Welcome to episode 183 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. Let's get started with my first topic and. I know that we discussed on a prior podcast, my friend, the AT the AT& T recent outage. News comes now that the FCC is actually formally investigating it as well as the New York Attorney General, which it seems to me that the New York Attorney General always opens investigations when. When things go haywire with with critical infrastructure and that sort of thing. This is actually a story that I caught with fierce wireless and actually AT& T has provided a a few more details. It was actually Jeff McElfresh, who he's the CEO of AT& T. And I've actually met him before, but during a Morgan Stanley conference call on the 4th, he talked about a process error something that they do hundreds of times in a given night within a maintenance window, but it was just a process that went wrong. So it's interesting. It lasted about 12 hours and I didn't know this, but there were actually. 4 cities that were most affected, which also included Houston, Texas, Miami, Chicago and New York. So those are some pretty big. Metro areas, some of the largest cities actually in the United States. So the question I've got for you, I've got an opinion, but I want to hear yours 1st. Is this something that warrants the FCC investigation? I think the only reason why I could see the FCC being warranted. Is because they are don't want to put this there. They're like the the buck stops with them when it comes to critical services and the fact that emergency 911 services were down, I think that's probably going to be their justification for getting involved. But other than that, it's a little bit more difficult to be fair, though. I think any nationwide outage should be investigated by the FCC. And I just think that AT& T was so big that people on AT& T and people on Verizon and T Mobile thought they had an outage as well. When it was just AT& T and yeah, we heard that there were 6 significant outages with. Emerging emergency services and 1st net. So I think that's really where they're probably going to justify their involvement. Yeah, and I don't know, necessarily, a fine is eminent that sort of thing. But I do agree. It's important to investigate to understand root cause certainly much of cellular infrastructure is now highly software defined. And it's no secret that AT& T is moving very aggressively to move a lot of the ran into sort of open standards. And a lot of that is guided by software. But from my perspective, I don't believe a fine is necessarily warranted here. It's just to understand what happened and ensure things don't happen again. And it's certainly. Concerning that 1st, that was affected. I think we have shared on a prior podcast that there are some enhancements that are going to be made to 1st, that authority, including its own separate mobile core, which theoretically should prevent this from happening. In other words. An update to AT& T's public network shouldn't affect FirstNet. It shouldn't affect FirstNet in general, but in the future with its own separate mobile core, that should eliminate that issue. But anything further you want to add before we jump to your first topic? No, I think the FirstNet upgrades are further justified by this occurrence. Yeah, I agree my friend. Hey, let's go to your first topic and you tweeted on this this past week, but T Mobile, it's taken a couple of years that they finally have been able to get their their auction 108 spectrum deployed and there's some pretty big impacts for a certain part of the country. Yeah, so this auction was always going to be something that affected the rural areas of America more than the urban areas. Because this was like the second phase of this 2. 5 gigahertz spectrum of availability. The first phase was by buying Sprint. And the truth is but with as much 2. 5 gigahertz spectrum as they have there really isn't a good reason for anyone else to try and compete for these licenses, so they're actually worth a lot less. Which in effect makes it more affordable for T Mobile to acquire them. And they said that they finally acquired the Spectrum by law. It was required for them to get it by this date. I think we've talked about this before, that SAIL Act that they successfully lobbied for. Basically said that they, the government is required by law to give them the Spectrum by I think March 6th. Or 7th, something like that. And they, on March 6th, they published a press release saying they got all the spectrum. They're, they say that the spectrum will cover 60 million customers and 300, 000 square miles. And I think the entire country is about four million or four and a half million, something like that. So it's like a sizable chunk of the country. Yeah. I'll give you a few more details because I asked for what is your spectrum holdings now on average in the U. S.? I haven't gotten that answer yet, but I have a feeling that their average spectrum holdings of 2. 5 gigahertz across the country are much higher now because they said that they, in addition to all of those stats they said there are they now cover 92 percent of Louisiana. With 2. 5 gigahertz spectrum. And they said that there are considerable or immediate improvements to connectivity for more than 1. 7 million people, 500, 000 of whom are in rural areas and then that's just for that. And then in Pennsylvania, they said the added capacity will boost performance in areas covering 2. 2 million people. Nearly 1 million of whom live in rural communities, so that's gonna be a lot of people who are going to be able to use fixed wireless access And actually get really good speeds from it because you know this 2. 5 gigahertz ultra capacity mid band whatever you want to call it it has a really good. Performance characteristic. In fact, I think you know, they've been doing a lot of network upgrades in my area recently And it's actually incredible to see I'm getting in my office here indoors where I've got walls on both sides, multiple sets of walls. I'm getting almost 600 megabits indoors. No windows. So that's incredible. And I'm getting like over 600 outdoors, like six to 700. So I'm, I know I can find a gig somewhere around my neighborhood, but nevertheless. This is very much about enabling people to have more competition, better, better coverage better experience in general. And yeah there, I think there were more statistics out there. I just think they, I don't have them right now, but I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on this. Yeah I love your tweet and I think I commented on it as well. The opportunity for rural is tremendous and improving coverage and just availability of broadband. And these rural areas, and I actually did a speed test just a minute ago, and I'm in Bastrop, which is east of Austin. We are definitely rural populations about 13, 000 people. We are growing pretty rapidly, but. I was, and I'm using T Mobile's FWA 5G service, and I was seeing 120, 130 down, 40, 50 up. And after the deployment here, my speed has improved quite dramatically. So I'm seeing download speeds in excess of 200 megabits and an upload close to 100. We're already beginning to see, in a rural part of central Texas, The the impact of this, so I think it's great and, T Mobile has been very focused on rural connectivity and certainly beginning and prioritizing with its low band, it's sub 6 spectrum deployment. And then obviously building out what it had, with the sprint acquisition and 2. 5 and now with 108. T Mobile just continues to refine its coverage, its propagation, and its leadership. And I, I do believe AT& T is beginning to close the door or close the gap, and Verizon is as well, but it's quite impressive to see what T Mobile's been able to do with all of the spectrum. And that, that's going to be a cool segue, because you're going to talk, I think, with your second topic around another aspect with But let me jump into my second topic here, and I do want to let our viewers and listeners know that I did finally get my mobile world Congress wrap up article on Forbes posted. It happened late yesterday. So I came off the Barcelona travel. I went straight on the road this past week. I'm going to talk about one of those visits as my third topic. But but I finally got, posted late on Friday. And in that wrap up, I do talk about satellite connectivity and Satellite. So that's how I'm going to pronounce the company name from now on, because, I've had this debate on how to pronounce it, but you get a chance at MWC. It's, I did, I met with with Jamie, who's the CEO and I do provide some details in the article, but there was an article that posted on RCR wireless and this was just yesterday around the company and what they're doing. And so they are based in Barcelona, which is unusual mobile world. Congress that big event in Europe is in Barcelona, but you don't find a lot of. Actual mobility companies that are based in Barcelona. So they're breaking the stereotype or the mold there, but this article talks about their four new narrow band IOT satellites that are based on the 5G NR cellular standard and the launch it's going to happen this summer. And what, what's interesting, I CEO about it, but they've been able to build a pretty incredible pipeline and they're claiming that, you that sort of thing that they potentially. Have a billion dollar business by 2030. Now, time will tell a lot of that is anchored in 1 of their early signatures, which is with a company called T 42. and what T 42 wants to do is deploy 10s of 1000s of sensors and shipping containers. And this is through more than 50 logistic partners across 50 countries. So that alone could be, when you look at the shipping industry and being able to track things in motion and that sort of thing, that's a great use case. And that's a billion dollar opportunity in and of itself. But I love it. They're a startup. The company does have intellectual property patented and I'm going to be able to spend some more time with them hopefully this summer when they get to their commercial launch. I'm also going to be able to hopefully do that with ASD space mobile. I got to meet a bell at mobile world Congress. I talk about that in Forbes article as well, but I'll leave it at that. But I do really like what to tell you. It is doing focusing on narrow band. I. O. T. and really. Carving out a a nice use case relative to the other space race contestants that are going forward. So I don't know if you caught the news here, but would love to get your insights. Only thing I'm going to say is, did you ask the CEO of how to pronounce it? I should next time I meet with him. I will. Yeah, I think this is, they've reached out to me before. I think they even invited me to an event and I wasn't able to attend. But, yeah I think there's absolutely, especially since. The 1st applications of 5G and our satellite are narrow band based. Yeah. It makes sense for narrow band applications to go 1st. And those are going to all be IOT for the most part with the exception of, text messaging. And I do think like the idea that oh, I can find out where any of my things are on the planet at any given moment because there is a blanket coverage around the world like why wouldn't I want that? I'm a logistics company. I want every single one of my crates being tracked unless I'm doing something nefarious, but in general, I do think that there is a huge market for logistics and being able to track where things are and even potentially like what the temperature is inside, right? Like you can get a couple of sensors in there and figure out what the humidity and temperature are because maybe your customer wants that. So there's a lot of opportunity there for satellite. And there's just so many opportunities. In general with five G and I O T that I think we are not even close to scratching the surface on. Yeah, I think once, we start seeing, the production deployments with companies like Satellite and ASC SpaceMobile, we're going to start seeing, developers figure out new and innovative ways to leverage the connectivity footprint that these folks are creating. Hey, but let's go to your 2nd topic. And I mentioned that there was a little segue with your 1st and part of the the approval on sprint or the acquisition of sprint by T Mobile was around divesting some spectrum and dish was going to be a recipient of that. There's news now that that you want to share about that. Yes, DISH has basically said that they will not be buying T Mobile's 800MHz Spectrum, and they're blaming the debt that they have and the payments that they have to make on that debt for not being able to afford it. Didn't we? Should we take a victory lap on this? Didn't we predict this might happen? Yeah, I don't think it's like a great thing to be happy about. I know, we shouldn't, yeah, we shouldn't be, dancing on there. DISH is just such a mess. This is just a continuation of that mess. They could probably have benefited from this 800 megahertz spectrum because it would give them better coverage. They do already have a lot of 600. But I just think that they're in a tough spot. And this is this spectrum is going to have to be auctioned off. T Mobile will not be able to keep it. And truthfully, I'm not really sure who would benefit from it most. I was trying to look into the spectrum where it was and like who might be the closest spectrum holder. My, my gut reaction is maybe it's AT& T because I believe that their their low band is set in the eight hundreds. So I think AT& T might be the one who, first of all, has the capital, but also, probably would benefit the most from improved coverage and better uplink. Because, to this day, even T Mobile who has 5G ultra capacity, they're mostly using their low band for uplink. There's going to be a lot of challenges with getting upload speeds up. And I think that's why you want to have more low band so you can improve your upload speeds. Improve your coverage, because if you pair a low band with a mid band, you improve mid band's coverage, yeah. I'm thinking AT& T will be the right choice. Fit for this no guarantees Verizon could also buy it, but it just feels like a better fit for AT& T in my opinion. Yeah, I would agree. Hey, we haven't talked about US cellular in a while. We ought to do some digging there and see where they're at with everything. But all of the the anecdotal information that I pick up is that they're not really executing towards, any sort of, viable progress with their 5G deployment. Yeah. Coverage continues to lack and, performance and quality of service continues to lack. Could US cellular, number 1 could they afford to even stroke the check for the spectrum? And number 2, could they afford to actually deploy? Because that's been dishes problem for many years, Charlie and team have sat and squatted on spectrum. Do you see that as a possibility or not? Because, financially. U. S. Cellular might be in even a dire situation, then the dish. What do you think? I don't think you have cellular is in a great position either. I think ultimately the problem is with the exception of AT& T and Verizon, it's always been a challenge to deploy a new network and to deploy new spectrum because, T Mobile, for example they had the. They had the network, they had the infrastructure, but they didn't have the spectrum. And Sprint had the spectrum, but they couldn't roll it out. They couldn't form it. So this isn't a new problem, I feel like. This is actually a very common problem. And I think the the solution could potentially be a merger of U. S. Cellular's assets with DISH's assets. That, to me, makes way more sense. The problem is neither, neither can actually afford it. So it almost take a private entity buying both. and merging the assets of the two together to actually create something competitive. Because DISH clearly did not fill the gap, fill the role of the fourth carrier, and neither has US Cellular. In my opinion, via MVNOs are not gonna do it. So I think there needs to be some kind of consolidation at the low end again to create a viable competitor because at the scale that they're at today, it just doesn't seem like they're able to actually compete. Yeah, I agree that would be an interesting scenario. Someone could put those 2 together because the assets are incredible from the spectrum perspective. But yeah, I'll just be interested to see, like, how this all winds out. And I'm assuming that. Yeah, I'm assuming that with the FCC hold a new auction now, if dish backs out of its, agreement? No, I believe T Mobile gets to hold the auction because it's their spectrum that they were licensed. But they can't keep it. They have to auction it. Got it. Okay. Interesting. Cool. Hey, let's go to my 3rd topic. 3rd and final topic. And I want to talk about a visit that I made last week to Cedar Rapids, Iowa and actually Waterloo, Iowa, where John Deere is headquartered and this has been in the works for a couple of years. Now, John Deere is very technology savvy and I don't think a lot of people understand that they think of. John Deere is the company that builds these tractors, but there's a lot of technology that goes actually into the vehicles and tractors that they produce, but they are also embracing technology within the manufacturing workflow. And it was fascinating. I got to spend about half a day with John Deere and Waterloo, toured one of, they've got several factories, but toured one of them that's been a test bed and now they're in full production with a 5G private network. And they're using, they're just using a lot of cellular capabilities for things like deterministic connectivity for tooling for CAD cam for computer vision for inspecting welds. And it was pretty mind blowing and there's a lot of automated vehicles within the facility that carry, these huge chassis for, these tractors that are built to different stages of the production line, including paint and finish and that sort of thing. Again, it was a fascinating tour John Deere purchase, CBRS PAL licenses. And what's interesting is that. When you look at most of the private networking deployments with CBR spectrum, it's been 4g, but John Deere has been focused on 5g based on the latency profile and the device support. And in that sort of thing they are using Nokia infrastructure and they're using those power licenses. And what's interesting, I asked Jason Wallen, who's an executive with the company that I've met with on a couple of different occasions. And. I asked the question, there's so many different routes to getting to, to a deployment. I asked the question, are you are using integrators? How are you doing that? And actually their decision was to find people that had a good requisite amount of skill set. And then teach them what they needed to know. Actually, John Deere is managing this all on their own, which, from my perspective is pretty incredible. So I'm going to leave it at that. I am working on a Forbes article that I hope to publish next week that shed some more light on what they're doing. But. From my perspective, they are from a private 5g perspective, they are really leading the charge and they're really they're blazing a trail here and they're really demonstrating the power of 5g again, LTE can do a lot of things, but 5g superpowers, especially when it comes to this ultra low latency for tactile control of robotics for applications like computer vision. They're using computer vision to inspect welds and removing the human element and it's improving just the QA process overall. Anyway incredible showcase. Stay tuned for for that article coming soon, but let's go to your 3rd and final and you want to talk about India and they're about to have another round of 5G auctions. Yes, I was just going to say that my friend is actually working with John Deere and he's farming his own plot in Iowa or somewhere, I think, maybe North, I forget, but he's working with John Deere to Figure out how to arm with modern technology and yeah, I think John Deere's the right fit for a lot of these things, and they'll probably pave the way for the rest of the world. Yeah, no, I agree. Sorry, I didn't ask for you to comment. I just, I'm going to chime in even if you don't give me a chance. Yeah, I know you will. So yes, India is on their next 5G spectrum auction. This auction will occur in May they can apply until April 22nd. The upcoming auction include 800, 900, 1800, 2. 1, 2. 3, 2. 5, So a lot of spectrum is available. Some of these are licenses that are already held that are up for renewal. So that's, Barty Airtel they have some auction, some spectrum that they need to renew. Vodafone ID is also going to be renewing some of their spectrum. So there's a chance that though this auction might not be as participated in as the other one was. And I think partially is that's because there are rules for rolling out spectrum in India. And if you don't do it fast enough, you get penalized. Yeah, so I think geo is probably going to clean things up again. If you remember. The in 2022, the auction that occurred Geo spent 11Billion. Airtel spent 5. 4Billion and Vodafone spent 2. 4Billion. Huh. And that was. What the current 5G networks are based on. But, 5G networks need to be multi multifaceted and have more spectrum as much spectrum as you can get available to you. And it seems like some of the competitors to Geo are finally catching up. Bartier tells us that they will have the entire cover country covered by with 5g by March of this year. So it didn't have some kind of an announcement coming soon from them. What's interesting is the 600 megahertz band was up for auction in 2022, but nobody bought it. That's a really interesting thing because 600 megahertz is actually a great band for coverage and they're not going to auction it this time around. Because there were there might be some interference with satellite operations. We'll see what happens, but in general, it's really interesting to see that there's another auction happening in India. The most populous country in the world now. Or about to be, I forget if they've crossed that threshold. I think they're, I think China is still the largest, but they're vastly approach. China's losing 800, 000 people a year now. It's like crazy. But yeah, India's on pace to be the biggest country in the world and they're going to need the spectrum and the networks to support it. And I just think that I still have a lot of confidence that India is most likely going to be where we see some of the biggest 5G use cases take off just because they have the scale. And they went standalone right off the bat. You did. Yeah, it's interesting. This is just my perception, but is India are they they've been, they were definitely late in getting their initial 5G spectrum auctions off the ground. Is this catch up mode for India? What's your take on it? I would liken this to their C bands their first auction was like our C band auction. This is like the 110 auction. Okay, this is like supplemental spectrum and I think will benefit some carriers and not benefit others. Okay. All right, that makes perfect sense to me, my friend. Hey, it's been another great podcast. We're a little bit late this week, given my travel, but. I'm home for the next 2 weeks. I'm looking forward to that. Do you have any travel? I know that you've been home spending time with the baby, but Yeah. Plans travel. Actually I do. I not next week, but the following week I will be at GTC for N Nvidia. Nice. Which happens also to be the exact same week as GDC in San Francisco . Sure. So I'll be following the GDC news. From TC as you can tell, I'm enunciating. Cause if you say them fast enough, they sound the same. And yeah, I just I'm big into games. I'm big into graphics. I'm big into AI. So I'll be covering all of those. There usually is a smattering of 5g from both shows. So we're seeing 5g gaming news out of GDC and we'll probably get some 5g XR and 5g AI news out of GTC. That'll be not next week, but the following week I will be home by the time we record, so it won't be a problem. Nice. Yeah, so I've got a break and then in April, it picks back up for me and I'll be spending time with NTT and San Francisco. And before we know it it'll be RSA conference in San Francisco in May. And then June, just a plethora of events, including Cisco live and Zscaler, Zenith live, as well as HPE Discover with Aruba Atmosphere. Now. Bolded into it, so I think media tech is having their analyst summit. And are you going to be at that? I'm not sure. I wasn't sure if I may. Yeah, I got the invite. I'm just trying to sort the schedule, but there will not be a lack of events for you and I to attend and provide our insights against, but I'm looking forward to it. But with that said, 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 Fergie topic for a future podcast, please reach out to us on social media. Will is at WhaleTownTech and I'm at On Shell Sod. We hope you have a great weekend and please tune in again next week. And don't forget to rate and subscribe.