Welcome to our second episode this week. It's 189  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 joining from my home in Isla Mirada, Florida. And joining me again this week is fellow analyst Anshul Sag.

Let's get started with my first topic. And I want to talk about T Mobile and their announcement to partner with Delta. To reimagine their network operations using 5G.  So  for T Mobile for business, working with airline carriers is nothing new. I know your favorite carrier, Alaska, has been working with T Mobile for the last couple of years, Anshul, but this deal is it's pretty big from my perspective.

So not only are 60, 000 lines with Delta's employees moving over to T Mobile, but T Mobile is also going to deploy a 5G hybrid network at their Atlanta headquarters. And from my perspective, reading through the press release, this is all about driving better customer experience for frequent flyers like you and I, and improving Delta's overall operational infrastructure.

This is going to involve flight attendance, airport customer service, ground crews leveraging 5G at the various hubs. And The Delta operates with them. Pilots eventually using the power of 5G. I'm assuming for, there's a lot of manual things that occur with log books and maintenance and that sort of thing.

Not a lot of specifics there, but I would expect that would be 1 of the use cases and certainly last but not least enhancing that overall lounge experience. experience. In the press release, they talk about Delta Sky Club ambassadors will gain certain advantages from 5G connectivity. And so all in all, it seems to me that T Mobile for business is fairly focused on the airline industry.

There's been a lot of good that I think has come from their relationship with Alaska. And I'm assuming that's probably one of the reasons why Delta wanted to roll with T Mobile. But what are your thoughts?  

You covered it great. No notes. I will say I think the Alaska partnership did help them, create a solution for Delta.

This feels like a very encompassing solution. And, this might be a net positive for T Mobile users. At Atlanta Hartsfield because Delta's, for a fact, they didn't talk about Hartsfield, but that's Atlanta's main base of operations. It's also the number one biggest airport and most busiest airport in the world.

So this is going to be quite the undertaking for T Mobile because I know for a fact, they're going to have to upgrade. The airport, they're not going to talk about it, but I'm sure that they're working with the airport to upgrade the infrastructure so that there is good enough coverage everywhere at the airport because, they already talked about the lounge and flight attendants.

All that has to be empowered by the network. I think, T Mobile customers at Hartsfield are going to be getting a much better experience. And I think. This is like a net positive for everybody. Pilots are going to have more up to date data. Everybody's going to have a better experience and.

Delta has really shown to themselves to be a very progressive airline. They were just recently upgraded their planes, a lot of their new planes with 4K screens on their planes, which is unheard of right now. Some airlines are just getting, doing away with screens like like Alaska has.

But I really do think that this is a net win for T Mobile and it's going to make T Mobile's users happier too, because the infrastructure is going to be better at that airport, and all of the airports that Delta is probably has pretty big hubs at, so that's probably going to be Minnesota too.

So I think, that's another thing to think about. Thanks In general, this is cool. I'm interested to see how they, deploy this new network infrastructure at the headquarters. Cause it sounds like it might be a private 5g deployment. They're not really calling it that, but it sounds like that's what it might be.

But overall, you nailed it. I think this is a really interesting case and it clearly feels like Alaska's partnership helped them get them to this point. 

I think so, too, and you make a couple of really great points. Number 1, the need to improve the overall infrastructure within airport locations.

AT& T has recently worked with DFW Airport, which I think DFW Airport holds the claim of the largest Airport as far as square mileage. It has its own zip code. It's a hub for obviously for American and I fly through Dallas quite frequently. You bring up Hartsville, they are the busiest airport in the world.

So there's a lot of data that's flowing back and forth. So I think it's going to be really super interesting to see how 5G really improves the overall operations for Delta. And in general. For the busiest airport in the world as well. But with that, let's go to your first topic.

And you want to talk about a promotion at Google that has an impact on its AI efforts. 

Yeah, so this, the reason why we're talking about this is because Google is such a heavy influence on Android and the entire 5G ecosystem of smartphones. And what's happening is Rick Osterloh, who used to head up their hardware division he is now taking over and merging on his 8th anniversary with the company.

Apparently it's exactly today, so it sounds like maybe this was like a promotion, planned promotion. They're merging Android with all their hardware efforts. And the former head of Android, Chrome and Chrome OS Hiroshi Lockheimer is being put on other projects inside of Google and Alpha, Alphabet, so that's a sign that he's probably getting sent out to pasture.

But it is interesting because this is purely being motivated by AI and what Google wants to do and accomplish with AI, which requires them to both be competent, On software and hardware  do those things together because in a lot of situations, the pixel team wants to do something But if the android team doesn't want to enable it, it's not happening now.

They are one and I think that's going to actually be a net positive for google, but also potentially other oems as well because there will be a lot more understanding Between what the android ecosystem can do what's possible on the phone and what's needed. And the thing is that You  Osterloh has been with Google for eight years now.

And I feel like they clearly made a decision that he is the new head of the division. But, they basically needed somebody to, to bring these two together. And so that will be a faster  ascension of AI on device. So this is really about AI on device and making this thing work faster and better.

But yeah, it's really good to see that they're joining these efforts together. And I think this is a net positive for everyone. And it was interesting as Rick. Actually, the reason why I even heard about it was because Rick Osterloh tweeted out on Twitter that he is really happy.

To chant his quote, words are excited to take on this new challenge and accelerate AI innovation across the Android ecosystem. I look forward to working with Christiana Amon and his team and increasing our strategic collaboration with Qualcomm and Snapdragon for Android, not just in mobile, but across compute XR and auto.

So that's really interesting because. Qualcomm is a chip vendor and they supply most of the android ecosystem with the help of media tech as well But it's really interesting that he doesn't mention media tech, but he does mention qualcomm  Which is, it's very interesting politics, but nevertheless it's really interesting to see where this will go.

Clearly Google wants more control. But it also sounds like they very much understand Qualcomm's role in making Android successful. So  I think there's a lot, we're going to see a lot happening at, and at Google IO next month. So expect some of this convergence to occur there as well. And maybe we'll see, Snapdragon X Elite Pixelbooks or Snapdragon X Elite cars doing, going places where maybe Google doesn't want to build their own chips and will rely on someone else for AI performance and 5G.

Yeah, it makes sense. The, all of the big players, including Nvidia and Microsoft are talking about a platform approach to AI  and, the definition of a platform is hardware and software. This.  This makes perfect sense from my perspective, bringing, the Android OS together with the necessary hardware to enable, next generation AI features on smartphones.

I don't know if, or in devices in general tablets what not. 5G PCs I don't know if you caught the news, but there was some very opaque discussion from Huawei at their analyst summit that's going on around how they're going to leverage AI. But again, not a lot of specifics. Do you have any color there before we go to my 2nd topic?

No, I, but I do want to see, I think we'll have to wait until the mate 70 ships to get a better at that. Cause they're like mate 70. I'll go okay. We'll wait till the mate 70, but this isn't one of my topics, but I quickly wanted to add it to the list of things talked about it earlier in the week.

Micron got another Chips Act investment they got 6. 1 billion, so we now have Intel, we have we have Samsung, we have TSMC, and we have Micron, all four now have been given significant investments by the U. S. government to build foundries and fabs in the U. S. 

Yeah, micron provides a lot of the world supply of main memory modules.

So that makes perfect sense. And we got a lot of, I think, positive feedback after we posted the podcast. There was some nice dialogue going on around. The chip sack and what that can really do to propel the U. S. and domesticate the production. And I, I brought up some attack, which was originally based in Austin and think now it's on.

It's on the East coast. I think it's in New York now, but there's a lot of goodness going there. So I'm glad you provided that update to I want to say last week's, but it was Tuesday, right? Because we're doing 

literally 2 days ago. 

Yeah, we're doing 2 podcasts this week. So I forget, but. Yeah. Let me go to my second topic, and this is something you and I caught.

So our buddy, Mike Dano at light reading right about 5g dynamic spectrum sharing and how it is right off into the sunset in the United States. And DSS is something that you and I have talked about for many years in a more efficient way to, to manage spectrum.  Initially it was used by, by, by AT& T when it began rolling out it's 5g networks, and it was having to manage. 

Spectrum sharing with 4G. I didn't know this, but in reading the article, T Mobile never adopted DSS. I don't know where I missed that memo Verizon to a lesser extent, but it's finally being sunsetted. And, I think the consensus is that although it was an important element initially in deploying networks it's just no longer necessary, right.

Just given kind of the nature of where things stand today. But. I know you can go pretty deep on this topic. What's your take on all this? Is this something that you were expecting to see? 

Oh, you betcha. Yeah, figure I knew this was gonna happen because the truth is DSS was always a band aid. It wasn't a good band aid.

It was a band aid And that bandaid was mostly deployed by Verizon. Yeah. So that they could claim better coverage. To your point, at and t did deploy it at a very short period of time. Yeah. Once they had enough spectrum, they longer needed to know. And it was 

only for at and t. It was only low band.

Yeah. Which is the purpose of DSS for low band. The reason why you do DSS is 'cause you don't have much spectrum, so you have to Exactly. Yeah. But the reason why you would do it in the low band is so that you can claim better coverage it's like a. It should be used. 

With more spectrum so that the user experience is not degraded But it's generally used for lower spectrum, which makes the experience worse, but allows you to claim better coverage So it's really it's not being used the way it should be but it's being used in a way To promote marketing and that's why when all the networks are deployed with midband and the coverage is good DSS isn't needed anymore.

It's irrelevant, right? And I do remember there was one podcast where we were talking about DSS and Verizon and they are actually, they were wrecking their up and down, right?  

They were, people were rightfully being advised to disable 5G.  

Yeah. 

So I, the way I look at it is DSS was a bandaid.

We can move on from it. It, I think it hurt Verizon more than it helped to be perfectly honest. There's a reason why it's gone away.  All right. And I think I predicted it would 

exactly happen as it has.  You probably did. So adios muchachos. So hey, let's go to your second topic. You want to talk about Samsung networks and Qualcomm and hitting a 10.

4 milestone. 

So this one came over the wire yesterday. We've actually had quite a busy week this week with announcements. So we haven't really had a shortage of topics to talk about here.  Basically, this was a Samsung Networks announcement with Qualcomm. They were able to use their network infrastructure and their VRAN.

So it was a combination of network, radios and VRAN, with Qualcomm's, test devices, using 3GPP Release 17  specifications. And they were able to deliver 1024 QAM both on FDD and TDD spectrum bands. Which is an industry first for FDD. And that actually allowed them to increase downlink speeds by over 20%.

So they're able to really get more juice out of the same spectrum with this increased modulation. And they said that they were able to get 485 megabits per second with 20 megahertz of bandwidth. And that's 20 percent higher than what they were doing with 2 56 quam. This is on a snapdragon X 75.

So it's not even the latest X 80 is the latest. But it's probably the latest that they could get their hands on. And they were doing this in 2. 1 gigahertz FDD and 3. 5 gigahertz TDD. Yeah, it's really cool to see that they're doing this in both types of spectrum. They're doing this for downlink and uplink.

And they're able to show a considerable improvement in network performance without needing more spectrum. This is a net positive for everyone. Maybe if you don't have Samsung V ran and radios, you can't really leverage this. But this is a good marketing thing for Samsung networks.

We will say, Hey, we're doing 10, 24 quam, regardless of what spectrum you're using, mostly mid band. And that you can really squeeze more out of your 20 megahertz blocks that you have. And, if you increase that, multiply that 20 megahertz by, let's say five X, if you have a hundred megahertz, that's potentially 4.

8 gigs. Actually, no that's wrong. That's not 10 X that's five X. We could be getting, two and a half gigs potentially they didn't guess that maybe then maybe the equipment's not ready yet for that, you could think down the road that maybe aggregating some spectrum with 1024 QAM could be very powerful.

So I'm excited about it. It's a great announcement and it moves 5G forward in the right direction. 

I agree. No, I think the performance profile is quite impressive. Hey, let's go to my 3rd and final, and I'm going to do a double shot of T Mobile for our 2nd this week. And I want to talk about  the company in particular T Mobile for Business increasing its bench strength in the CMO position.

So industry veteran Moe Katabeth will be joining T Mobile for Business and you and I have known Moe for many years. I got to know Moe when he was AT& T for over 20 years. He's just a solid guy, quality guy, super smart. He's he's recently coming from ring central where he served as president and C.

O. fairly short lived stead. I think it was right at about 2 years, but ring central is an interesting company that has been going through its own evolution of sorts. And actually I didn't know this until I dug in, to the news around Mo joining T Mobile and leaving RingCentral that the former CFO Tarek at at HPE became the CEO of RingCentral late last year.

So lots of changes at RingCentral, but I think this is a super strong higher. For T Mobile, they're continuing to build their their enterprise service of organization. Mo brings a lot of experience there, a lot of creativity. So I think it's gonna, it's gonna be a great thing for T Mobile for business.

And I bet you think the same thing. 

Yeah. He also ran AT& T's business segment. Like he's literally the right person for the job. Yeah. I also knew him from AT& T.  I don't really think there's a better person. I would say he's not on T Mobile's bench. I would say he's on T Mobile's starter squad because no, he's not 

riding the bench.  He's strengthening the bench, right? But he's definitely an A player. Yeah. 

So I think they made the right hire here. I'm really interested to see where this, where, where this goes. He's also a really like out there kind of leader. So he's going to definitely promote.

Their visibility a lot more for t Yeah, for business. And I think he's, probably even the right kind of person in terms of, having the right balance of experience and energy and public visibility. , I think he's a stellar hire and they've done a great job. And we'll see what happens. 

Should be interesting. Let's go get your third and final and you wanna talk about Motos New Edge 50 Ultra on the Samsung 8 35 launch. 

Yeah. So the 8 35 is Samsung's latest mainstream phone. It's an entry level product. I think it's already been launched in other parts of the world, but this is the first time it's launching in the us.

Same with the the Modo edge 50 Ultra. This is basically just a cost down model. And yeah, it's, as somebody who's tried to use the full spectrum of the Samsung range, I struggle with the bottom end. 'cause I just, at t let me use the A 15 and honestly, I can't recommend it to anyone.

I would just use get a refurbished phone at that point. Yeah, from a higher end. But the 8 35 might actually be the perfect. price range because it's 399. So it's not really like a junk phone. But it's going to allow you to not have a really loss of experience like you would at these lower end devices.

I like the 835. I think it's probably the bottom of where Samsung should really be going. And then with the Edge 50, that's actually like a it's like a high-end phone. It's the, this is like their top end and they're actually growing in the top end of the market right now.

So they have the Edge 50, ultra Edge, 50 Pro and Edge 50 Fusion. And the Edge 50 series is like the, how they top out, but the Ultra's the best model that they have. . So it's got the Moto ai it has connectivity for Moto Buds.  It does have IP 68 water protection, top end quality.

The thing that really, I think, excited a lot of people is you can get the ultra edge 50 ultra  with a wooden like kit, not a case, but the, like the back plate of the phone is wooden. So you can get that kind of nice natural feel to it. Which I think is really cool. Cause that's something that, they did in the past with the Moto series a long time ago.

And it also comes in vegan leather or a special pearl finish, but I think people are most interested in the wooden frame.  And it also has, wireless charging, 125 watt wired charging 450, 450, 4, 500 milliamp hour battery. So it's a decent sized battery. And I think it even works on Verizon's network.

This is a running a new processor from Qualcomm. It's the Snapdragon eight S gen three, which is like a slight step below. The 8th Gen 3, so it's like a slightly more affordable processor. So it probably falls somewhere between the 8th Gen 3 and the 8th Gen 2 in terms of performance.  But it's a more accessible chip set.

So we'll see what the performance is like. I haven't seen any benchmarks yet, but this seems like a really good phone for somebody. And, likes choice. And that's really the core of this is that we're seeing more choice being brought to the market. And I think we're going to see more budget phones available and maybe even more refurbished phones.

hint, hint, wink, wink, we might be seeing something soon. But yeah, I just think that there's the smartphone market is getting a little bit more competitive and hopefully with the FTC bearing down on Apple, they might be a little bit more friendly towards competition in the U S market, which we desperately need.

Yeah, I like Modo's sort of design take on a lot of things. I remember a very modular phone. It came out 3, 4 plus years ago and you could attach like a speaker to a high end, like Hasselblad, kind of camera. And so I think it's interesting that they're experimenting with different finishes.

Like you said, the vegan leather in the wood. I recall students doing a line of notebook computers that, that incorporated bamboo on the display lid and that sort of thing. Yeah some nice features, some nice differentiation. And to your point, this is sitting in not the lowest part of the market, right? 

Kind of at that value price point and bringing some, really nice design elements, along with, what they offer phones. 

This edge 50 line is starts at the high end and works its way down. Yeah. Other phones for more, even more affordable price points, but yeah, they're really offering more options, which is good.

Yeah, awesome. We got through two this week, so I think we're all caught up. I'm I'm well over my cold now, thank goodness. But it's been another great podcast this week. My friend, why don't you take us home? 

Absolutely. We hope our viewers and listeners found this week's topics interesting. If anyone would like to provide insights for a specific 5G topic for future podcasts, please reach out to us on social media.

Will is at Willtown Tech and I'm at Onshell SOG. We hope you have a great weekend and please tune in again next week and don't forget to rate us and subscribe.