Welcome to episode 193 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 Thought Analyst Anshul Sag. We're both traveling this week. We're recording on a Sunday night.

Anshul is at Microsoft Build and I'm at Dell Tech World. I just landed in Vegas a few hours ago. But you're going to be joining me soon, right? And we're going to try to record another. Episode here at Dell tech world.  

Yeah, we'll see if that works out. I realized that I didn't bring my tripod.

So we'll have to figure out a way to prop up my camera and get a good angle. But if it doesn't work out, we can always, go back to our default at home setups. 

Yep, we might have to do that, but hey, let's get started with my 1st topic. I want to talk about AT& T and AST space mobile. Last week on May 15 both companies signed a definitive commercial agreement, and this takes what was formerly a memo of understanding and makes it formal.

And from my perspective, this could greatly accelerate what the companies do together to integrate upcoming launch this summer. They'll be launching 5 or 6 production satellites into AT& T's network to provide gap coverage. Some additional news, Chris Sambar, that's head of networks who both you and I know very well will be accepting a position on AST SpaceMobile's board of directors.

And I think that's a great move. Chris brings a lot of experience. Both companies have been working together since 2018. Again, this just formalizes their collaboration. And I was expecting this, just given how close AST SpaceMobile is to launching their 1st set of production satellites, but.

What's your take on all this?  

I think it's a natural evolution of their partnership together. I think that when you look at how long they've been working together and just the state of the relationship, it seems like AT& T is really fully committed to ASD Space Mobile now. And getting a seat on the board is both a vote of confidence, but also a little bit of a AT& T wanting to control their own destiny and being able to maybe steer some of the decision making happening at AST SpaceMobile.

But yeah, they've, they've raised money, and now they're deepening their partnership with AT& T,  and it seems like, we've got different satellite startups now really fully aligning themselves with different carriers in the U. S.  

Certainly, and they're niching themselves out as well.

We've talked about Satellite.  They're in Barcelona, they're focused on IOT and I've had a chance to speak with a bell, the CEO, and it's exciting. It's a heavy lift. What is T is doing? And it just takes time. And I think there have been a lot of critics of a space mobile, given they've had to push things out somewhat.

But it's a monumental undertaking for sure, especially for a company that is still in startup mode, but a bell brings a lot of experience. He's a very successful entrepreneur and yeah, I think it's exciting. And the yet is the best is yet to come from my perspective there, but. Let's move to your first topic.

And you want to talk about what do you want to talk about? We talked about dish last week, and there's a deal that potentially might be able to save the company from bankruptcy.  

Yeah, so I think that's a  very optimistic view. I think what it is they signed a deal with the Department of Defense and they made it very clear so everybody knew this deal went through.

So clearly it's an important deal to them. They basically said that they have a 10 year long deal. And huge networks systems and boost mobile will provide 5G wireless services and devices to support D. O. D. usage in all 50 states and U. S. territories. And this will be done for the U. S. Navy under the spiral for program and will be available to be buyers. 

Will be available to buyers in the defense department, other federal agencies. So we're we, the U. S. Taxpayer are paying 2. 7 billion over 10 years for this. So that's 270 million a year that  they will be taking in as revenue. While this is not A significant number for I would say any other carrier. I think when you look at the state of dish and Echo star it's not great, but it's much better than what they're at right now.

And they desperately need to get wins. And whether you agree or not, this is a win. I do think it's interesting now that they are using Echo star as the The final entity I maybe the dish name doesn't carry the same  strength that used to. It's unfortunate because dish, it was a very strong brand.

But I would say that they've also eroded that brand quite a bit. And I think my hopes are, I would say cautiously optimistic. But considering everything else that's going on I don't really know what to think, but what I will say is every time people have counted Charlie Ergen out. 

They've been wrong. So yeah, the guy knows how to survive and there's a chance that this might be the turning point for them. I don't know, but I do think this is a significant deal for them.  

Yeah. Charlie does seem to be the Energizer bunny  from my perspective, but I didn't, I did not catch this news, but I'm wondering, is this a scenario where.

Dish needs to be successful so that there's no concern around anti competitiveness because, 1 of the big deals and getting the T Mobile acquisition of sprint approved was this divestiture of spectrum and basically helping dish. Launch, it's mobile network. So  from your perspective, is this a scenario where, the government is going to earmark, these funds just to ensure that there's a competitive 4th carrier in the U.

S. Certainly U. S. Cellular has proven not to be right. And we talked about them last week and the potential cut up that might occur if T Mobile and Verizon got involved with with splitting up their subscribers. But what's your take on that? Mhm. 

I don't know. I can't say definitively. I think there might be some of that in this sense that they're trying to, prop up a  4th player.

But it might also be that their bid was just way lower.  

Yeah,  good point. It'll be interesting to follow the news as it winds out. Let's go to my second topic and the PGA of America's is leaning into T Mobile for private 5G networking for the big tournament that occurred this weekend.

And and Scotty did not win. I don't know. Did you catch the news about Scotty and his accident? It was crazy, right? 

Yeah, 

the PGA tour. Yeah. Or Fahala, I'm not a huge golfer but what's really cool. Yeah. This was a PGA 

championship. Yeah, that's 

right. That's right. That's right. What's really cool about what T Mobile did to support the event.

They deployed a private 5G network and they use that network for a couple of scenarios. 1, from a broadcasting perspective and T Mobile claims it's the 1st. 5G integrated mo you know connectivity to support broadcasting. And, I've been to golf tournaments. I've been to PGA tournaments and there's just, miles and miles of cable that has just strung all over the place.

And this eliminated that it allowed the tournament to be able to use 5G to for broadcast perspective. It also allowed for some fan activations as well. But what I found really intriguing was a network slice that was dedicated for critical business operations for the tournament, which included ticketing as well as point of sale.

What a great showcase for the power of 5G on multiple fronts. What do you think?  

I caught this news. I think T Mobile did a good job of communicating it outward. I do think they could have done a better job of inviting people out to check it out. I'm mostly goofing around, but I do think it was interesting that they they did have some enhanced experiences like 5g connected cameras, a whole 13 for CBS sports.

And I believe that this was part of T Mobile's advanced network solutions. And I believe that this is a Longstanding partnership between the PGA and T Mobile. So this is going to be something that I think we're going to see a lot of throughout all of the majors at the that the PGA has I believe the PGA has four majors And they've already gone through the Masters and the PGA Championship, so I think there's two left and those will be, I think, a pretty big deal for T Mobile to continue to support the PGA because, I think there's a lot of appetite for flexibility and I think there's a lot of appetite for more bandwidth, and in order to be flexible and to provide more bandwidth, you need 5G.

Yeah, no, I agree. It's interesting T Mobile is really beginning to focus on, sporting events and venues with its 5G network. We've talked about, Major League Baseball and, now PGA. This is something traditionally that Verizon was very heavily focused on and AT& T to a lesser extent but AT& T has, sponsored things like the Final Four.

They've deployed the network at the Dallas Cowboy venue as well in Dallas. But the T Mobile is beginning to build, from my perspective, a real beachhead with respect to to venue deployment. So I just think this was just a great use case. It really demonstrated a number of different elements that come together within, a sporting event  and the power of 5G and then network slicing on top of that.

So I thought it was pretty cool. But hey, let's go to your second topic and you want to talk about Germany and the fact that they're close to banning Chinese equipment from from their public networks.  

Yes. In Germany, there has long been a dispute whether or not Huawei equipment is a security risk.

And it seems that the Interior, Foreign, and Economic Ministries are behind a proposal to rip and replace Huawei 5G equipment. However, the digital ministry is resisting. And it sounds like they're probably going to lose this battle because the talk on the street is that by 2026, there will need to be rip and replace program for Huawei and ZTE equipment.

And if I recall correctly, certain carriers in Germany, like Deutsche Telekom have quite a bit of Huawei equipment. So it would be a considerable lift and a relatively expensive one. But I believe that, there, there is appetite for this. And my understanding is that this is more of an alignment for the rest of the Western world.

And truthfully while we haven't really had clear indications of what risks there are with Huawei equipment it does seem like there's a A uniform agreement that there is a risk among intelligence agencies across the world. And at this point, it's really a question of, I think, when not if 

I agree, there are a few countries that are holdouts in Europe and the Middle East and that sort of thing.

But it does seem most of the U. S. 's lead with respect to concerns around Chinese infrastructure, and that's both, to your point, ZTE and Huawei. And unfortunately, it's 1 of these scenarios where, based on national security, there aren't a lot of details that are provided. And so it's difficult for either 1 of those companies to defend themselves.

But but there, there certainly is a a consistency with respect to, other parts of the world following the U. S. is lead here. Yeah I tend to agree with you. I think, the final stragglers will probably come into alignment, at some point. And is an example.

They've been, very quickly diversifying their focus. And we've talked about that on prior podcasts. They're, They're focusing on their enterprise networking business. They continue to provide infrastructure, obviously, to the hometown heroes like China mobile. And actually, that's a great segue for my 3rd topic.

I want to talk about China mobile and they're investing a ton of resources and I compute infrastructure, but what's in this was an article that I caught in light reading. And so let me share the details. So at a very high level the China Mobile has ordered up to 265, 000 servers. Some of this infrastructure is being provided by ZTE, but there are also 2 other companies, H3C and Xfusion and then specifically  2 billion U.

S. dollars Is focused on discreetly on 8000 AI servers, but what I find really interesting and, and the article goes on to talk about the capacity and that sort of thing. That will be China mobile's disposal. But as you read through the article, it's pretty light on. What they're going to do with all of this, right?

From my perspective, when you look at AI and, what it can do and, telecom networks, it can do a lot around self healing it can generative AI can support functions customer service and that sort of thing. But again, Here's another announcement with really big numbers from China, and there's not a lot of substance behind it.

So I don't know if you caught this or you have any comment, but it's a theme, right? We've talked about, a lot of, the chest beating by the Chinese government, but.  Typically doesn't seem to be a lot of substance behind what they do.  

Yeah, unfortunately, when it comes to anything China mobile related there's not much detail.

We talked about their 5G advanced stuff, very light on detail.  China mobile doesn't even release Like press releases, they use, Chinese state media to, to talk about things. In general, I like to treat anything that, that comes out of our friends at China mobile with very A large grain of salt just because, it's very hard to validate a lot of their claims and there's not a lot of transparency.

And yeah, it just doesn't really feel like a very clear.  Understanding of what's going on. Yeah, I think Huawei is just one of those companies that they're going to continue to supply developing nations and countries that are close to China politically. But I think that if you're not aligned with China you're probably not going to be carrying Huawei equipment for very long.

Yeah, I agree. Hey, buddy, let's hit your third and final and you're at build Microsoft build and you want to talk about their push with a IPC and hybrid AI and how that might finally move the needle on 5g PCs  

Yes, so Tomorrow there's going to be a lot of announcements  I think it's been already made apparently clear that there will be you know You A lot of five G related announcements.

If anything, really, I would say it's more a I. But the thing that a lot of people are missing is that a lot of these a I use cases are going to be a combination of on device and cloud. And not everything is going to be able to be on device right away. And while I think that there will be a really big push with Qualcomm's, six, 45 tops MPU and enabling experiences that are on device, there are still going to be a lot of experiences that want to, basically be a hybrid.

AI experience that takes advantage of what your device can do, but also what the cloud can enhance that with. And that's going to be a hybrid AI experience. And I think we're going to see a lot more talk about hybrid AI and how 5G is the perfect example of, always having a connection because, I feel like cloud computing alone should already justify 5G connection.

But if you add AI to the equation, it's okay, so I can't always connect to, the most powerful GPUs in the cloud because I don't have a 5G connection, I can do something locally, but really, I think, the real power is having a. 5G connected PC that allows you to connect both to the cloud and to the ai.

The cloud is powered by AI now. AI nowadays, but yeah I just think that we're wearing, we're moving towards a place where, I think we're gonna see more use of 5G because of ai. Yeah. And what's funny is I was just on a Verizon webinar about 5G connected PCs. I think that was on Friday.

And they were talking about AI and hybrid AI and how that is an opportunity for growth in 5G PCs. And I really do believe that, and I actually, I've been saying that for a while now, and I think a lot of my theories around AI and the PC are gonna be validated over the next few months as this thing starts to really pick up speed because.

Intel's been talking about it for a while and so is AMD. But now Qualcomm gets to, release their thing. And I think we're going to see a lot of back and forth and a lot of acceleration in terms of capabilities. But, reality in reality, I don't think we're going to have as many five GPCs I would have liked.

And I think that's going to be maybe something that we see grow down the road.  

I think what really has to happen, one of the biggest challenges has been just the activation experience  and, when you, and I know this because many years ago when I was Adele I actually worked on a team that was focused on mobile broadband with the latitude.

The business notebook class of products there, and it was at the time it was 3G.  And the challenge in getting activations was just, the out of box experience, the UBI, as we call it as product managers, and that there's still friction there as well. And and I certainly see the opportunity with AI. 

In driving connected 5G, PC adoption, but the manufacturers that, the Microsoft's and the Dell's and the HP's are going to have to work with the carriers to do something to address the friction that goes along with, initial activation. It could be a simple, and again, I'm getting out of my swim lane because you're a client expert, but it could be as simple as there's a 30 day free trial.

Yeah, if 

you remember, we talked about this last year, T Mobile had a free 90 day trial with this. Yeah. With the Surface Pro 9 5G that I'm running right here next to us.  It actually was the. Pipe cleaner for a lot of these things where you can actually go and connect with a data plan. It pops open a window and you can just pick an operator.

So T Mobile, Verizon, and a couple of these weird third party companies. But yeah, you just log in and I got 30, I got 90 days free and it was glorious.  But yeah, they've really done a lot of work to make it easier. So there's now Vodafone on here and Telenor and Telia and Telstra and Swisscom and Bell and AU.

So there's a lot of carriers now preloaded into the Windows ecosystem with eSIM. So I do think that this was an anticipation of, this new version coming tomorrow. But yeah it's going to be exciting. I just, I obviously don't want to break any NDAs or any embargoes, so I'm keeping things pretty vague, but it is really something I think people should listen to and watch.

It will be at 10 o'clock in the morning, Pacific standard time. I will be there in person and I will be live tweeting it as much as I can and then I will be heading to build to hang out with you and the Dell team. 

Nice. Yeah. Hey, so I should stay out of your swim lane because I totally blew that one, man.

So that that's really encouraging to hear. I, we've done so many podcasts now we're almost approaching 200 and, I'm a little bit older than you are. So I'm, I'm getting forgetful in my old age, but that's super encouraging to hear that that, all of those mobile network operators that you mentioned.

A lot of those folks that you mentioned, like Vodafone and others are in Europe as well. So it's not just a US thing. It's a global thing to make this happen. Hey, my friend, we got this podcast in Sunday night. Hopefully we can get posted pretty quickly. 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 Willtown Tech and I'm at On Shell Sog. We hope you have a great week and please tune in again next episode later this week, and don't forget to rate and subscribe.