who knows? What I do know is, this is something that I think has been planned for a long time. This is not really a surprise to anyone. Somebody who covers wifi extensively and as do you. We both, six gigahertz has been a no-go in China for wifi and yeah.

Was the expected solution and here 

we are. Yeah. No surprise. Interesting. Hey my friend, it's been another great podcast this week. Why don't you take us home? 

Absolutely. We hope our viewers and listeners on this week's topic is interesting. If anyone out there would like to provide insights on a specific 5G topic for a future podcast, please reach out to us on social media wills at well, and we hope you have a great 4th of July weekend.

And please tune in again next week and don't forget to rate us and subscribe.