Welcome to episode 172 of the G2 on 5G. It's the latest inside scoop on everything 5G. We cover 6 topics in about 20 minutes, and it's brought to you by more insights and strategy.  I'm Will Townsend and joining me again is fellow analyst Anshul Sag and you and I have been on the road. I was with Marvell earlier this week.

It's why we're recording on Saturday and you're with AMD, right?  

Yes, I was with AMD and some other  CES previews. I had to do a red eye from San Francisco to New York, which is like 

the worst. Those are always fun. Yeah I did 1 for the 1st time in about 10 years, just  back in, I think it was October and boy, yeah, I can't sleep on airplanes,  but I 

somehow managed from exhaustion to sleep 2 hours.

Yeah, 

We'll be expeditious with our viewers and listeners this week, but we've got a lot of great topics to talk about. And I'm going to open up with what I believe is a watershed event for Open RAN. And unless you were living under a rock this past week, AT& T and Ericsson announced a huge partnership. 

And basically, and I was actually had an opportunity to speak with Egal Ibez that runs network operations for AT& T. I've known Egal for many years. And I was pre briefed several hours ahead of the announcement, but at a high level 18 T is aligning with Erickson to deploy open around in a big way.

And this is not, obviously, this is a brownfield network, highly complicated. But the spend could reach over 14Billion dollars over the 5 year term with Ericsson. And the plan is for AT& T eventually to drive 70 percent of its wireless network traffic over open standard architecture. So this is huge and I've got a couple of insights here. 

Number 1, if anyone can pull this off in the US, in my mind, it's AT& T because they have a history of being focused on open source.  They, about a year ago, they transferred a lot of their IP and a lot of the folks that were working on a lot of their open network initiatives to Azure so that they could, focus on their core competency. 

Erickson represents an opportunity. John Stanky, I think I read several articles and he was quoted as this was fairly opportunistic to align with one  particular vendor. And so there's been a lot of question around what does this mean for Nokia?  I've read a lot of articles that have been clickbaity.

And, at the end of the day Eric's Nokia is not necessarily out of the mix. And speaking with EGOL AT& T needed to choose one path to reduce complexity. I think Ericsson is also a great choice because Ericsson has a huge engineering center in Louisville, which is very close to AT& T's corporate headquarters in Dallas, downtown Dallas.

And, the integration lift is going to be complex. And so having engineering resources closer to HQ I think it's going to help, but.  In the long term, this doesn't necessarily rule out Nokia being a participant. AT& T is stating that this is a multi vendor ecosystem approach. And so they're going to be a lot of different infrastructure providers that'll be involved in the mix.

But from my perspective, this is really a watershed event for Open RAN. Certainly Vodafone in Europe has been very aggressively. Deploying OpenRAN, but really AT& T is the first major U. S. operator to really make this bold commitment. And my gosh, 14 billion, and spend, wanting to drive, the majority of its network traffic through open platforms.

This is huge, man. 

What do you think? I Have a lot of thoughts, but I'm going to be very concise with them because I've already thought about them. One, I think it's really interesting that Erickson is the vendor because Erickson was by far and away a laggard on Open RAN for a while. 

And they were on the bench and Eyal and I talked about that.

So you're right. That's a great observation. They like 

flipped the script. And then also they  when you look at Ericsson, and when you think about Open RAN, you don't really think Open RAN, let's go Ericsson. I think it's interesting. They've clearly made improvements to their solutions.

And I think to your point, AT& T is the most Likely candidate for this, because, for the last 5 years, they've just been software to find everything. That's why I thought they would be the 1st with standalone because it's so much about virtualizing the ran. And  yeah, I just think that.

This is a good move for AT& T, and I think down the road right now, they're one vendor, but I think down the road, it gives them the opportunity to have a multi vendor strategy beyond Nokia Ericsson and bring in more companies in the fold, which I believe was the entire goal of Open RAN to begin with. 

And, maybe opens more opportunities for domestic vendors to compete and potentially lower costs. 

Yeah, I asked the question and it's funny you and I were, we're back channeling when the news broke and I asked the question I go, is any of this sort of rooted in. Your desire to align to the U.

S. government's desire to domesticate the supply chain for 5G and beyond. And I didn't really get a straight answer from Mr. but the reality is AT& T does a lot of work with the federal government. I have a good friend that  does state and local government sales with AT& T and so that has to be a factor as well.

But I think, what, what Mr stated was. This is going to provide us, it's not necessarily a capex thing from their perspective. It's an agility thing so that they can deploy new services faster  and leverage. And obviously, over time there, there will be capex and benefits tied to that.

But this is, what I'm hearing from executives. And I think what I read in another article from CEO John Stanky was around this. This is more about agility and diversifying the ecosystem and the supply, and then obviously the supply chain factors into that as well. But anyway it's exciting news.

I think, we'll continue to hear more, about this, but let's go to your 1st topic. We're going to talk about another mobile network operator in the U. S. T mobile. And I caught this news as well. They're deploying standalone 5 G millimeter wave. And I think that's going to be pretty exciting.

Exciting. For its fixed wireless access services, but I'll let you take it. I don't want to steal your thunder.  Yeah, 

this was a test, a millimeter wave using standalone. Which if you think about most millimeter wave deployments. Have been millimeter wave on a downlink over 5G and then 4G on the uplink.

This is a I would say an integration of millimeter wave into the already existing standalone infrastructure. Yeah they were able to get a peak downloads of 4. 3 gigabits per second using 8 channels, a millimeter spectrum,  which is in, the expected performance scenario also they worked with Ericsson and Qualcomm to achieve this.

So Ericsson was most likely the infrastructure vendor, Qualcomm was probably the UE and, they also reported a 420 megabit uplink. So that's a pretty big one. And they were using, they weren't using any low band or mid band as the anchor. So it was just millimeter wave. And, yeah, they were able to do 4 channels of millimeter wave on the uplink to get that 420 megabits per second.

Uploads are getting more and more important as people become content creators and want to stream more content  from their devices. We'll see, where this gets used, but you made a good point that fixed wireless is a an opportunity for them with this. I actually believe this will be at the core of T Mobile's strategy in dense Environments like, let's say, stadiums and sport and other entertainment venues.

I think this will be the core of how they deliver a good experience to users because truthfully without millimeter wave, most of these venues are  useless.  

Yeah, I agree, and I think, you mentioned the stadium, the kind of the density type applications when a lot of users come together at once.

And, it's a, 1 of the challenges with millimeter wave is propagation and you have to densify right to extend the signal range and in a stadium.  Or at circuit of the Americas, or any sort of any like that it's a little bit easier to place, small cells and macro cells within those environments to get the densification that you need.

But what I really like about this is that, T Mobile has been just moving up the staircase with its layer cake spectrum. When Neville, you and I spent a lot of time with Neville when he was leading technology for T Mobile the initial focus was on low band to ensure good coverage.

Now they're, they've been moving into their mid band and moving that into standalone and now millimeter wave. So I think that's a logical progression and it's probably the best progression for for the operator, but yeah. Good stuff, man. Let's go to my second topic, and I want to talk about Huawei.

So we haven't talked about Huawei in a while, and they conducted their Huawei Connect Europe event before the pandemic they conducted Connect in was it, is it in Shanghai? Yeah, it was in Shanghai. It's been in Shanghai, but they're moving that signature event, regionally, much other infrastructure companies do.

So they had their event. It was in Paris and. Okay. I didn't actually, I wasn't able to attend. It was the week before Thanksgiving. I was traveling, but I did tune in virtually and I did contribute. An article to RCR wireless analyst angle that posted this week, but, at a high level going into that, my question was, is why way back right? Just are my Texas longhorns back? I think they are but as well, way back and what was interesting to no surprise the event theme centered around sustainability and the cloud and from a sustainability standpoint.  Always been very focused on initiatives that are designed to reduce power consumption.

And so at the event,  they had several customers and partners on stage that included solar power Europe and the global enabling sustainability initiative. And it's no secret that 1 of the pivots that Huawei has made has been around solar and, not necessarily manufacturing the panels, but the solar inverters.

And so they've quickly, over the last, year and a half to 2 years, they developed a portfolio of solutions and I talked about that in the article. So we'll include the link when we post the podcast here, but.  I think that sort of marks a a positive pivot and, for their, their business direction, given that they've had, softness, obviously, and their cellular infrastructure business based on the entity listings and that sort of thing.

But the other thing, and it's more of a, I think a me too, fast or slow follower, however you want to characterize it approach. But they're focused on cloud service delivery and to no surprise, is in the mix with that as well. So they're definitely trying to compete with the likes of HPE GreenLake and Dell apex.

But, they've also just I think everyone else they've announced new AI models. thEy have a model called Pingu and GALS DB GALS DB is a distributed cloud database, but what Huawei points to is that a lot of these initiatives around their cloud services are enabling startups in Europe that want to do business in China and vice versa, China, startups that want to do business in Europe, it's helping facilitate that through connectivity.

I think at a high level, are they back? Certainly they're. They're remaining relevant. They're focusing on the right things that everyone else is focusing on. A lot of their success is self reported. And so it's hard to audit this, other than what they provide and prospectuses and, their earnings announcements and that sort of thing.

But. I think, at a macro level, when you look at the event and you look at the fact that they had partners and customers on stage, espousing the success of what they're accomplishing I would say they're remaining relevant, but what do you think?  

I think remaining relevant is a more accurate representation of the state of Huawei. 

I don't really think they're back  because there's a lot of countries where they're explicitly forbidden  or being thrown out.  I do think that they have a lot stronger of a presence in Africa and in the Middle East  and Southeast Asia.  But I do think that they are going to be capped on growth. And they do have a lot more competition.

I also think a lot of the stuff they're talking about  is also going to be limited since they don't have access to things that can video GPUs. Yeah, I think that's going to be interesting. I think. Their bread and butter of infrastructure will, will have a cap, which is why I think they're going into other industries like cars.

So I  think Huawei is back in the sense that they are actively participating and trying to engage more. But I do think that there will never be a Huawei.  In the future that matches the Huawei that was pre entity listing. 

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, but, financials are rebounding again.

A lot of this is self reported. And and it's. Hey, focusing on, supporting greener energy technologies like solar is a good thing. So are there security concerns around solar inverters? Who knows? But but anyway let's go to your second topic and you want to talk about Apple and what is this beeper mini drama? 

Yes. So beeper mini. Was an app that launched  last week, essentially or this week, if you can call it that. But basically, yesterday  the app stopped working. What is Beeper Mini? Beeper Mini was a app that launched for Android, that allowed you to message your iPhone user friends. As a blue bubble, so that way you could have all your conversations with your iPhone friends as if you were an iPhone user, and you wouldn't break the group chats.

And, you wouldn't be seen as a pariah. 3 days later,  it stopped working.  And there are no clear statements from the company why it wasn't working. buT  most people believe that what happened is that Beeper Mini was able to reverse engineer iMessage and figure out a way to make it work for Android users. 

And three days later, it stopped working. And now Beeper Mini says it's back today which, we'll see how long that lasts. But  they, they say that based on the reports I've seen that the CEO believes that  the Apple found a way to cut them off. I'M sure that any good app that's trying to solve a problem like this most likely knew this was going to happen and already had a backup plan.

Yeah. It's just a question of how many backup plans do they have? And also this kind of demonstrates how Apple is not really a  I don't know how to put this a good steward of the industry. And, they can probably claim that this is a security breach of some sort. But the reality is that  Android users don't really want to use iMessage or have a separate app to iMessage, iMet, iPhone users.

And that the EU was justified in pushing Apple to support RCS. Which they say they will now. And maybe because they said that they'll support RCS, they think they can get away with doing this, but I'm sure European regulators are watching this very closely and maybe even wanting to go harder on the hammer to when they drop it on Apple.

That's the crux of it. Beeper mini is back, but we don't know for how long.  

Yeah, so it makes me wonder what's Apple's motivation? Like you said, they could say that, oh this provide, potentially creates a security risk, but is it a monitor?

Is it a monetization thing? Like Apple, it's a, it's an over the top, deal. I'm assuming you have to pay for it, right? Or is it free? 

No, it's free. I'm asking what beeper you have to pay for beeper mini, but that's because they're, they have to run all the infrastructure to make it work. 

Because the thing is the app launched on Tuesday and it was down on Friday. So they really didn't give it much time. But yeah, like Apple, Apple use iMessage as a, like a stickiness factor for iOS users. They don't really make any money on it, but if it keeps people on iPhone and allows people to socially shame others for not being on iPhone um, that's worth more than its weight in 

gold. 

Yeah, no, for sure. Interesting.  Apple drama,  let's let's go to my 3rd and final topic. And I want to talk about dish and Echo star. So  this week. They officially received approval for the combination of the companies, but it begs the question, will it make a difference? There are a lot of hurdles in front of dish being successful.

And, 1 of them is just, not having the  the dollars, to continue building out their They're highly disaggregated open virtualized cloud native network and they announced the merger agreement on August 8. Yeah, it's, it takes a few months for the regulators to view all of this, but,  1 of the biggest hurdles is going to be I think they've got a note. That's 2 billion. It's huge that's going to mature. I think in December of 2025, it's a couple of years out, but so the clock is ticking. The runway is going to shorten here pretty quickly.

What do you think? We've talked about, this, combination is tie up in the past on other podcasts, but what do you think? Are they going to be able to make a run at it?  

I think really what this is this is Charlie Ergen buying himself more time, right?

That's my impression as well. Because 

without this merger approval, Dish is dead.  For sure. That's effectively how I see it. This buys him more time to figure out what he's doing. And find someone to run the company that will lead them to success. buT  I'm,  my optimism for this,  uh, venture wanes by the day. 

Yeah. And I wish, they are successful and hope that they are successful, but my confidence in their success.  Just keeps getting worse every day. 

Yeah it's not like it's looking pretty bleak and management shuffles continue and  yeah, it'd be great to have, a 4th operator, be competitive in the market, but. From my perspective, they clearly have an articulated a plan.  That provides. Differentiated value in the market, it just seems to be all about access and anchoring, its initial plans on  it's prepaid business and they've been losing subscribers like crazy there.

So I also think. 

AT& T's move to open ran. Removes some of that novel open ran  thing that they were pushing when they watched 

for sure. Yeah. And it's I tell you what, man, the lift to do this in an established brownfield network is tremendously more complex than it is with a net name.

Greenfield deployment. But anyway, let's go to your third and final topic. You want to talk about Telefonica, Nokia, and they are partnering to open a 5G holographic lab in Spain. And hey surprise. Standalone's a part of the mix.  

Yes, so this is a  a lab that's being created to, it's a lab at the Valencia Polytechnic University in Spain.

And they're claiming this is the first lab in Spain for the development and testing of holography  as a use case based on 5G communication. They're going to be using 26 gigahertz as their band for communication. They're gonna be doing both standalone and non standalone.  

Definitely Millimeter Wave, right?

Definitely Millimeter Wave. Yes, it 

is Millimeter Wave, and it will be, I guarantee you, it will be mostly focused on standalone. And Telefonica will be the one who will help deliver network operations which includes working with 5G Cloud and Edge to compute to send and receive these holograms.

And yeah it's a really good development because holograms are going to be a way that, we see things in AR. And, this is, this lab is part of the Advancing 5G Immersive Project. Which was financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation with next gen EU funds from the European Commission.

So it's like European Commission, Spain, and then the lab. And I'm sure the lab will throw some money at some developers too. But yeah, Nokia is obviously providing the 5G equipment and the university is supplying the research team. So they're going to do a lot of research in holography and using 5G.

No, your way, that's their anchor. 

Yeah, no, I love the whole, academia partnership approach, bringing industry into this as well with Nokia and with telephonic. I think there could be some really exciting things that result from that, but.  Hey, my friend it's been another great podcast.

I'm hitting the road for my last business trip next week. I'm headed to Dublin and I'm going to spend some time with Druid. They do a software mobile core, 4G and 5G, and I'm going to spend some time with them on Friday, the 15th at their demo day. And actually we'll be doing a video with, with with a communication service provider that they are working with as well as NAPA tech and NAPA tech does UPS offload.

I wrote a Forbes article back in August about it. So I'm actually following up to spend time. So we may not get our podcast recorded next week. It may have to be right before the Christmas holiday. But what do you have left? Do you have any more business travel before you hang it up for the year? 

Oh, good for you, man. I'm a little jealous, but Dublin, not a bad place to go for a business to make it to, your last business trip, you'll get 

some 

Christmas markets. Yeah. Good for you, man. Hey, why don't you take us home? 

Absolutely. We hope our viewers and listeners found this week's topics.

Interesting. If anyone out to provide insights on a specific 5g topic for a future podcast, please reach out to us on social media. Will's at Wealthontech and I'm at Onshell Sog. We hope you have a great weekend and please tune in again next week or the week after, and don't forget to rate and subscribe.

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