Welcome to episode 175 of the G2 on 5G. It's 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 Anshul Sag. But before we get started how's the new year been for you, my friend? Good. Just very busy. CES is next week, so all I've been doing is just preparing for CES even though I'm not going to actually be there in person. Yeah, I've been digging out lots of client work. I've got four papers in flight in various stages. So I'm hitting the ground running this year, but let's jump into it. With my first topic, I want to talk about Helium Mobile. And we've spoken about them on prior podcasts, but Mike Dana with Light Reading posted an article this week talking about how their subscribership has surged to over 30, 000 in the new year. And just for a little bit of context and background for those that are not familiar with helium. They're a little bit different in their approach. They're focused on what's referred to as a DIY or decentralized wireless business model, which rewards it's users for deploying infrastructure to support the the overall network and there are fungible tokens. The reward comes in the form of cryptocurrency. And my credits a new unlimited plan at 20 a month for the search and subscribership. It's an interesting business model. They leverage as an Indian T Mobile's network. And obviously the incentive here is to offload off of that off the T Mobile network to reduce the overall cost. And again, the reward is providing these users that invest in infrastructure with cryptocurrency. There was a fungible token that's also been deployed. What's interesting is that for a while there was Not a loophole, but there was an ability for, for people to, to figure out the number of subscribers on the network. And that's something that's typically very closely guarded by in Vienna, as they since closed that they've they've implemented some coding that that prevents that, but, hey, it's interesting, cryptocurrency certainly isn't dead. I still own a little bit of Bitcoin, It's just a little bit of Bitcoin. I Know that I think you got out of it quite a while ago, but what do you think? I did get out of it Bitcoin, but I have other cryptos which have all been doing very well for me. So I've, I just don't know. But I do, I do think what Helium is doing is interesting and I think there is like a potential future for it. I know it's difficult to build on a new network and I think they know this too. So I think they're taking much more of a low and slow approach. And, I actually looked into deploying a Helium hotspot just to. See what it was like, and so I could earn some tokens before, maybe it became more difficult to earn them. But yeah, it's a very interesting concept, and it'll be interesting to see how that evolves over time. Coverage is still pretty spotty for their network. So they're gonna, they're leaning very heavily onto MVNOs but they claim to have cell coverage in my area. It might just be one of the things I have to try out for myself. Yeah, I give them credit for being differentiated in their approach. And there are other MVNOs Peter Atherton, what's the name of his company? He's doing something with Walmart. And it's you define your own your own pay plan. I think it's MobileX. I think you're right. It's mobile X. Yeah. So I think, for these NBN as that are differentiating more than just, the straight line price. Like mobile X and helium. I think that's unique because at the end of the day, I don't, the general public doesn't probably understand this. But when you subscribe to an yesterday, getting typically a lower subscription price. But you don't have the same level of priority that, for example, you would have signing up for, a, a plan with T Mobile, Verizon, AT& T, that sort of thing. You just reminded me of Patriot Mobile, which Kevin Sorbo is now the spokesperson for. And I thought it was really funny because they were acting like, there's these woke carriers and there's these big tech carriers. And then you go look into it. They're an MVNO of all three major carriers. So it's literally no different, actually. tHat's their differentiation, taking the political slant. That's pretty funny, but hey, let's move to your first topic. And I caught the sneeze as well. So you want to talk about T Mobile 6 carrier aggregation within standalone 5G. Yeah, so this was a, I think this happened earlier this week. On the fourth was the announcement. So yesterday basically they were able to, they did this test with Ericsson and Qualcomm which is like their usual suspects of companies they work with. And they were able to achieve 3. 6 gigabits per second with six carriers on its live 5G network. So this was They didn't say this was in a lab, but they're saying it was on a live network. It could have been in a lab like scenario, which is most likely. They said that they were, they used two channels of 2. 5 GHz, two channels of PCS, and two channels of AWS for an aggregate of 245 MHz. Of aggregated spectrum which is a lot of spectrum. Honestly, that's a lot. But if you look at what's happening in millimeter wave you would need multiple 100 megahertz channels to achieve that. And even then, it's usually quite a bit of spectrum. And yeah, this is without millimeter wave that they're achieving 3. 6 gigabits. Realistically, there's probably near zero places where you're going to be able to get 245 megahertz of spectrum. bUt having that bigger block available and, having smaller pieces combined you, you could still easily hit, I've personally already hit 1. 5. I'm curious to see how high it can go. I might go back to my. My highest performing areas and see how they do. But yeah, it's really interesting and it's very compelling. And this is what people were expecting out of 5g. And I think, standalone low latency, they didn't talk about latency, but I have a feeling this is also fairly low latency compared to a lot of other things. So it's just a continuation of T Mobile's leadership in 5g. They're not really slowing down. They know that Verizon and AT& T are hot on their heels and they can't stop and they clearly won't stop. Yeah. Clearly they're fine tuning their leadership position and it's exciting to see, some of these speeds and to your point, it's really delivering on the true promise of 5G. And again, I've been talking about this for probably, since we started the podcast, 5g standalone delivers the true potential of 5g with respect to throughput and latency. But with that, let me go to my second topic. And I caught this news. This is really interesting because we've talked about ag tech applications in the past, but Ericsson is helping deploy a 5g for ag tech operations and applications across Australia. They're working with a nonprofit organization called agribusiness connect and it's it's part of an incubator that's focused on. Looking for, new novel ways to leverage mobile connectivity with respect to agriculture. And we, I've talked about these use cases in the past, but what I like about this partnership between the nonprofit and Erickson is that. They're going to focus on the entire supply chain. So I've talked about use cases with, with drones and, for pesticide applications and for serving and that sort of thing. But this is really focused on the whole supply chain from processing packaging. Warehousing and transportation, and this is where 5G really shines, supporting and tracking things in motion. And so I think this is a great opportunity. And by the way, it appears that Erickson will be providing both support for. Connectivity across public networks with major mobile network operators in Australia, and then also private networks where it makes sense. I don't know if you caught the news, but what are your initial thoughts? I didn't catch the news, but, I think a lot of companies are going to continue to diversify it like Ericsson, and there's going to just have to be more companies out there that are offering these solutions that understand agriculture business so that, Ericsson doesn't have to hire experts in every industry to be able to properly apply 5G, which is the way it's supposed to work. But I think we're still fairly early and, I think the lack of standalone has maybe scared away a lot of companies from entering the space. Yeah I'm gonna talk a little bit more about that with my third topic, with respect to standalone. But let's move to your second topic. I definitely caught this news lot of flurry of activity around satellite communications in low earth orbit. But SpaceX launched its first batch of satellites that are equipped to support direct to sell connectivity. And you want to talk about that. Yeah, so they did this launch. I want to say yesterday. And basically this launch was I think it was done on a California was not on a Starship which is not how this was supposed to happen. That platform is still under development and not ready for launch. So they launched A new set of six satellites and T Mobile said that they will be testing them fairly soon because, the way they deploy, they're dropped in the low Earth orbit. I don't know why I struggle with that word. Low earth orbit and they they'll be doing testing and this will be something that will take a while for SpaceX to continue to develop and improve coverage because it's a new generation of satellites. whAt's interesting is that there's no, plans for exactly when it will be available now but I will say that I think a lot of this is dependent on Starship because that's the best and most efficient way to launch these satellites, because if they continue to use Falcon Heavy and other non Starship platforms, it will be too expensive. To actually do. So I think this is a this is delayed, in my opinion. But it's really based on space X's timelines. And yeah, it's good that the mobile is going to have testing rolling out and they'll be able to figure out, work out a lot of the kinks before all the satellites are up. And by then, they'll have a full network and. I assume we'll have pretty good coverage in the U. S. just because, T Mobile already has great coverage. It would be really hard for them to deploy this and not have good coverage nationwide. But they do have other partners, as they've mentioned globally that will also participate in this. Program because these satellites are not going to be stationary. So there are going to be parts of the world where they're covering other countries entirely. And those operators will donate their spectrum and then there will be like a spectrum sharing agreement where users can roam across different networks as long as they're subscribers, which is the way I understood that it would work. Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. This has been long, in the process. It seems Elon makes, big commitments and somewhat under delivers. But, if I remember the initial announcement between T Mobile and SpaceX, it was over a year ago. And so now they're just getting birds in the air and this isn't even production. This is testing. They've been poking companies like a space mobile that are not in production yet as well. So I think, hey it's a level playing field. It's hard to call a winner. We talked about this on our last podcast. I'm glad you brought up the delivery mechanism for the satellites because. Low Earth orbit is all about reuse lower cost. And you're right. Falcon heavy. That's an expensive way to get these things into the air and they're going to have to focus on more efficient ways to do that. And certainly SpaceX, on my Twitter feed over the holiday, someone pointed out. Probably a SpaceX fanboy or fangirl that that, hey, AST SpaceMobile uses SpaceX as well to get their birds in the space. It's yeah that's true. But at the end of the day, it's not about, it's not about that. It's about coverage and it's about the platform and, the compatibility. At the end of the day, You and I said, it's hard to call it right now. We both give still give the edge to space mobile given where they've been with proof of concepts. They're certainly well ahead of space X, but hey, listen, this is all good. Having more competition here. I think there will be some fallout. There will be some consolidation. Because lots of different parts of the world are partnering with different, companies to accomplish this, but I think it's good just from a. Bridging the digital divide perspective, but with that, let me go to my 3rd and final topic and hot off the process today. I did publish a Forbes article and I took a different slant on this, typically, you and I post our predictions for our particular areas of focus. Mine happens to be networking, both enterprise and service provider 5G and security. What I decided to do this year is to go back and look at what I published in 2023 from a 5G predictions and then evaluate that, determine if my predictions landed and provide some forward looking thoughts there. You can hit my Twitter feed at willtown tech. If you want to dive into it, it's a pretty lengthy article, but 1 of my 1st predictions was fixed wireless access would achieve terminal velocity. And by all measures, it has, I spoke about that last week, so I don't want to go into a lot of detail there. My second prediction, at the beginning of 2023 was mobile network slicing would become a reality. My friend that was a hit or a miss. I'm glad I'm not, judged by all of my predictions, landing 100%. But you and I also spoke last week about the fact that 5G standalone has to be there to support network slicing. Given, the investment in RAN and the slowdown that we saw last year I believe this year will be 2024 will be the year of network slicing and 5G standalone. I think we're going to really see it hit it's it's momentum. And then finally, my 3rd prediction at the beginning of 2023 was about an open RAN market consolidation. I talked to the point that there are lots of players. Buying for the opportunity, and there wasn't a lot of production happening there, from as far as a deployment perspective that didn't really happen. We didn't see, a Mavenir go out of business or anything like that, but we did witness that watershed moment that announcement between Ericsson and AT& T. And so I talk about that a little bit more in my article and. And how I believe that's really going to drive a lot of activity around up and around moving it from proof of concept into into production. But I don't know if you have anything else to add before we move to your 3rd topic. But no, I am. I did work on a summary piece for 2023 that should be publishing pretty soon for my favorite phones of 2023. As a, look back at the year we're going to actually get a new Galaxy phone pretty soon this month. That's something to talk about. January 17th, there will be an event, but these are my two favorite phones. This is the Samsung S23 Ultra and the iPhone 15 Pro Max. So these are, these were my two favorite phones for the year. They were actually tied together for different reasons. But, yeah, I'm working on an article about that and that'll be publishing pretty soon. I got lots of CES coverage, already published 2 articles on that, not 5G related. But yeah it's, it's a busy year. We've got lots of predictions. I wish the standalone prediction was more. Consequential, I think you can probably say that this will be the year of standalone. I think we were a little optimistic on that, but being off by a year isn't so bad as an analyst. I think we have some more predictions. We should probably actually. Consider working together on our predictions for this year. Just for everything, but yeah I'm excited to read your article and give my thoughts. I saw you shared it this morning. I'll find some time to give it a read. Awesome. Yeah, I'll just, I'll add a final note that this year I was asked to become a judge again for the GLOMO awards, which are tied to Mobile World Congress Barcelona, which I will be attending and I will likely be writing an article that summarizes my findings in early March after I attend. And I'm actually this year, it's they asked me to participate and. Mobile device, a mobile device category, not infrastructure. So I get I get to spend some time with some really cool products. The infrastructure tends to be a little dry and boring, but let's so let's go to your 3rd and final topic and we'll wrap it up. And I caught this and this is pretty wild, but you want to talk about Japan and they're aiming to put flying 5G base stations. In the orbit, yeah, so this article actually snuck under the radar. The last day of the year. So this was more of a, it was still this week, just on Sunday. If you can remember that, it's been a long week. It's been a long week. But basically they have proposed frequencies for airborne telecommunications base stations. And they want to have them basically be adopted as a global standard which would allow them to basically have solar powered planes that they're calling these high altitude platform stations. And these high altitude platform stations would use 1. 7 to 2. 6 gigahertz and even 7 to 900 megahertz bands. For communications and that would basically allow for them to fly at an altitude of 18 to 25 kilometers in the stratosphere and act like cellular base stations in the sky. And SoftBank has already said that they've done 5G transmissions from the stratosphere. Successfully and they were able to do a video call between 5G smartphones in Rwanda and Japan. This is clearly a way for them to create infrastructure that's mobile and potentially gives access to people who don't otherwise have it that could be much less expensive. To operate and build then let's say satellite. Obviously this is not the end all be all of solutions. There's still lots of, need to have terrestrial base stations. And, there's going to be need to connect these to somewhere on the ground for connectivity. There's a big opportunity for, developing nations to take advantage of that. And this could be another way to add service in places where maybe satellite doesn't work or where, countries don't want satellite or the bandwidth isn't enough, right? Because the closer you are to Earth, the better your chances are of getting good bandwidth. Yeah, it doesn't cost billions of dollars to get these things up in the air. And we'll see what happens, but this is just an interesting concept. We've heard a lot of people talk about this, Google had loom with their balloons. And people I've seen some drone applications where, they're tethered drones, but yeah, same thing. And there hasn't even been talk about using these types of. Solar powered vehicles as almost in orbit satellites. But it's really interesting cause There's still a lot of innovation happening, and I love I like that people are trying to figure out a solution to make this work. Yeah, yeah, it's we've got all the stair step. We've got, geosynchronous satellites. We have Leo. Now we have the possibility of this other drones and balloons. That's a lot of stuff floating in the sky. But yeah, it's exciting. We've got to kick the tires on this to, to determine what's going to be viable and what's not going to be viable. But my friend we got through our first podcast of the year. Why don't you take us home? Absolutely. We hope our viewers and listeners found this week's topics 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. Will is at Wealth. Tech and I'm at On Shell SOG. We hope you have a great weekend and please tune in next week. And don't forget to rate us and subscribe.