Welcome to episode 192 of the G two on 5G. It's the latest inside 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. I'm ringing in from San Francisco, California and joining me again this week is fellow analyst ancho Sag. Let's get started with my first topic and I wanna talk about AWS and they've had a big cloud core win with Telefonica Germany, so it's 5G Cloud core. And basically Telefonica Germany is going to move all of its 1, 000, 000 plus subscribers on 5G to the AWS cloud. They're touting this as a first, and it's a first from the standpoint that. This is a brownfield network, and we've talked about AT& T and what they are doing with Ericsson with Open RAN, but this is touted as the first brownfield migration to Cloud Core. And certainly when you look at Greenfield and we've talked a lot about DISH in the U. S., Rakuten in Germany, Reliance in India. This is a big move it's a big win for AWS, and I don't know what to think about it. It's huge. What are your thoughts? I think it's a big deal. I think, this isn't a new network this is, this takes a lot of convincing and if this takes a lot of convincing, then there must be a good value proposition for Telefonica. Go in this direction. I think it's big, a really big win for AWS. And I think that it's probably not going to be the last one, but it does show that they are continuing to gain momentum with their 5G core. I agree. A cloudified core brings a lot of advantages from an agility perspective and just the ability to be able to do things a little more software defined over the network. So it's going to be interesting to see how this all rolls out and, what benefits come from it. Certainly there can be some, some savings there are some savings, but it's quite interesting. So we'll keep monitoring this. And if things develop report back on a future podcast, but let's go to your 1st topic. And you want to talk about, net neutrality, and so there's some new language we've talked about net neutrality, how that's been reversed from the Trump administration and you want to talk about how that might affect network slicing because we've also theorized about that, but we've got more details. We've got more details now. So take it away. This is part of a final order. This follows the vote that happened last month that we talked about. And the. The FCC's draft rules were out, but now they have a final version that now contains text that says, we clarify that a be a bias, which is a broadband Internet access service providers decision to speed up On the basis of internet content applications or services would impair or degrade other content applications or services that are not given the same treatment. So they actually are moving in the direction of network slicing is a problem for consumers and that the role of 5g standalone with network sizing could be affected by that. But the thing is that some of those, the reality is like some of the applications for network slicing that are enterprise based won't be a problem. So it might end up be that might end up that network slicing becomes an enterprise only application and doesn't actually reach consumers. But I actually think what might end up happening is. Some applications might become enterprise solutions, and then the service becomes, entangled with the with the network slice, and then gets offered to consumers, but I feel like that might become a problem with FCC. Here's the problem. It's a 512 page document. Wow. I tried to get Adobe Acrobat to summarize it, but it won't do it because it's over 120 pages. And I had co pilot summarize it. And the summary is 2 pages long, but basically it's all about definitions and open internet access and reclassifying in title 2. And really In a way, going backwards to the old definition, that was a new definition under a different administration. I think there's still going to be a lot of figuring out exactly how this shakes out for ISPs. But right now, it seems like network slicing is dead for consumer applications. But it will very much be alive for enterprise applications, which might have already been, might have been the killer use case to begin with. I think what will end up happening is maybe there is a network size for consumer traffic, but it's just to keep consumer traffic separate from all the enterprise traffic. So all consumer traffic gets treated equally, but enterprise traffic actually ends up getting treated differently based on application. Yeah, from my perspective, the majority of the applications and use cases that are going to take advantage of 5G's improvement and, massive device support, very low latency and and security. Or an enterprise, and I would argue it's probably 90 plus percent. And I think, things like mobile gaming could stand to benefit. It was interesting because we talked about AT& T's Turbo, and there have been some of its competitors that have come out informally stating that it's just a scheme for AT& T to, to extract more revenue and ARPU. From its subscribers, so it's been, and we theorize on our last podcast that, it was a test the waters here. And I, the dust hasn't settled on this yet. And I think there are a lot of nuances to it. And at the end of the day, if. If it's, focused on data, like the turbo offering, boosting the capability of data. That's a lot different than providing, prioritization. Let's say in a streaming scenario, you certainly would be anti competitive to allow like a Netflix as an example. To have a better tailored latency profile than, say, maths or, a competing streaming service. So I do think, the dust is still settling on this and it'll be interesting to see how things progress. Certainly the FCC, they're knowledgeable about networking 101 and they understand it. But, this is a lightning rod. And yeah, and there are a lot of different people that are weighing in on this, some with with solid approaches and solid logic and others, not so solid, but yeah, yeah, it's super interesting. I was just going to say, so I did something interesting and went through a document and searched for the term network slicing. Guess how many hits I got. How many? Zero. Okay. So they've gone out of their way to avoid using an industry accepted term that they know is problematic. But they know that they're, everyone's worried about they don't use the word network slicing. Now, I haven't read through all the different commissioner statements. Because each commissioner basically has their own statement. I'm sure maybe they will talk about network slicing. But the fact that a 512 page document about the state of the internet, considering when we have standalone and 5g does not actually mention network slicing a single time is very odd to me and I feel like there's a very conscious choice. Yeah, I agree. It's interesting. I'm sure we're going to be talking about this for quite some time. We did altimeters and 5G and exclusion zones, man. So this may be our new exclusion zone topic, but let me go to my 2nd topic. And I want to talk about Verizon and their approach to neutral host 5G network. So there was an announcement this week, our buddy, Mike Dano, he wrote a couple articles. 1 was around the announcement with Cummins and what Verizon is doing to help build again, a 5G neutral host network for Cummins. But what's really interesting is Verizon's approach. Basically, a neutral host is designed to replace a more expensive DAS system and typically it's in venues. And what it allows a venue owner to do is actually own the infrastructure within the facility, and then they're able to monetize that allowing, mobile network operators to connect to that. It's all about improving performance, propagation, latency, throughput, and all of that for, for video intensive applications. When you're at a potteries game, when I'm at a football game typically those networks, they get over subscribed and they bomb out. And I've had that experience at F1. I've talked about that. I've written about that on Forbes, but what's really interesting about Verizon's approach with Cummins and they're sticking to it. There and again, with Cummins that are, this is Verizon working with Erickson, but what's happening is. Verizon is owning the infrastructure footprint within Cummins. And so that sort of flies in the face of convention of something being neutral. Typically in these deployments, like at F1 Coda in Austin has contracted with a company called Xnet to to install all of the hardware, the small cells, and all of that. And in that scenario, it's it's a lease arrangement between circuit of the Americas and in externet, but in, and so if I stadium, as an example, beautiful venue the stadium owner they own that infrastructure. And it's not anything that's been, subsidized by Verizon or that sort of thing. It just, Verizon's competitors, rightly are pointing the finger at Verizon to say, Hey, it's not neutral if if you're owning that, the deployment management of that infrastructure within the venue. What do you, what are your thoughts here? It's interesting because I didn't realize that there was a neutral host component to this comments announcement. Yeah, when I first saw the comments announcement, I thought it was just a private 5g network And then I saw that this was like a neutral host network solution that's like an all new product from verizon business. Yeah and I thought it was interesting because Um, they use the neutral host network for connecting phones and tablets to public networks of all U. S. carriers. So it's not just specific to to Verizon. And then the private 5G network unlicensed spectrum is for business critical applications. So they're not even building a private 5G network on unlicensed. They're actually using licensed Spectrum, so I think that's part of the reason why Verizon is so heavily involved in this because they're actually anchoring it to licensed Spectrum. And I think I saw something where, oh yeah, they say, as anchor tenant for the carrier agnostic neutral host network, Verizon is technical lead for network implementation responsible for engineering equipment and installation. Not an integrator, but Verizon. Yeah. Yeah. They're the one doing everything basically. And it sounds like you said they own the equipment as well. So this is like a private 5g network as a service. Because I'm sure that, someone's going to be paying for this for a long time. And a lot of recurring revenue, I believe from right. I understand. So they're not calling it as a service because I'm sure there's a lot of big upfront costs, but I'm sure Verizon is eating some of those upfront costs in order to recover, recover them down the road through a. Monthly or annual, Payment. Yeah, that is likely the the scenario for sure. Yeah, it's just it's just interesting, but, there's another wrinkle to this is as I waded through, both of Mike's articles millimeter wave is in play here as well. So this just isn't, mid band and obviously Verizon has, a pretty large slot of millimeter wave. That. That's how they launched their public 5g deployment was with what they called ultra wide band. And so apparently Cummins has, some use cases and applications. I believe they're an engine company and I probably should have dug into that. Yeah, so if you think about millimeter wave and what that could do, that's going to provide extreme low latency for tactile control of robotics and manufacturing automation. Yeah, it's it's interesting. There are a lot of different nuances to this, but it's anything but neutral, but. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how things shake out. It'll also be interesting to see as Verizon pushes forward with private 5G network services and with neutral host if this will be a continued trend or if they'll pull back and allow integrators. To do this, but I think your hypothesis is spot on. They're likely subsidizing the infrastructure within comments versus I think it was. So if I stadium, they spent, I don't know how many billions of dollars was it? 3 or 4 billion and they had to dig it into the ground because it was an L. A. X. Flight path traffic. And so I don't think, in L. A. typically money is not an object. I think. I'm sure they had no problem spending whatever they had to spend on the equipment there but, hey, let's go to your 2nd topic. And hey, Apple launched a brand new iPad and you want to talk about that? I've got a little bit of input on that. They actually launched 4 new iPads. Yeah, and 2 new silicon, right? 2 versions of new silicon. Yeah they launched the iPad air and then they launched the iPad pro. The new iPad Pro, in some weird way, is actually thinner and lighter than the iPad Air. Okay. That doesn't make sense to me either. The new iPad Pro has a new tandem OLED technology, which has two OLED panels stacked on top of each other to make it brighter. On top of that, both the air and the pro have five G. However the pro is a 200 upgrade. The air is a 150 upgrade, even though I can almost guarantee they have the same modem. And then there is no millimeter wave. On the pro or the air from what I recall, I could double check on that, but the M four is debuting in the pro as Apple's newest and latest and greatest processor. Usually they, they debut the M series in the Mac books. But I believe that because Qualcomm and others are coming with AI PCs in the next month. Apple moved up the release of the M4 to launch on the iPad, so it could counter message AIPZ, which they mentioned at least three times during the launch. And yeah, I just think that the new iPad is quite nice, but the problem is that iPad OS is still very limited in functionality. And you really can't multitask. So you're limited to software capabilities there. Also the, none of the new iPads have Wi Fi seven which means it seems odd because it's not really available nowadays. Broadcom is an Apple's supplier for Wi Fi and they have a Wi Fi seven chipset. Very clearly Apple decided to make some decisions there. Maybe it would have made it too thick. I don't know, but they also got rid of a camera on my iPad pro supposedly also was due to thickness. So Apple really wanted to watch this as the thinnest Apple device ever shipped. People erroneously or Apple erroneously said it's the thinnest Apple product ever. But, they have a cloth and a credit card that are thinner. But as a device, it is the thinnest device they've ever shipped. And yeah, I actually wrote up a whole thing that'll probably publish in the next couple days. It's currently at 1,887 words. So it's very detailed and I talk about how apple desperately wants to beat the A IPC with the new iPad Pro. So half the article is about the iPad Pro, the other half is about how it's trying to compute with the AI PC and it gives you all the details on pricing, which is absurd because if you get the new iPad Pro with the 13 inch model with the keyboard and 5G, you're looking at two grand after tax. Also thanks for reminding me unless you buy the one terabyte version, you cannot get the full 10 core CPU. You only get the nine core CPU. Okay? And if that's the M four version, and if you want to have the new nano coating or nano etching anti-glare, you must purchase the one terabyte or two terabyte version. So you're also looking at two and a half to three grand depending on how you qualify. So that's tablet in that price category. So I think for some, for a lot of people, that's not really a starter, but. That's also the OLED is the first OLED Apple's used in any of their products. We'll see, how it goes. This tandem stack is the first time they've used OLED in a tablet or ever used tandem stack. So it's a really interesting tech because it lets them do 1000 nits brightness and 1600 nits peak brightness. So I'm going to lean into your swim lane a little bit here. You're the expert on devices and I'm the infrastructure guy, but, and I don't mean to be, a hater on Apple but certainly I've followed they're very, various category sales and for tablet, for Apple, it's down. And so I view this as, Apple's way of trying to put some reinvigoration back into sales. The, that. That high end, piece of silicon that they've launched on the pro. It's snappy. It's super fast, but I will say 1 thing. Of course, they had to talk about AI, right? And you've talked about that already today about how, this is apples way to get into the, the AI device game. It was light for me. They showed some things with images and that sort of thing. And I don't know, what's your take on that? I thought the AI positioning was weak. Did I just know it is super weak. And I think it's because they can't really talk about much on AI until they talk. I feel that they're saving it for WWDC. But yeah, I think if you look at what they're trying to do, they're a hardware company. So AI they're struggling with. It's quite clear that they're behind. And I think M4 is a way for them to try and prove that they have the NPU tops. So they're claiming 38 NPU tops. Which they said is faster than any PC or AI PC that's out today, which is actually accurate, except for the fact that the Snapdragons coming in the next month will have 45 tops. So it will be bested very soon. And they know this, but they clearly were trying to focus on making it a as competitive to the PC as possible without actually acknowledging the future. And the thing is, Apple has used. AI for a long time and they like to talk about that. They said they've been doing for many generations. They also, have had OLED technology in the iPhone, but for, they've never had it in iPad. I think they're trying to show that they already have some experience deploying AI on the mobile side. And now they're going to be doing a lot more AI and tablet. And it was mostly first party apps. So I feel like they still have to work out on how to get developers to really leverage AI capabilities with this 38 tops and how that looks. And, how these models work and there's rumors that, that recently came out that, they're going to do some kind of split render or split AI processing, hybrid AI, where. They have their own servers running Apple processors that will help process the more computationally challenging workloads and then do as much as they can on device. So that's a whole other topic that we'll probably talk down the road. Yeah I'm sure there's, they're saving some of that AI news for to your point, the worldwide developers conference, but interesting stuff, man. Hey, I'm going to go to my 3rd and final topic and I'm going to make this 1 quick, but. We've talked about Tesla on a prior podcast and their desire to deploy a private 5G network within all of their manufacturing facilities. And recently the company dropped a 78 second video that talks about private 5G, but is it just for show? That was my first thought. So as I looked at it, There's nothing new there. And it's almost like a bumper sticker or an advertisement that, that kind of states, look at Tesla. We're embracing industry 4. 0. Hey, 5g is going to be great for manufacturing automation. Our viewers and listeners know that because we talk about that use case all the time. I'm wondering, does this coincide with the fact that there's been a lot of negative press, coming out of Tesla lately. They had a big one in China. Recently with with self driving and I don't know what level of autonomy that was, but that was a big hurdle. The stock, the stock bounced up to close to 200 a share. And then there's just been a spate of announcements with layoffs and starting with I think the supercharging. Team and it just continues to go. Yeah, and the marketing team and it just continues on and on. From my perspective the timing of this video drop was quite interesting and we will definitely include this when we post the podcast. So our viewers and listeners can take a peek at it. But what do you think? You think this is just for show? Yeah, it's interesting because they have a network team, so they actually have people who are dedicated to deploying the network, the 5G network in Giga Berlin. It does feel very much like a highlight reel. Lots of, yeah, thanks for mentioning that because this was in Germany. And by the way Germany is very technology savvy, right? They're 1 of the leading regions in the world. And when you look at the automobile manufacturing complex in Germany, when you look at Mercedes and BMW and others, they're already deploying private cellular networks and a lot of this facility. So I didn't want to interrupt you. So I think they're a bit of a follower here. If you consider the market, right? Maybe they're an innovator in the U S but in Germany, it seems bMW, Mercedes have already done this. Yeah. So I think it's them showing that they're, moving forward and optimizing their deployment of their factory, but it's a lot of B roll footage and what's funny is it, they're, one of the applications that they're using is just to keep the cars connected to the internet so they can keep them updated before OTA. Yeah. Huh. That's like the most low hanging fruit possible, but I agree it's a good application. And I think that we're going to see a lot more inside the factory too, but it's a net positive and I don't really think it should really change Tesla stock price at all. But yeah I think it's a net positive and then I think the auto industry is moving forward fast. And we'll see if other car makers follow suit. Yeah, for sure. Let's go hit your 3rd and final. And this when I saw this was an aha moment for me, but there are rumors that, u. S. Cellular may be selling itself to potentially part partially to T Mobile and possibly Verizon as well. Yeah, so this was a Wall Street Journal article that everybody else started sharing. Basically, it's that T Mobile is looking to buy a chunk of U. S. Cellular and that Verizon is potentially looking to buy the rest of it. US cellular is definitely not a big carrier. They are, a very distant fourth, I believe it might not even be fourth anymore because of Comcast and charter, but they only have 4 million subscribers in 21 States. Mostly a rural footprint as well, which is interesting. Is T Mobile, are they going to snap up that rural footprint? I think they are. I think that's why they're trying to buy them. But yeah, they have 4, 000 towers that weren't part of the Leah sale talk. This could be actually a fairly cheap buy for T Mobile and Verizon, and I think part of the reason why it's a split deal is because they're trying to they're trying to find a way to get this deal to go through without having regulators. Shoot it down and by this, not by all of the assets, not going to 1 carrier, I think the idea is that they would be more wouldn't be as anti competitive for sure. But the truth is having a carrier that only has 4M customers. It's not really competitive either. So that's why I think the spring deal was a good 1 for the industry. Positive. If you look at the state of the 5G today in the US. I think T Mobile's acquisition of Sprint moved the industry forward. I think we're definitely in a position where things will improve. And hopefully that, this acquisition will go through and that, maybe another player enters the scene. And potentially offers a better deal or has a better plan, but I think we all knew that was going to be up for sale sometime soon. I think actually, you and I may have, theorized, that very point, a year ago or so, but it just seems to me that US cellular just. They were dog paddling, and they couldn't, get over the hump to be able to, invest what they needed to invest to, improve things. Service and coverage for their current customer base. And, I would recall just when I would share, my insights on us cellular on social, I would usually get a lot of replies back around. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a subscriber. It's been terrible forever and blah, blah, blah. They're not, they're not making the investments and it's probably, it's just been a financial hurdle for them and they're just not big enough to be able to scale up and spend what's needed. Yeah. To put the proper investment of infrastructure into their network. So this will be interesting. Something that will definitely monitor and it will be interesting. I do believe that if it both T Mobile and Verizon are involved and, splitting up US cellular, then I think that fares a lot better with regulators than if it were just to be T Mobile or just to be Verizon. But yeah, it got me thinking as well. It's okay, US cellular, they have a rural footprint. T Mobile has been very focused on rural and investing in rural. You could argue that AT& T has been as well with what they're doing with the billions of dollars that AT& T is investing in digital divide. But this is interesting. So we'll have to definitely keep monitoring this situation. But Hey man, before we wrap up, I just got to share a funny anecdote with you. So I'm in, like I mentioned at the top of the podcast, I'm in San Francisco. I'm actually here for the RSA conference. It's Considered the largest industry, cyber security conference black hats, pretty big, but not quite as big. So I've been here all week because security is my other coverage area. And as I left the hotel today I'm in uphill. I noticed that the San Francisco police department, they were setting up barricades and it was causing some confusion with right share. But I got to the Moscone and, I spent about half the day there. And when I came back, it was, there were barricades everywhere and there were police officers everywhere. In fact, I had to get dropped off about a block away from the Fairmont hotel. And as I'm walking up, I see secret service people. They're wearing the vest was, US secret service on the back. And, I walked up and said, Hey, I don't know if you can answer my question, but what's going on. And they told me there's a, an important dignitary coming to town. And I go, would that be the POTUS? And and the guy replied, it's like I can either confirm or deny, that. And sure enough, I got on my phone as I'm walking into the hotel and yeah, President Biden is is flying in tonight. And it should make for a very interesting ride to the airport tomorrow for me. If the 1 on 1 is barricaded for the presidential motorcade. I hope I get home, but I just thought I'd share that with you. And then, I'm off, later in the month to Dell tech world, but if you and I will be there, we plan to to do a podcast there as well. But where else you had a. After Dell, I'm headed to Austin for arm. So awesome. I won't be there. It's my own town. Yeah, awesome. Cool. That's what we do as analysts, man. I think we gauge our performance based on the amount of airline travel that we log in. But, hey, it's been a great podcast. Won't you take us home? Absolutely. We hope our viewers and listeners on this 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. Willis at Willtown Tech, and I'm Anshel Saw. We hope you have a great weekend, and please tune in again next weekend. 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