Welcome to episode 188 of the GTO 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. I want to talk about AT& T and the fact that they may be testing some tweaks to its mid band 5G network.

So this was a light reading article that our buddy Mike Dano posted and the specifics are AT& T's plan with Ericsson to test, I believe it's  10, is it 10 megahertz of channel? I don't know. 

Is that 

your understanding?  

But it's an aggregation of their 40 megahertz with some other rights holders, 10 megahertz to create 50 megahertz block.

You're right. So I got that wrong. So it's 40 from at and t and 10 from Whitewater Wireless, and the owner is a Charles Townsend. I actually have an Uncle Charlie, so we are not related.  But I'm going to have to dig in, I'm going to have to dig into  Whitewater, but this is going to be conducted in Bexar County.

And for those of you that don't live in the state of Texas, like I do, that's in the San Antonio area. But, it's been pretty long, there's been, no official confirmation on this, but what do you think? It makes sense from my perspective, but apparently in the article, Mike Dennis says. 

It's not, most analysts don't feel like it's a huge priority for AT& T.  

I think it's a non standard application. My understanding is that if it's FDT, it needs to be 20 megahertz blocks. 

Yeah, 

or I think 5 megahertz blocks. I don't know if the FCC I think they can do 10 gig, 10 megahertz as part of the standard, but I don't think the FCC has licensed out.

That aggregation of 40 and 10 because, I think they, they license them out as far as small as 5 megahertz. And in some places even smaller. But yeah, I think this might just be something that could be good for AT& T  in places where they might have continuous spectrum with some other rights holders.

I also have a feeling that this Charles Townsend guy from my understanding he's famous for acquiring Spectrum and reselling it. So maybe AT& T wants to make sure that they can do this. In areas where he has lots of spectrum, and maybe they can just buy all of it from him to beef up their mig band, because truthfully, the difference between 40 and 50 megahertz is actually, it's going to be pretty good for FWA applications and just, having better throughputs in general.

So I think there'll be a net positive for AT& T, but it sounds like the, this is like actually a fairly. Low key operation and someone caught wind of it. And it sounds like at t doesn't really wanna talk about it.  

No, it, it does. And yeah and our friend Mike, he's he's always the guy that kind of scoops, some of these stories and he gets pretty innovative and digging around and finding the details.

I'll also mention, you're probably too young to know this. But Charles Townsend was also the the voice on the speakerphone in the Charlie's Angels series. So I do know that and I actually have some memorabilia from, I think it was the 1st Charlie's Angels reboot. I know we're going way off the 5G topic but I had to throw it in there because it's my last name Townsend, but let's go to your 1st topic.

It's probably the anti histamine that's talking for me. That's why we're recording a little bit late here. I got knocked down with whatever junk has been going around different events, but you were talking about the Chips Act and some specifics related. It looks like to, to Intel, TSMC and Samsung.

Yeah. So the big development is Samsung. They got 6. 4 billion. And they actually are going to be expanding their facility in Tyler, Texas 

Taylor. Yeah, 

Taylor, Texas. 

Tyler is in East Texas, so Taylor is in central 

and they they're going to be investing up to 40Billion dollars. In this area where they already have facilities, and I believe it's going to be a 2 nanometer fab if I'm not mistaken.

But the reason why I'm lumping them all together is because these have been something, these have been announcements that have been waiting for a while since the chip stack was passed and now the Department of Commerce and Department of Treasury are releasing these funds as direct payments to Intel, TSMC, and Samsung.

So to round it up, make it really clear what these investments are about. And what those numbers are like and what those mean for 5G. Intel's gonna be investing $100 billion in Arizona and Ohio.  TSMC is going to be investing $65 billion in Arizona. And Samsung is investing the 40 billion.

So we're looking at over $200 billion worth of semiconductor foundry investments from these companies, and approximately $30 billion from the US government.  As direct payments, but also as there's an additional amount for loans. So I think Intel got something like 11 billion in loans. And I think TSMC is also getting like 8 billion or something like that.

So there's additional funds that are going to be loans that will have to be repaid, but loans, nonetheless, at a lower interest rate that will allow them to build out this infrastructure more quickly, more easily. And. To get us back on track with domestic production of chips in Arizona, in Oregon, in Ohio.

And the reason why this is relevant for 5G is because Intel already has an agreement in place with Ericsson to build custom chips for them. And that's going to be done in their newer foundries. TSMC is already building tons of 5G modems for Qualcomm. 5G SoCs for phones TSMC is also going to probably be building 5G SoCs for infrastructure, for Open RAN same with Samsung and Intel.

All of the chips that are most likely going to be in network infrastructure in the near future, will most likely be coming out of these foundries over the next few years as they come online. So this is a big deal because it builds domestic production of chipsets and those chips are going to be all in 5G infrastructure and 5G devices.

So as 5G grows and as we get into 6G, these foundries will be extremely important. 

They really well, and, they'll go far to domesticate the supply chain, which has been, another concern  on the U. S. government's part. And it's, it's interesting. These payments, they represent about 10 percent of the overall investment that each company is making.

It looks like Samsung got a little bit more because their overall investment is. Is 40, 000, 000, 

000. Yeah, 

I think this, I'm often not an advocate of government spending, but this is something that we need to invest in and I'm pleased to see that the federal government is  doing this and it's.

To your point, it's going to, it's going to support the entire supply chain for 5g.  

Yep. And I've actually been reading chip or not to, not because of this podcast, but just in general, because of, I cover semiconductors and it has filled in some of my knowledge gap. So I highly recommend.

Reading that book, if you're curious about semiconductors in the role in the US.  Yeah, and also losing some of the leadership. 

Yeah, and you mentioned 2 nanometer that's an unbelievable die process, right? That's just getting, more things on a way for I, and I understand I, a colleague he reached out to me.

He saw Patrick more heads post around the Samsung announcement. Yeah. And his understanding was this was for their division of Samsung that actually, does, builds for, for competitors. So it's firewalled and I forget the name of it. So I'm not sure if it's, obviously Samsung semiconductor is going to benefit from this, but they also have another division that is firewall and does I don't want to call it, but they do builds for competitors as well.

Yeah. Do you know the name of that 

division? What's 

that? It's Samsung's Foundry division. 

Okay, so it's within the Foundry division. Okay. Yeah, 

and Intel also is, has split themselves financially. They haven't spun off the foundries yet, but financially and organizationally, the foundry is separate from the product company now.

Yeah. The only one person who has access to both companies information is the CEO and everything else is firewalled off now. Clearly there's a, an interest to for TSMC and Samsung, which is great because one, it creates an actual American company doing this. Yeah. But also, it creates competition for TSMC and Samsung in the U.

S., which then allows chip vendors who want to fabricate with these different foundries to have a more competitive landscape because duopolies rarely exist Actually have much competition. 

Yeah. That's interesting. Intel, they theoretically with that firewall division, the Foundry division, they want to build stuff for AMD.



And others, right? So it's crazy. They're actually calling their 20 angstrom. For our listeners and readers you might actually be able to figure out that Intel is calling their 2 nanometer 20A. So their 18A, which I believe is what they're going to be working with Ericsson on that's their 1.

8 nanometer process. 

Interesting crazy advances in semiconductor production. Hey, let's go to my 2nd topic and we haven't talked about space mobile in a while. So we should and, it's interesting. So they've hit another milestone. They streamed an AT& T commercial from space to a smartphone, and I saw the demo of this.

The commercial is awesome. So it dropped around the masters and it was been stiller. Playing a horrific golf game and his golf swing takes him out to the middle of the desert and he phones a friend Jordan Spieth, who is a Longhorn. So a fellow grad and, Hey, another fellow Longhorn grad won the masters Scotty.

But it was a great commercial and, I loved it at, at one point it showed Blue Walker, pinging back to earth and making this connection for Ben as he's talking to Jordan. So the commercial is awesome. If you haven't checked it out, you should check it out. I'm sure just Google been stellar golf and you'll find it.

But, hey, another incredible milestone for me is T space model. Now, they've had some setbacks and they have pushed their production launch out. To be determined I am hoping that I get an invitation from a bell when they're ready to do that. So no needs to share there, but again, it just, it proves the power of what AST space mobile is doing.

And Hey, do you expect, SpaceX to respond with anything since they've been working with T Mobile pretty closely? 

I feel like we're getting close. I think we talked about only a few weeks ago that they were able to launch. Their Falcon nine rocket from the West Coast, which I actually saw go up in the sky because I just happened to be out that night. 

And there were, I believe, 6  of the new age 2nd generation Starlink satellites for direct to device.  Cellular I think it's a matter of time until we actually find out what that looks like and what the results are of their testing. But I have a feeling, between, space X and T Mobile will probably get something pretty soon.

In terms, 

I would expect from the magenta marketing machine for sure. And just to remind our viewers and listeners and readers.  I believe it's 9 direct to device satellites that SpaceX recently launched, right? That they're currently in test. So have you heard me? But have you heard any anything from any of your many contacts around how that's going?

Not yet,  but I think it's a matter of time until we get an update. 

Yeah, I think it's going to be pretty forthcoming given this big splash that AT& T made with the commercial. But hey, let's go to your 2nd topic. You want to talk about Ookla  and some of their recent test results are reflecting some pretty big differences between Samsung's S24 line and the Apple iPhone 15.

and you want to talk about that. 

Yeah, so they actually did a global survey across North America, Asia, Europe, even the Middle East. And they were actually showing some really interesting results because it's a combination of download, upload, and latency. And it's 24 iPhone, 15 family, 23 family, and 22 showing you the stepping of improvements and speed.

So like you can go look through on their website on the website, they published this whole article. It's extremely long and detailed. They published this a couple of days ago. But basically what it shows is like in Hong Kong, the S 24 family is getting a, a median speed of 1 65 while the 23 is getting 1 51 22 is getting 1 46 and the iPhone 15 is getting 1 42.

So  all three of the last generations of Samsung are getting faster downloads.  On top of that, they're also all getting lower latency  and faster download upload speeds as well. So you are getting a superior experience on Samsung for three of the last generations versus Apple's latest in terms of wireless technology.

So what I mean, those results don't necessarily translate for all regions. Because in some places the iPhone is actually faster, but in most, almost all places, the 24s came and sometimes iPhone catches up, but it's not really, overall, it's not really close. But what's, what I find interesting is you have to think about there's multiple carriers selling both of these devices.

So this is an aggregation of all the carriers in the country. 

Yeah. 

And like thinking about how people even, they even talk about Africa, how in Nigeria, the S 24 family is getting, 383 versus three 40 on the iPhone. And ping is the same, but upload is 50 percent faster.

So really to me, what this says is Samsung has a superior modem and superior RF to the iPhone. And if you have an older Samsung, there is a reason to upgrade other than just AI. And this is what I tell people is like, whenever you have a bad experience on a carrier, my number one question to you is how old is your phone? 

Exactly. Because it's probably not going to have the latest bands that it needs to have. It probably doesn't have the best RF technology and it probably doesn't have the best modem. So if you don't have all those things, you're going to have worse battery life, you're going to have worse coverage, and you're not going to have a good app experience.

So I'm obviously a huge proponent of upgrade upgrade. Within reason, of course, I think some people are justified in holding on to their phones, but by holding on to your phone, you are also living in the past. And this was a really good illustration of that, because they went through, Thailand, they went through France, they went to Mexico, in the U.

S., which they of course included the S24 family gets a download of 306, which I think is definitely held by T Mobile.  iPhone is 270. S24 family has six milliseconds lower ping as a median. So in every way that 24 family is better than the 15, even though 15 uses, I believe the same modem as the 23.

Cause it's a, older architecture from Qualcomm. But nevertheless, this is, I don't know if this was commissioned by Samsung. But it's great marketing if it is nevertheless I think it's a great support for if you're going to get a new phone, at least get the latest. 

Samsung, if that's what you're going for Android, because that's going to get you the best coverage. It's going to give you the best user experience. It's going to give you the best battery life because people don't really understand other than the screen, your modems can be the next thing to consume all the battery.

Yeah it sounds to me like it's, this is the quality of the RF front end and.  Correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm going to step a little bit out of my coverage area, but Samsung is using Qualcomm for front end RFs, and doesn't Apple design their own? 

No, they do. They use Corvo and Skyworks which are, they do build RF components and RF front ends, but they're like custom to what Apple wants.

And you also have to remember that Apple does not build an iPhone to be the best iPhone, best smartphone for connectivity or the best smartphone for gaming or the best smartphone for photography. It is the best smartphone within what Apple's profit profile is. If Apple doesn't want to spend the money on the modem and they think it's good enough, And they will leave it be good enough.

And I'm just, I feel justified in my, my, telling people that if you want the best, experience in terms of network performance, get a Samsung. And it's been like that for a while. And not just that, but I haven't looked at this recently, but in what, maybe a year or two ago, they also have the lowest radiation eminence from their devices, because if the signal's better, then it doesn't have to spend as much energy boosting that signal to get you a good signal.

So RF also means less radiation, which some people do care about as well. And yeah, I just think, when you're using the best in class you, you get the best in class. 

Interesting. I learned something new. I did not know the differences between the RF profile between the iPhones and Samsung phone.

So you've heard it here now. I will say actual is an Android user and I'm an iPhone user. So  

I I have both. I cannot be found to be biased when I use both every day. 

Yeah, I hear you. And I've got plenty of Samsung samples, but my phone's my daily driver, but. Interesting. Great. I learned something new.

Hopefully our viewers and listeners learn something new as well. Let me jump to my 3rd and final topic before my medication wears off from this respiratory thing I've been suffering with for a week. But I want to talk about Viasat and they're jumping into the low Earth orbit satellite direct to device game.

So  Viasat powers a lot of. You might be familiar with the company, they power a lot of connectivity solutions on airplanes.  Yeah, American airlines is 1 go does as well. But lately it's been American airlines where I experienced her service, but they have acquired we may have spoken about this in the past.

They acquired I'm going to, I'm going to screw up the name. It's and I'm looking for it right now. And I'm sad. Am I pronouncing that correctly?  But anyway with that combination, with that acquisition, they they now have the capability to go after direct to device. And what's interesting they're focused on narrow band services.

And we've also talked about that on prior podcasts as well. I just caught this news. It's interesting. There are a lot of companies like. The company in Barcelona that we've spoken about, and I'm going to mispronounce their name again, satellite,  I think, is where you and I have landed on that pronunciation.

But there are companies that are focused on narrow band. I. O. T. I'm just wondering. I. O. T. has been a hard business to monetize. And so we're seeing, now, another player jump into that now. Certainly, with with Low Earth Orbit, it's interesting, but is there enough market share for all these players to, to actually make a go of it?

What do you think?  

I think you were trying to pronounce Inmarsat, is that right? Inmarsat, yes. Yeah. I think there is a market here, and I think it's mostly for logistics. Yeah if I'm a logistics company, I love the idea of being able to know exactly where everything I want to know is and  real time, right?

There's no delay. I think that's a really powerful tool especially as things get more as the global supply chain becomes more problematic as we have these kinds of crunches that are caught by weather and other things. It's really important to know where your things are at and whether they're in harm's way.

And I think that there will be some competition in this space for, people's business within IoT and satellite, but ultimately losing, connectivity once you go over the water is not great. And the prices that people pay have, I think, have been very prohibitive for that kind of connectivity.

So I think IOT is like the low hanging fruit because it doesn't really require that high bandwidth of a connection. Probably connect to a lot of devices with fairly easily and cheaply with IOT first. So I think IOT might be the tip of the spear in a way. Until we get NR over, over satellite.

Yeah. 

And I think it's just a matter of.  making sure that we have a really good infrastructure in place to enable the next generation of satellite communications. 

Yeah, I think I liken it to jumping into the shallow end of the pool. You don't want to drown. That's a very, that's a good point well made.

But hey, let's let's wrap things up. You're gonna fi finish with Verizon and they're focused on bringing 5G to the NAB show.  And there's some pretty interesting use cases with broadcasting and remote production.

Yeah, I think this was interesting cause I haven't actually ever been to NAB show, even though I've known about it for a long time and I think it just comes down to like my schedule, not making it work, but 

Verizon's  

really cool cause they're actually working with NHL and AWS to do a really interesting live demonstration of their broadcast capabilities.

Using edge compute powered by 5G calling this thing, camera to cloud with replay graphics technical direction and low latency to deliver live NHL games. So this is like a combination of that with their private 5G networks capability that we talked about in the last few weeks.

The other thing is that they're also talking about a 5G edge editor which allows them to do real time editing collaboration, While broadcasting film or TV or even gaming using, on prem like experience. And then also they've got open caching. And they're also talking about their P fan solution, which is private field area networks.

Because this is a Verizon business and they don't only do 5G cellular. And then also I think if I remember correctly, there was some talk about 5G broadcast as well. I didn't catch that component of it, but there's clearly a lot of activity for Verizon, which makes sense because they have a pretty big arm of their business that powers 5G.

Actual broadcast solutions. And I did look into this a little further. The NHL will be broadcasting this with AWS. It will be the Carolina hurricanes versus the Washington capitals on March 22nd. So this already happened. And this was something that they used with AWS elemental media connect.

So this is like a post mortem almost. Okay. Of that experience that already occurred, but the thing is that my understanding is, as we talked about this. In around that time frame it sounds like they're already doing this in production. Most likely we'll see more of this happening and enhancing the NHL experience, which I think will also probably potentially translate to, MLB or NFL, or even NBA, and this might, the NHL might just be the 1st of many here.

And, for Verizon, that might be great because, that's a lot of business for them, but also they're already pre installed in a lot of these. Environments and the NHL was probably the newest for them in terms of, they could probably build out, custom solution to what's possible now, as opposed to having to upgrade older infrastructure.

But, yeah it's really cool. Is there always an interesting show and I just was, it got in my mind. I was like, wait, I should look into what's going on with 5G because there's got to be something and lo and behold, I was right. 

Yeah, no, it's cool. It's an innovative use case and it really highlights the power that 5G can bring from a throughput and, latency perspective.

And I know for, for video production during the pandemic, a lot of companies like Disney and Pixar for movie production, because people were not meeting, together in traditional film rooms and that sort of thing. They were using 5G to be able to share files and do editing and do all the post production.

It's a super cool use case. And again, it just demonstrates the power that 5G brings. Like that fiber connectivity without wires. But man, I got through it. I struggled a little bit here, getting over my cold. But I'm glad that we could record this week, my friend.

It's another great broadcast. 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 for a specific 5G topic for a future podcast, please reach out to us on social media. Will's at Welltown Tech and I'm at On Shell Sod.

We hope you have a great week and please tune in again later this week. And don't forget to rate and subscribe.