1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,120 Welcome viewers and listeners to episode 211 of the G2 on 5G, 2 00:00:06,120 --> 00:00:08,680 the latest insight scoop on everything 5G. 3 00:00:08,680 --> 00:00:10,680 We cover six topics in about 20 minutes, 4 00:00:10,680 --> 00:00:13,520 and it's brought to you by More Insights and Strategy. 5 00:00:13,520 --> 00:00:15,400 I'm Will Townsend, and joining me again this week 6 00:00:15,400 --> 00:00:17,640 is fellow analyst, Amalus Dmachan-Sag. 7 00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:19,320 Let's get started with my first topic, 8 00:00:19,320 --> 00:00:21,800 and I want to talk about AT&T earnings. 9 00:00:21,800 --> 00:00:25,280 They posted recently their 4Q and year end. 10 00:00:25,280 --> 00:00:27,960 And the big thing to note here on the call 11 00:00:27,960 --> 00:00:33,040 was the company ran over a million fiber ads for 2020. 12 00:00:33,040 --> 00:00:37,560 That's a pretty astronomical figure by any measure. 13 00:00:37,560 --> 00:00:41,400 And I also had the opportunity to speak with Jennifer Robertson. 14 00:00:41,400 --> 00:00:45,560 She leads the mass markets consumer group for AT&T, 15 00:00:45,560 --> 00:00:47,720 both broadband and community. 16 00:00:47,720 --> 00:00:51,200 And we spoke about that as well as a number of other things, 17 00:00:51,200 --> 00:00:54,960 such as the AT&T guarantee, AST space mobile, 18 00:00:54,960 --> 00:00:57,000 the relationship there, garden, low earth, 19 00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:00,120 satellite connectivity, and the value of convergence. 20 00:01:00,120 --> 00:01:02,320 And what I'll state about convergence 21 00:01:02,320 --> 00:01:04,640 is that the company also reported 22 00:01:04,640 --> 00:01:07,800 that their conversion strategy, in other words, 23 00:01:07,800 --> 00:01:12,120 selling both mobility and fiber in broadband in general, 24 00:01:12,120 --> 00:01:16,360 and spreading UA together, is driving simplification. 25 00:01:16,360 --> 00:01:19,600 And they saw nearly a two point increase 26 00:01:19,600 --> 00:01:22,560 in the number of customers that take advantage 27 00:01:22,560 --> 00:01:24,160 of their converge services. 28 00:01:24,160 --> 00:01:27,440 That's up to 40% by the end of 2024. 29 00:01:27,440 --> 00:01:29,120 I wrote a Forbes article about this, 30 00:01:29,120 --> 00:01:31,080 so I'm going to do a gratuitous plug. 31 00:01:31,080 --> 00:01:32,560 That was posted late yesterday. 32 00:01:32,560 --> 00:01:35,840 So if you want to go deeper into my conversation 33 00:01:35,840 --> 00:01:38,440 with Ms. Robertson, check that out. 34 00:01:38,440 --> 00:01:40,640 What do you think about all of that with AT&T, my friend? 35 00:01:40,640 --> 00:01:43,000 I think we've been talking about AT&T 36 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:45,120 trying to improve the user experience 37 00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:46,880 and the customer experience. 38 00:01:46,880 --> 00:01:50,000 I'm not really sure that has translated 39 00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:53,000 to improved numbers yet, because it feels 40 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:55,040 like it's been fairly recent. 41 00:01:55,040 --> 00:01:57,160 It has, but I will mention, and I mentioned this 42 00:01:57,160 --> 00:02:01,720 in the article, from a business service perspective, 43 00:02:01,720 --> 00:02:04,560 AT&T's received really high marks from JD Power 44 00:02:04,560 --> 00:02:06,400 over the last three years. 45 00:02:06,400 --> 00:02:08,480 Now, when you look at the net promoter scores 46 00:02:08,480 --> 00:02:10,520 for AT&T's consumer business, 47 00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:13,480 they are fairly low relative to their competitors. 48 00:02:13,480 --> 00:02:16,280 But what Ms. Robertson shared with me 49 00:02:16,280 --> 00:02:19,480 is that those NPS scores are beginning to trend 50 00:02:19,480 --> 00:02:20,360 in the right direction. 51 00:02:20,360 --> 00:02:22,680 So there's positive outlook there, 52 00:02:22,680 --> 00:02:23,960 but you're absolutely right. 53 00:02:24,960 --> 00:02:27,680 Yeah, and I think really what this is, 54 00:02:27,680 --> 00:02:31,360 AT&T's focus on the network 55 00:02:31,360 --> 00:02:34,440 and building a good network that is capable 56 00:02:34,440 --> 00:02:37,840 and offers a good experience, 57 00:02:37,840 --> 00:02:40,240 that to me is actually what's paying dividends, 58 00:02:40,240 --> 00:02:42,040 because they're no longer distracted 59 00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:43,720 by all these side bets. 60 00:02:43,720 --> 00:02:48,040 And I think all the carriers just focusing on the network 61 00:02:48,040 --> 00:02:52,840 has really resulted in better revenues and better profits. 62 00:02:52,840 --> 00:02:55,200 Obviously, T-Mobile was the first 63 00:02:55,200 --> 00:02:57,440 because they were the most behind, 64 00:02:57,440 --> 00:02:59,080 but they'd never taken their eye off the ball 65 00:02:59,080 --> 00:03:00,080 on the network. 66 00:03:00,080 --> 00:03:03,240 And Verizon had to really reconsider their approach 67 00:03:03,240 --> 00:03:05,440 and teammates and modifications, 68 00:03:05,440 --> 00:03:07,680 but both Verizon and AT&T who were very distracted 69 00:03:07,680 --> 00:03:09,360 by their media plays. 70 00:03:09,360 --> 00:03:11,520 And I think both of them divesting from those 71 00:03:11,520 --> 00:03:13,560 have resulted in better earnings 72 00:03:13,560 --> 00:03:15,920 and better customer satisfaction. 73 00:03:15,920 --> 00:03:17,240 I couldn't agree more. 74 00:03:17,240 --> 00:03:19,760 The investment that AT&T in particular has made 75 00:03:19,760 --> 00:03:23,080 in its network infrastructure over the last five years 76 00:03:23,080 --> 00:03:25,160 is in the tens of billions of dollars. 77 00:03:25,160 --> 00:03:29,080 And there's an over investment you could stay 78 00:03:29,080 --> 00:03:30,600 from what they're doing with Fiverr. 79 00:03:30,600 --> 00:03:33,120 It's a long-term plan to build a franchise. 80 00:03:33,120 --> 00:03:36,480 And I've spent time with CEO John Stanky 81 00:03:36,480 --> 00:03:38,160 and he's talked about that, 82 00:03:38,160 --> 00:03:40,600 that it's a tremendous investment up front. 83 00:03:40,600 --> 00:03:42,880 And he joked with me and said that 84 00:03:42,880 --> 00:03:46,520 the next person that takes over for him 85 00:03:46,520 --> 00:03:49,880 should be sending John a gift basket, 86 00:03:49,880 --> 00:03:52,320 a fruit basket every Christmas 87 00:03:52,320 --> 00:03:54,240 because of all of the investment 88 00:03:54,240 --> 00:03:56,680 and forward thinking that John is deployed there. 89 00:03:56,680 --> 00:03:58,000 Yeah, I couldn't agree more. 90 00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:00,120 Investing in the network creates... 91 00:04:00,120 --> 00:04:04,280 I was gonna add that I think AT&T's success in Fiverr 92 00:04:05,200 --> 00:04:08,480 is what I believe Grove, Verizon to go out 93 00:04:08,480 --> 00:04:12,440 and acquire Frontier after they had already sold off 94 00:04:12,440 --> 00:04:14,720 all their Fiverr assets to Frontier. 95 00:04:14,720 --> 00:04:17,400 Exactly, and then T-Mobile, 96 00:04:17,400 --> 00:04:19,840 their attitude with Fiverr for years 97 00:04:19,840 --> 00:04:22,920 was that it was a commodity and look what they're doing now, 98 00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:24,840 what they're doing ventures 99 00:04:24,840 --> 00:04:26,800 and their investment as well. 100 00:04:26,800 --> 00:04:30,040 Yeah, because Fiverr is sentimental to backhaul. 101 00:04:30,040 --> 00:04:31,720 Yeah, couldn't agree more. 102 00:04:31,720 --> 00:04:33,960 Hey, let's talk more about AI. 103 00:04:34,840 --> 00:04:37,720 Verizon made an announcement recently 104 00:04:37,720 --> 00:04:39,320 with their AI Connect platform. 105 00:04:39,320 --> 00:04:40,440 You wanna talk about that 106 00:04:40,440 --> 00:04:42,280 and I definitely have some opinion 107 00:04:42,280 --> 00:04:44,480 about that announcement too. 108 00:04:44,480 --> 00:04:47,680 Yeah, you and I both were on the pre-greed for that, I think. 109 00:04:47,680 --> 00:04:52,240 And yeah, I just think that it's a really clear indication 110 00:04:52,240 --> 00:04:56,800 that Verizon is trying to differentiate itself 111 00:04:56,800 --> 00:04:59,960 and continuing to look for ways to be different 112 00:04:59,960 --> 00:05:03,480 from its competitors while also leaning on its strengths. 113 00:05:03,480 --> 00:05:06,600 I think we all know that one of Verizon's biggest strengths 114 00:05:06,600 --> 00:05:09,280 is they have a lot of edge compute 115 00:05:09,280 --> 00:05:11,760 and that they have the opportunity 116 00:05:11,760 --> 00:05:12,840 or they're in the locations 117 00:05:12,840 --> 00:05:16,800 where a lot of their business customers are as well. 118 00:05:16,800 --> 00:05:18,840 So they're really well-positioned 119 00:05:18,840 --> 00:05:23,200 to enable edge compute for enterprises and hyperscalers 120 00:05:23,200 --> 00:05:26,200 but also utilizing their Fiverr network 121 00:05:26,200 --> 00:05:28,600 to enhance the experience 122 00:05:28,600 --> 00:05:31,320 for whoever needs compute at the edge. 123 00:05:31,320 --> 00:05:35,920 And I really got the feeling that this is them doubling down 124 00:05:35,920 --> 00:05:38,600 on their edge compute strategy 125 00:05:38,600 --> 00:05:40,200 and working with NVIDIA, 126 00:05:40,200 --> 00:05:43,360 and Volter, and Google Cloud, and Meta 127 00:05:43,360 --> 00:05:46,480 to accelerate their AI deployments. 128 00:05:46,480 --> 00:05:50,520 And what's interesting is that NVIDIA is specifically helping 129 00:05:50,520 --> 00:05:53,680 with GPU-based edge platforms 130 00:05:53,680 --> 00:05:55,520 for Verizon private 5G network. 131 00:05:55,520 --> 00:05:58,080 So that's very much a business focus. 132 00:05:58,960 --> 00:06:01,720 And I just think that Verizon's really leaning 133 00:06:01,720 --> 00:06:04,320 into what they're capable of on business 134 00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:06,840 and enabling Google and Meta 135 00:06:06,840 --> 00:06:09,920 who already have a lot of compute in the cloud 136 00:06:09,920 --> 00:06:11,480 to get closer to their... 137 00:06:11,480 --> 00:06:15,040 and utilizing Verizon's Fiverr network to get there. 138 00:06:15,040 --> 00:06:17,280 Whether they use Verizon's compute or not, 139 00:06:17,280 --> 00:06:18,440 I think that's up in the air. 140 00:06:18,440 --> 00:06:20,920 But it's really interesting because I think 141 00:06:20,920 --> 00:06:23,920 that they've been struggling to find an application 142 00:06:23,920 --> 00:06:27,600 for edge compute and AI is definitely it. 143 00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:31,320 And I think this is a conversation I had when I was at MIT 144 00:06:31,320 --> 00:06:34,520 last weekend speaking at MIT Reality Hack. 145 00:06:34,520 --> 00:06:38,840 I think AI is a urgent force for XR technologies 146 00:06:38,840 --> 00:06:42,000 because having all this GPU compute at the edge 147 00:06:42,000 --> 00:06:44,240 can also be done for rendering. 148 00:06:44,240 --> 00:06:46,560 It doesn't only have to be done for AI. 149 00:06:46,560 --> 00:06:48,200 Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. 150 00:06:48,200 --> 00:06:51,480 This is leaning into a strength that Verizon has. 151 00:06:51,480 --> 00:06:53,560 But on the surface when I looked at it, 152 00:06:53,560 --> 00:06:55,840 and I think you and I had a quick conversation 153 00:06:55,840 --> 00:06:57,920 after our debrief with that team. 154 00:06:57,920 --> 00:06:59,600 Some of it was ho-hum for me. 155 00:06:59,600 --> 00:07:02,560 It at times felt like some of the functionality 156 00:07:02,560 --> 00:07:05,880 that they were positioning was meat competition 157 00:07:05,880 --> 00:07:09,360 relative to others in the space. 158 00:07:09,360 --> 00:07:13,040 I will tell that everyone has to have an AI story. 159 00:07:13,040 --> 00:07:15,960 And one of the things that I talk about in the Forbes article 160 00:07:15,960 --> 00:07:20,000 is what AT&T is doing with modern AI 161 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:24,400 to reimagine operations and customer support. 162 00:07:24,400 --> 00:07:29,200 I have talked about what T-Mobile announced last year 163 00:07:29,200 --> 00:07:32,360 with respect to leveraging gen AI to do that. 164 00:07:32,360 --> 00:07:36,000 It's gotten me thinking that I'm going to pull together 165 00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:41,600 an analysis on a global view of network operators 166 00:07:41,600 --> 00:07:43,720 that are leveraging gen AI 167 00:07:43,720 --> 00:07:46,040 to not only provide business-oriented services 168 00:07:46,040 --> 00:07:50,360 like Verizon wants to do with their Verizon I connect, 169 00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:52,080 but also to leverage it internally 170 00:07:52,080 --> 00:07:55,240 to again improve operational performance 171 00:07:55,240 --> 00:07:56,960 and delight customers. 172 00:07:56,960 --> 00:07:59,440 Yeah, I think it would be interesting to see what happens. 173 00:07:59,440 --> 00:08:02,560 I would add that I think you're right that in some way 174 00:08:02,560 --> 00:08:06,240 this very much feels like a follow-on to some other announcements, 175 00:08:06,240 --> 00:08:08,400 especially the GP-related stuff. 176 00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:11,240 What's interesting is they didn't really talk about AI 177 00:08:11,240 --> 00:08:14,760 to run the network as much as they were using 178 00:08:14,760 --> 00:08:19,560 talking about AI to be a feature of the network. 179 00:08:19,560 --> 00:08:23,320 So I think that they're starting to lean more into standalone 180 00:08:23,320 --> 00:08:24,880 as a component of this, 181 00:08:24,880 --> 00:08:27,320 because they talked about an intelligent and programmable network, 182 00:08:27,320 --> 00:08:29,040 which is a standalone network. 183 00:08:29,040 --> 00:08:30,440 Yeah, I think you're right. 184 00:08:30,440 --> 00:08:31,840 I think they're lagging a little bit, 185 00:08:31,840 --> 00:08:34,160 but I think this is a huge improvement for them 186 00:08:34,160 --> 00:08:36,360 in terms of just a clear communication 187 00:08:36,360 --> 00:08:39,080 and leaning into what they are good at. 188 00:08:39,080 --> 00:08:40,680 Yeah, I would agree with that. 189 00:08:40,680 --> 00:08:43,200 Yeah, let's go to my second topic, 190 00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:44,960 and I want to talk about Ericsson, 191 00:08:44,960 --> 00:08:48,440 and we're going to continue the earnings drumbeat here. 192 00:08:48,440 --> 00:08:50,760 They reported four key earnings, 193 00:08:50,760 --> 00:08:55,800 and most notable was their barely explosive growth 194 00:08:55,800 --> 00:09:00,760 in North America's 54% market growth. 195 00:09:00,760 --> 00:09:02,960 Now, when you look at the aggregate, 196 00:09:02,960 --> 00:09:07,040 probably flat, no surprise there. 197 00:09:07,040 --> 00:09:09,160 It's been a challenge, especially with RAN, 198 00:09:09,160 --> 00:09:11,320 and that deployment has occurred, 199 00:09:11,320 --> 00:09:15,160 and now core infrastructure is the emphasis 200 00:09:15,160 --> 00:09:18,520 to get to exactly what you were just talking about, 201 00:09:18,520 --> 00:09:20,880 deploying 5G standalone. 202 00:09:20,880 --> 00:09:22,760 But yeah, at the end of the day, 203 00:09:22,760 --> 00:09:24,840 Ericsson is executing in North America. 204 00:09:24,840 --> 00:09:28,040 We've talked about how both Ericsson and Nokia 205 00:09:28,040 --> 00:09:32,600 have created federal sales teams to go focus on that area. 206 00:09:32,600 --> 00:09:36,520 You and I talked about the possibility 207 00:09:36,520 --> 00:09:41,400 of the Trump administration sort of poking the fires again 208 00:09:41,400 --> 00:09:44,240 with OpenRAN and the need to domesticate 209 00:09:44,240 --> 00:09:47,680 the mobility supply chain and that sort of thing. 210 00:09:47,680 --> 00:09:50,600 I think it's an interesting development 211 00:09:50,600 --> 00:09:52,480 for Ericsson in North America. 212 00:09:52,480 --> 00:09:55,400 Now, the challenge will be can they sustain this, right? 213 00:09:55,400 --> 00:09:59,520 And how the people grow on a global basis going forward. 214 00:09:59,520 --> 00:10:01,760 I'm personally looking forward to Mobile World Congress. 215 00:10:01,760 --> 00:10:05,040 Well, I'll get to spend some time with Ericsson and Nokia 216 00:10:05,040 --> 00:10:08,360 and sensing that to learn a little bit more about it. 217 00:10:08,360 --> 00:10:10,320 What do you think overall about Ericsson? 218 00:10:10,320 --> 00:10:13,840 I think it makes sense that this would happen in 2024, 219 00:10:13,840 --> 00:10:18,560 especially when you consider how much they won with AT&T 220 00:10:18,560 --> 00:10:20,760 on OpenRAN and how that's going to translate 221 00:10:20,760 --> 00:10:25,400 to pretty solid revenues for the next few years. 222 00:10:25,400 --> 00:10:29,240 I do think that there's an potential opportunity for this 223 00:10:29,240 --> 00:10:35,840 to continue forward and continue to be a success for Ericsson 224 00:10:35,840 --> 00:10:39,320 and just a good region for them, especially if OpenRAN becomes 225 00:10:39,320 --> 00:10:40,680 a big opportunity. 226 00:10:40,680 --> 00:10:42,800 I'm not sure how sustainable it will be. 227 00:10:42,800 --> 00:10:44,160 It's very cyclical. 228 00:10:44,160 --> 00:10:47,280 But I feel like maybe 24 is where they ended up 229 00:10:47,280 --> 00:10:50,600 booking a lot of business for the way it was accounted, right? 230 00:10:50,600 --> 00:10:53,240 Was this revenue that was already accrued and was just 231 00:10:53,240 --> 00:10:54,960 accounted for in Q4? 232 00:10:54,960 --> 00:10:56,240 Or is this revenue that's actually 233 00:10:56,240 --> 00:10:58,680 going to has already been accrued for Q4, 234 00:10:58,680 --> 00:11:00,600 but will actually not be built out till next year? 235 00:11:00,600 --> 00:11:01,840 That's how I look at it. 236 00:11:01,840 --> 00:11:04,120 Maybe this was just like an accounting thing. 237 00:11:04,120 --> 00:11:07,400 And we might actually see it smooth out better next year. 238 00:11:07,400 --> 00:11:09,520 Or it's just the beginning of a big wave. 239 00:11:09,520 --> 00:11:13,400 And also, their relationship with AT&T as well. 240 00:11:13,400 --> 00:11:14,320 And that's not going away. 241 00:11:14,320 --> 00:11:17,080 That's going to be a consistent revenue base for them. 242 00:11:17,080 --> 00:11:20,240 So I think if that's a good opportunity for them 243 00:11:20,240 --> 00:11:22,640 and it's going to continue to be, then they could be just 244 00:11:22,640 --> 00:11:25,800 gravy from here on out for at least the next couple of years. 245 00:11:25,800 --> 00:11:27,560 But it's hard to tell. 246 00:11:27,560 --> 00:11:29,480 Other countries aren't really picking up OpenRAN 247 00:11:29,480 --> 00:11:31,040 like the US has. 248 00:11:31,040 --> 00:11:34,800 Japan has tried, but that was just really with Rakuten. 249 00:11:34,800 --> 00:11:39,600 And I'm curious to see if maybe this becomes an opportunity 250 00:11:39,600 --> 00:11:42,720 for Ericsson because such a mature market like the US 251 00:11:42,720 --> 00:11:45,760 becomes, starts to adopt it and then others start 252 00:11:45,760 --> 00:11:46,920 to follow suit. 253 00:11:46,920 --> 00:11:47,600 Yeah. 254 00:11:47,600 --> 00:11:49,280 You're going to talk about that in a son 255 00:11:49,280 --> 00:11:50,720 next topic. 256 00:11:50,720 --> 00:11:54,320 But I'll mention that Vodafone has pretty widely embraced 257 00:11:54,320 --> 00:11:57,360 OpenRAN, a lot of POCs and that sort of thing. 258 00:11:57,360 --> 00:12:01,280 So it'll be interesting to see what 2025 holds in store 259 00:12:01,280 --> 00:12:02,880 with Vodafone and Europe. 260 00:12:02,880 --> 00:12:05,720 But that's the segue to your second topic. 261 00:12:05,720 --> 00:12:09,200 But you want to talk about low earth orbit, satellite. 262 00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:12,160 Vodafone is an investor in AST SpaceMobile. 263 00:12:12,160 --> 00:12:16,320 And you want to talk about a first with Vodafone and AST 264 00:12:16,320 --> 00:12:16,880 SpaceMobile. 265 00:12:16,880 --> 00:12:17,400 Yes. 266 00:12:17,400 --> 00:12:22,760 So in extremely large, bold font on the Vodafone website, 267 00:12:22,760 --> 00:12:26,960 it says that Vodafone makes the world's first space video call 268 00:12:26,960 --> 00:12:30,480 from an area of no coverage using a standard mobile phone 269 00:12:30,480 --> 00:12:34,280 and commercial satellites built to offer a full mobile broadband 270 00:12:34,280 --> 00:12:34,920 experience. 271 00:12:34,920 --> 00:12:36,040 That is deep. 272 00:12:36,040 --> 00:12:37,040 That's a mouthful. 273 00:12:37,040 --> 00:12:39,280 It's about this big on my monitor. 274 00:12:39,280 --> 00:12:42,520 And that's a 32 inch. 275 00:12:42,520 --> 00:12:44,960 80% of my monitor is just that text. 276 00:12:44,960 --> 00:12:49,440 Basically, what they did is they worked with AST SpaceMobile 277 00:12:49,440 --> 00:12:52,680 with the Blue Walker satellites and were 278 00:12:52,680 --> 00:12:58,280 able to test the service on both 4G and 5G smartphones 279 00:12:58,280 --> 00:13:00,600 to basically do a video call, which 280 00:13:00,600 --> 00:13:02,680 has not been possible before. 281 00:13:02,680 --> 00:13:06,160 Because most services are either using 282 00:13:06,160 --> 00:13:08,880 specific specialized devices or they're not 283 00:13:08,880 --> 00:13:10,480 commercial networks. 284 00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:13,200 And the other thing is video is hard to do with satellite. 285 00:13:13,200 --> 00:13:15,960 That's something that was anticipated to happen further 286 00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:16,800 on. 287 00:13:16,800 --> 00:13:19,560 But doing video now just shows how mature the network is. 288 00:13:19,560 --> 00:13:20,000 Pardon me. 289 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:20,560 I'm going to see. 290 00:13:20,560 --> 00:13:22,360 Bless you. 291 00:13:22,360 --> 00:13:24,880 I think I got a little bit of a cold from Boston. 292 00:13:24,880 --> 00:13:26,120 But yeah, that's the rub of it. 293 00:13:26,120 --> 00:13:30,400 But what it is, it's just the next phase of what I would say 294 00:13:30,400 --> 00:13:33,520 satellite based services can offer. 295 00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:35,480 Because most of satellite based services today 296 00:13:35,480 --> 00:13:40,440 are either emergency only or they're just text based messaging. 297 00:13:40,440 --> 00:13:42,880 So being able to maintain and hold a video call 298 00:13:42,880 --> 00:13:43,720 is a big deal. 299 00:13:43,720 --> 00:13:47,680 And Vodafone obviously is one of the close partners 300 00:13:47,680 --> 00:13:52,440 of AST SpaceMobile and has been working pretty, I would say, 301 00:13:52,440 --> 00:13:54,560 aggressively to enable them. 302 00:13:54,560 --> 00:13:57,480 And they said that Vodafone aims for the first commercial 303 00:13:57,480 --> 00:14:00,680 direct to smartphone broadband satellite service in Europe 304 00:14:00,680 --> 00:14:04,000 to start later in 2025 and 2026. 305 00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:07,560 So they are getting ready to launch fairly soon, 306 00:14:07,560 --> 00:14:08,840 basically end of this year. 307 00:14:08,840 --> 00:14:13,800 And it'll be great because I think Europe needs somebody 308 00:14:13,800 --> 00:14:17,760 like this to take the lead and show the way. 309 00:14:17,760 --> 00:14:19,040 I agree. 310 00:14:19,040 --> 00:14:22,560 And as SpaceMobile puts more birds in the air, 311 00:14:22,560 --> 00:14:25,360 that performance and that latency and that throughput 312 00:14:25,360 --> 00:14:27,400 will only improve over time. 313 00:14:27,400 --> 00:14:29,240 And so I'm not surprised to hear that they're 314 00:14:29,240 --> 00:14:34,640 planning for a late year sort of commercial deployment. 315 00:14:34,640 --> 00:14:39,280 And we'll see if the US is ahead of that or not. 316 00:14:39,280 --> 00:14:40,200 Time will tell. 317 00:14:40,200 --> 00:14:43,160 But this is amazing technology. 318 00:14:43,160 --> 00:14:46,240 You and I have been talking about it for years. 319 00:14:46,240 --> 00:14:48,480 We were the first to discuss who we 320 00:14:48,480 --> 00:14:50,520 felt was in a pole position. 321 00:14:50,520 --> 00:14:53,320 I'll admit right now the news cycle 322 00:14:53,320 --> 00:14:55,520 is filled with Starlink and what they're 323 00:14:55,520 --> 00:14:57,920 doing with direct to device as well. 324 00:14:57,920 --> 00:15:00,800 But don't discount what AST SpaceMobile is doing. 325 00:15:00,800 --> 00:15:04,160 And I know that we have a group of followers 326 00:15:04,160 --> 00:15:06,360 that are the SpaceMob. 327 00:15:06,360 --> 00:15:08,640 They continue to ask me on social media, 328 00:15:08,640 --> 00:15:12,000 when am I going to have follow up discussions with the company. 329 00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:13,440 That's in process. 330 00:15:13,440 --> 00:15:14,600 There's a lot going on. 331 00:15:14,600 --> 00:15:16,520 There was another announcement I saw today 332 00:15:16,520 --> 00:15:19,800 that I need to get caught up on more than from there. 333 00:15:19,800 --> 00:15:22,440 But let me get my third and final topic. 334 00:15:22,440 --> 00:15:26,000 And we've really punctuated this one with earnings and AI. 335 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:28,280 And I want to talk about Tom Thautica. 336 00:15:28,280 --> 00:15:30,440 They're doing something with Gen AI. 337 00:15:30,440 --> 00:15:32,280 And it's not what my group is. 338 00:15:32,280 --> 00:15:35,360 So I talk about what AT&T is doing with Gen AI 339 00:15:35,360 --> 00:15:39,880 to reimagine its operations and improve customer support. 340 00:15:39,880 --> 00:15:41,400 And that sort of thing. 341 00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:43,560 Thautica is taking a different slant. 342 00:15:43,560 --> 00:15:46,360 So this is a light reading article that posted. 343 00:15:46,360 --> 00:15:49,240 And DeepSeq has been in the news cycle. 344 00:15:49,240 --> 00:15:52,520 And we could probably talk about DeepSeq forever. 345 00:15:52,520 --> 00:15:56,560 But at a high level, what Thautica is doing 346 00:15:56,560 --> 00:16:01,120 is their tech unit is launching its own Gen AI platform. 347 00:16:01,120 --> 00:16:03,520 And it's aimed at helping companies and not 348 00:16:03,520 --> 00:16:06,520 for organizations create customizable, 349 00:16:06,520 --> 00:16:10,280 virtual systems capable of solving complex problems, 350 00:16:10,280 --> 00:16:13,920 automating repetitive tasks, and streaming internal processes. 351 00:16:13,920 --> 00:16:16,760 This is decidedly a Gen AI. 352 00:16:16,760 --> 00:16:19,120 And again, it's very unconventional. 353 00:16:19,120 --> 00:16:21,640 I would have thought that Thautica would have started 354 00:16:21,640 --> 00:16:24,560 with something like intelligent truck rules 355 00:16:24,560 --> 00:16:26,880 and improving customer support. 356 00:16:26,880 --> 00:16:29,280 But certainly they're doing something 357 00:16:29,280 --> 00:16:31,560 that's a little bit out of their wheelhouse. 358 00:16:31,560 --> 00:16:33,320 But it's an interesting fact. 359 00:16:33,320 --> 00:16:38,040 And hey, listen, mobile network operators have struggled 360 00:16:38,040 --> 00:16:40,160 to monetize their investments, just 361 00:16:40,160 --> 00:16:42,480 an infrastructure and spectrum. 362 00:16:42,480 --> 00:16:45,840 They are also investing significant dollars 363 00:16:45,840 --> 00:16:48,760 in modern AI applications. 364 00:16:48,760 --> 00:16:52,640 But this is one that I find very interesting. 365 00:16:52,640 --> 00:16:54,640 I don't know if you caught the news or read the article, 366 00:16:54,640 --> 00:16:58,480 but what do you think about this whole agentic AI? 367 00:16:58,480 --> 00:17:02,640 I would say agentic AI is something 368 00:17:02,640 --> 00:17:05,560 that's been talked about for quite some time now. 369 00:17:05,560 --> 00:17:09,920 It was very much a trend in the second half of last year. 370 00:17:09,920 --> 00:17:13,400 Ironically enough, it was started by these guys. 371 00:17:13,400 --> 00:17:16,040 They were the first ones to really talk about agentic AI 372 00:17:16,040 --> 00:17:18,040 in a meaningful way, even though they 373 00:17:18,040 --> 00:17:19,840 had a really rough launch. 374 00:17:19,840 --> 00:17:23,120 This is basically an agentic device. 375 00:17:23,120 --> 00:17:27,000 Agentic AI has been latched onto by Meta, by Amdedia, 376 00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:28,160 all the smartphone vendors. 377 00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:29,520 Most of the shift guys. 378 00:17:29,520 --> 00:17:33,440 So agentic AI is a trend that is already going into this year. 379 00:17:33,440 --> 00:17:37,560 We think that we'll see more of it just because the truth is 380 00:17:37,560 --> 00:17:42,040 that something like DeepSeq, it's agentic and nature. 381 00:17:42,040 --> 00:17:44,280 It's not actually agentic because it's just 382 00:17:44,280 --> 00:17:46,000 a mixture of experts model. 383 00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:47,200 But the truth is AI. 384 00:17:47,200 --> 00:17:49,040 AI distillation, right? 385 00:17:49,040 --> 00:17:50,040 Yeah. 386 00:17:50,040 --> 00:17:54,120 But agentic AI is just a higher level version of that, 387 00:17:54,120 --> 00:17:57,040 where you pick the models that are more 388 00:17:57,040 --> 00:17:59,000 appropriate for the use case. 389 00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:03,440 And I think we're going to see more agentic AI this year. 390 00:18:03,440 --> 00:18:06,800 And everyone's going to talk about it if they haven't already. 391 00:18:06,800 --> 00:18:07,200 Yeah. 392 00:18:07,200 --> 00:18:09,720 And you're going to hear more about AGI as well, 393 00:18:09,720 --> 00:18:13,920 which is Paul Goodson-Smith, our resident expert on quantum. 394 00:18:13,920 --> 00:18:17,320 And AI talked about this on a data center podcast 395 00:18:17,320 --> 00:18:18,720 that we recorded last week. 396 00:18:18,720 --> 00:18:23,840 But AGI to Advanced General AI, I don't know. 397 00:18:23,840 --> 00:18:25,720 I'm speaking of General Intelligence. 398 00:18:25,720 --> 00:18:26,080 Yeah. 399 00:18:26,080 --> 00:18:27,280 Advanced General Intelligence. 400 00:18:27,280 --> 00:18:31,320 So yeah, I'll tell you what, modern AI is moving at light speed. 401 00:18:31,320 --> 00:18:34,040 And it's pop to popcorn. 402 00:18:34,040 --> 00:18:34,960 It's fun to watch. 403 00:18:34,960 --> 00:18:37,600 But let's hit your third and final topic. 404 00:18:37,600 --> 00:18:41,200 And you want to hit T-Mobile and Apple earnings. 405 00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:41,640 Yes. 406 00:18:41,640 --> 00:18:43,160 I'll start with Apple. 407 00:18:43,160 --> 00:18:47,840 Apple actually reported better than expected earnings, 408 00:18:47,840 --> 00:18:52,400 even though they showed reduced iPhone shipments, 409 00:18:52,400 --> 00:18:58,240 specifically China falling as much as 11% in revenues. 410 00:18:58,240 --> 00:19:00,920 There's a lot of competition in the Chinese market. 411 00:19:00,920 --> 00:19:05,520 And because of that, they are struggling to keep up. 412 00:19:05,520 --> 00:19:09,120 And I think a big factor in that is that Apple intelligence just 413 00:19:09,120 --> 00:19:11,080 isn't that compelling. 414 00:19:11,080 --> 00:19:13,080 Sorry again. 415 00:19:13,080 --> 00:19:14,400 I have it on my deck. 416 00:19:14,400 --> 00:19:18,640 But yeah, I think when you look at what's going on in the Chinese market, 417 00:19:18,640 --> 00:19:20,640 Huawei is resurging. 418 00:19:20,640 --> 00:19:23,480 And then all the other smartphone vendors, they're doing really well too. 419 00:19:23,480 --> 00:19:26,800 So yeah, some things got to give and it's Apple. 420 00:19:26,800 --> 00:19:34,880 So a lot of people were really concerned with what might happen with Apple, 421 00:19:34,880 --> 00:19:38,200 with everybody else doing so well and they shrunk 11%. 422 00:19:38,200 --> 00:19:44,840 What kept them afloat was that services grew significantly and made up for the 423 00:19:44,840 --> 00:19:51,840 fact that iPhone was not really that great in the quarter. 424 00:19:51,840 --> 00:19:55,480 Apple also says that in Apple intelligence will be much better this quarter 425 00:19:55,480 --> 00:19:57,480 and more of the features will be rolled out. 426 00:19:57,480 --> 00:20:00,960 So it would be more useful, which might actually help sales, 427 00:20:00,960 --> 00:20:03,880 which I think is probably valid to a certain degree, 428 00:20:03,880 --> 00:20:09,160 which is why I think that some of Wall Street believes that they will have a better quarter 429 00:20:09,160 --> 00:20:12,520 as a result of Apple intelligence being more feature rich. 430 00:20:12,520 --> 00:20:16,080 But the truth is that unless they really market Apple intelligence 431 00:20:16,080 --> 00:20:21,360 accurately to what the capabilities are, it will continue to be a challenge. 432 00:20:21,360 --> 00:20:25,760 And then overall, they still had record revenue and earnings. 433 00:20:25,760 --> 00:20:28,480 They were able to make up for that gap with iPhone with services. 434 00:20:28,480 --> 00:20:34,720 And then on the T-Mobile side, they had extremely good earnings across the board. 435 00:20:34,720 --> 00:20:40,680 They said that they added 900,000 monthly subscribers, 436 00:20:40,680 --> 00:20:43,360 mostly for premium 5G plans. 437 00:20:43,360 --> 00:20:46,080 They had their greatest growth here in history, 438 00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:51,280 which drove revenue up 6% to almost $17 billion, 439 00:20:51,280 --> 00:20:55,160 while revenue increased 7% to $22 billion. 440 00:20:55,160 --> 00:21:00,960 So they beat expectations, which were $21.3 billion for revenues. 441 00:21:00,960 --> 00:21:05,400 Q4 was really good to them, and 2024 as a year was good to them. 442 00:21:05,400 --> 00:21:09,320 And then all of their partnerships with OpenAI and NVIDIA, 443 00:21:09,320 --> 00:21:11,720 and they talked about 6G, 444 00:21:11,720 --> 00:21:15,560 and they planned to be the company that drives 6G forward with NVIDIA. 445 00:21:15,560 --> 00:21:21,480 And they also had Net Ads on the broadband side as well. 446 00:21:21,480 --> 00:21:23,840 I think they put wars in Net Ads. 447 00:21:23,840 --> 00:21:28,280 Yeah, so postpaid Net account additions in Q4 were $263,000, 448 00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:31,640 that's for the whole company, $1.1 million for the whole year. 449 00:21:31,640 --> 00:21:33,960 And then let's see, I'm trying to find the, oh yeah, 450 00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:40,240 high-speed customer addition of $428,000 in Q4 with $1.7 million in 2024. 451 00:21:40,240 --> 00:21:48,000 So they added almost 2 million new customers to their already large customer base or broadband. 452 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:50,320 And yeah, they had a pretty strong outlook. 453 00:21:50,320 --> 00:21:57,920 They expect EBITB between $33.1 and $33.6 billion for 2025. 454 00:21:57,920 --> 00:22:03,800 And they expect Net Cash operating activities to be expected to be between $26 billion and $27 billion. 455 00:22:03,800 --> 00:22:06,760 So they are printing cash. 456 00:22:06,760 --> 00:22:09,920 And yeah, things are just very good overall. 457 00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:14,600 They returned $31 billion to shareholders in 2024. 458 00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:19,360 So this was a really good summary for both Q4 for them, but also for the whole year. 459 00:22:19,360 --> 00:22:23,160 And yeah, Q4, they had $3 billion in net income. 460 00:22:23,160 --> 00:22:26,320 And in all of 2024, they had $11 billion. 461 00:22:26,320 --> 00:22:29,920 It was their highest net income in company history. 462 00:22:29,920 --> 00:22:32,760 So they just had a great 2024. 463 00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:39,120 And I think a lot of that just came from building a really good network and making sure that customers are happy. 464 00:22:39,120 --> 00:22:46,080 And I think they're going to drive that forward in 2025 with all these differentiated services that they introduced last year. 465 00:22:46,080 --> 00:22:48,040 And yeah, I'm excited. 466 00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:52,080 I'll tell you anecdotally, I've been a team of customers for a very long time, 467 00:22:52,080 --> 00:22:57,160 but I just started using the TCL 5G modem that they sent me that runs on bread cap. 468 00:22:57,160 --> 00:23:01,280 And it's a really good experience because you're just getting 30 up, 30 down, no matter where you go. 469 00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:02,160 Yeah, it's impressive. 470 00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:03,600 They continue to execute. 471 00:23:03,600 --> 00:23:15,200 And that was a great cover, a very comprehensive summary on the only thing that I would add to that is that T-Mobile for business is also growing its footprint. 472 00:23:15,200 --> 00:23:21,760 So Cali Field spent some time during the earnings call speaking to that as well. 473 00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:28,760 And that was my biggest criticism of T-Mobile is that they were very disruptive and consumer, but they were one trick pony. 474 00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:36,320 And that they really needed to balance out what they were doing from a business perspective, be competitive with the likes of AT&T and Verizon. 475 00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:50,520 So I think they finally, they took terminal velocity there and they're growing in services beyond access with an enterprise and reselling things like SD-WAN and that sort of things. 476 00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:54,120 And that's going to be a very profitable business for them longer term. 477 00:23:54,120 --> 00:24:06,080 We have a super reliable network that's very important to enterprises that are running mission critical applications that are automating OT environments for manufacturing automation and that sort of thing. 478 00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:08,640 So it just rounds out what they're doing. 479 00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:12,440 And it's great to see all the strides that they've made over the years. 480 00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:14,360 Friend, it was another great episode. 481 00:24:14,360 --> 00:24:16,080 Why don't you take us home? 482 00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:16,800 Absolutely. 483 00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:19,880 We hope our viewers and listeners from this week's topics interesting. 484 00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:28,200 If anyone out there would like to reach out for specific insights on this specific 5G topic for another podcast, please reach out to us on social media. 485 00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:53,200 Will is at WillTownTech and I'm at On Shell SOG.