Welcome to episode 216 of the G2 on 5G.
It's the latest on site scoop on everything 5G.
We cover six topics in about 20 minutes
and it's brought to you by More Insights and Strategy.
I'm Will Townsend and joining me again this week
is fellow analyst Anshul Sag.
Let's get started with my first topic.
So Anshul, you and I just got off of a live stream
with T-Mobile and they've announced four new enhancements
to its T-Priority 5G slice for first responders.
So I wanna cover that and then have a discussion with you
about what you thought about the live stream.
Four things that were mentioned.
One, that the city of New York and its first responders
are exclusively using T-Mobile's network
and the T-Priority slice for first responder applications.
The second is an announcement of partnerships
with a number of different companies,
including Samsung, G-TACS and Skydo.
Third, exclusive benefits for individual first responders
like free access to the T-Priority network slice.
And then finally, the $2 million donation
for charitable support to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation,
which supports families that have lost first responders.
At a high level, they did this in New York.
It just ended, you and I dropped off,
but they talked about their capacity
with their standalone 5G network,
compared it to FirstNet, FirstNet's LTE capabilities.
And I think the stat that Cali Field
that leads T-Mobile for business used
was a 10X improvement in capacity versus FirstNet.
I would need to verify that.
But also not to be outdone
because they are the grand marketers.
Later tonight, they are throwing a party with Post Malone
and they're inviting thousands of first responders
in the New York area.
So what do you think about all that?
There's a lot to talk about, a lot to cover,
as you just said.
I think the interesting thing is that
they're including satellite messaging
free for the Go 5 first responder plan.
So I think that's interesting.
That makes a lot of sense too.
And then on top of that,
I think that this is just them trying to show
the amount of value that first responders can get
with T-Mobile because this is a fairly robust network
that has a lot of capacity.
And they are prioritizing first responders above all else,
which is why this slice exists.
So I think they're trying to build trust,
but also show value because a lot of these first responders
are used to using FirstNet and Verizon.
And they want to show them that they are
not only competitive, but better in ways.
And it will be really interesting to see
how this shakes out over time.
Obviously T-Priority is fairly new.
It's not even a year old at this point.
I think it's going to take some time for them
to show momentum.
But I think New York being their really first big customer
for T-Priority, which we already knew
because they had talked about that
when they first launched T-Priority.
At the capital markets day that you and I attended.
So that's not really new news,
but what I think is interesting is that
the city of New York seems very satisfied
and happy with the service.
And truthfully T-Mobile's network is world class in New York.
So it makes sense for New York City to use the best 5G network
for this application.
Whenever I go to New York, I generally don't even bother
using wifi and the hotels I stay at
because I'm getting 600 to 700 megabits per second
over T-Mobile's network.
So even a fraction of that just being dedicated
for first responders, I think makes a lot of sense.
It will be interesting to see what happens
in other metropolitan areas.
I have a feeling that their first customers
that they'll get in this T-Priority segment
will most likely be in places
where they already have pretty good coverage.
Let's say Kansas City, right?
That's one of their old HQs for Sprint.
I think you're in Kansas City right now, right?
I am and I'm freezing my ass off.
We got six inches of snow last night.
So.
But yeah, stuff like that,
I think those will be the low hanging fruit.
And then once those really show,
I think they'll just use those as proof points
as to why other cities should adopt.
New York City is a hell of an anchor point
because it boasts the largest first responder team
in the entire nation.
And there were some stats that Callie Field referenced.
9 million 911 calls,
that can't be on a daily basis, can it?
Maybe it is, but it was staggering the volume of calls.
And obviously it's a huge city.
And yeah, I think what T-Mobile is doing is very unique.
It's certainly showcasing its standalone network.
There've really been, from the competition standpoint,
not anything that's similar to this.
And you could argue that this deployment in New York City
is a great example of the power of network slicing
to be able to slice a part of the public network
and guarantee levels of latency and throughput.
And some of the applications include Drone,
yeah, Wiscatio, and yeah.
So I mean, I think it's super compelling.
I do believe that other mobile network operators
will follow.
AT&T has invested a lot in FirstNet.
I have to go verify some of those claims
that T-Mobile made about capacity
and it wasn't really an apples to orange comparison,
but yeah, on the surface,
you're right, the New York City announcement,
that's not new news.
That was announced at the capital market stay
that you and I attended in San Francisco last year.
But maybe a nuance to what was announced today
was that the city of New York
has completely standardized on T-Mobile.
It's primary mobility provider.
So anyway-
I was just gonna add,
the Samsung partnership is for rugged devices
like smartphones and tablets.
Skydio is for drones and Getac is for laptops.
So they have all the right partners in place now
to roll that out and have the pre-qualified devices
already running on the network.
Obviously they'll add more,
they'll probably have to add Toughbook to that for laptops.
And there'll be other smartphones and other drones,
but I think these three partners
are a very strong place to start.
Yeah, and I did ask a question that wasn't answered around,
are there any sort of plans for unique,
beyond the device stuff,
any sort of unique applications
that the first responders can leverage
on this network slice?
One of the presenters,
he came from the municipality, not in New York,
but I think it was from Florida,
and talked about how important it was
to provide first responders
with personal access on their phones
when these networks are congested,
so that at the end of a very long day
taking care of others,
that they can connect over video or FaceTime
with their family and friends.
Yeah, on the surface, it's super powerful,
definitely compliments what AT&T is doing with FirstNet,
and I do believe
that other mobile network operators will follow.
But hey-
We need a rugged one of these.
What's that?
We need a rugged one of these.
For sure, man.
And let's go to your first topic,
and this is really big news.
It's something that you and I have been talking about
for almost five years,
but Apple finally launched,
its first 5G modem.
Yes, I've already written a research note about this,
which we'll probably be publishing in the next couple of days.
And it's interesting because
Apple announced that iPhone 16E,
which is supposed to replace the iPhone SE,
but it's $600.
iPhone SE is $429,
and sometimes sells for less than that.
And this new iPhone is designed
with the new C1 5G modem,
developed in-house by Apple.
And for people who are unfamiliar with the saga
behind the C1 modem,
it started with Apple actually moving to Intel
as its modem supplier,
and Intel had Apple as its sole modem customer.
And then Intel failed to deliver
what it needed to do for Apple to be successful,
and Apple left and went back to Qualcomm.
And then they ended up
buying all of Intel's modem assets in 2019,
and some of their engineering,
and they seemed to be confident
they would have something fairly soon,
but it took them about six years to do, almost six years.
And the reality is that modems are hard.
This modem does not have millimeter wave,
and it also does not have a bunch of other things
that we're not even aware of yet,
because we're gonna have to get devices in hand.
But I suspect it's not gonna have
six or seven carrier aggregation,
and it will most likely not be a 10 gigabit
per second modem.
But they did make a claim that it will be 25% more efficient
than all other modems that have come out before it.
They are clearly targeting this
towards a kind of customer base
that isn't that concerned with modem performance
or network performance,
and is more interested in battery life.
And that's where they went with this.
So I have a strong feeling that,
edge of network performance
will probably not be the greatest.
I have a strong feeling that customers will blame the network
when signal is poor, as opposed to blaming the device.
And yeah, we'll find out.
Band support is still unknown,
but expected that it will support all the necessary bands
that Apple's devices are expected to support in US and Europe.
And that was probably one of the biggest challenges for them
was ensuring that they had the right bands in place
on this device,
but they won't be having millimeter wave support in the US,
which means Verizon customers will have a worse experience
than they would have if they were on a previous generation
iPhone, but this does have an A18 in it.
However, the A18 has fewer GPU cores.
Also, this has one less camera than the iPhone 16.
It doesn't have ultra wideband.
It doesn't have Wi-Fi seven or 6E.
It has regular Wi-Fi six.
It doesn't do spatial video recording.
It does have type C,
but it's very much a kind of fallback version of the iPhone 16.
And I went back and looked,
and there's only one model of this device,
and that shows all of the band support.
So it does have all of the necessary bands supported,
but you're not getting anything beyond sub-6 5G
or anything above Wi-Fi six in terms of connectivity.
Also, it doesn't have Qi 2,
so I don't think it has MagSafe either.
There's a lot of things that have been cut out of this.
Also, it's not a dynamic island.
It has the good old forehead.
So this is like a cost down iPhone,
but it's like almost too expensive to be worthwhile,
in my opinion.
It should be more like 499,
which would make it closer to an iPhone SE,
because if you look at iPhone 15, which is last generation,
you actually get a better modem with more capabilities.
You still get Apple intelligence
because it's also an A series chip that's capable.
And those have potentially even better displays.
I think the iPhone 15,
which is basically the same price right now at 599,
it's like a better value.
I think. It's a better value.
And because of that,
I just think this needed to be cheaper than it is.
I would have a lot fewer criticisms
of all of the things that are missing.
I feel we're 499.
Yeah.
No, I agree.
And I caught some of your preliminary analysis
on LinkedIn and on X.
And it's interesting that Apple is testing the waters
with a feature down version with its new C1 modem, right?
Because I'm sure they wouldn't want to go wide
and integrate their own modem, I think,
on the upper end, right?
Yeah. The way you have to look at it is,
this is a lower volume part, lower risk.
And if something goes awry,
it doesn't completely destroy.
Crater themselves.
The company's core business, right?
Their core business is the main iPhone.
And then everything else is secondary.
So they will eventually,
I think what will happen is we'll get a C1 in this phone,
and then maybe we'll get a C2 in the mainstream iPhone,
and then a C3 in the Pro series down the road
with full feature everything.
Right. Yeah.
Very interesting.
Yeah. It took five plus years, but it's finally out.
So we can, now you can get your hands on a unit
and you can put it through its faces, right?
You bet I will.
Yeah. I know you will.
Hey, let's go to my second topic.
And I want to talk about Airspan
and they're the Energizer Bunny.
And we've talked about them before.
They've had successful pivots in the past.
They were very focused on WiMAX.
They pivoted out of that.
They had a nice run.
And then they got ahead of themselves.
And so they had to restructure.
And so a private equity company picked them up.
We've talked about how they've emerged from that.
They've shed the debt.
They've raised money.
And so there was a news earlier this week
around an acquisition of Corning Wireless' business.
And I caught an article on the Fierce Network
about what the company is doing to reinvigorate itself
and focus not only on Open RAN, which many believe,
and we've talked about this as well,
that the Trump administration is going to get back behind,
but as well as private networks.
And I think for the latter, the timing is great
because we're finally beginning to see the adoption
on private networks.
It's been very long tail.
And I think I've waxed on many podcasts
about why I thought that was the case
with the different ways to get to private networking
through the enterprise and some of the confusion
that occurred there.
But there's also some acknowledgement that Airspan,
excuse me, can make a go at it.
They recently received a $42 million grant
to fund RAN development.
And yeah, if you look at the history of the company,
it's nearly 30 years old,
but now it's in startup mode again.
I think it's good.
I think it's good to have another player.
You've got companies like that we've talked about,
Mavenir that have been missing the mark here.
JMA wireless continues to be a very strong contender
when it comes to open RAN and private networks,
especially with federal government deployments.
But I think it's gonna be very interesting
to watch the Energizer Bunny and see what happens here.
So I don't know if you caught any of the recent news
around Corning.
We've obviously talked about their emergence
from bankruptcy and restructuring,
but what do you think?
Do you think they're late to the party?
I did catch the Corning component.
I think that's really interesting
because it sounds like it's right
within Airspan's wheelhouse.
And I think it does help them strengthen
their in-building connectivity portfolio.
So I think that's good.
And yeah, I do think it's interesting when it comes to them
that they are pursuing open RAN more.
And yeah, I think you're right.
This is very much and moving into that direction.
I can't say that I really have a strong opinion
of their products themselves
because I'm not particularly knowledgeable there,
but it seems like they're trying to move
in the direction of where the market's going.
And I wish them the best in terms of being able
to continue to move in that direction with the market.
But yeah, it's always tough when a company goes
in bankruptcy, but sometimes companies don't,
they don't really launch in the right direction
or they don't have the right things in place,
but it does seem like they're on the move
and trying to move in the right direction.
Yeah, I'm gonna try to get time with their new CEO
at Mobile World Congress when I'm there in early March.
And hopefully I'll have more to share on future podcasts.
But let's hit your second topic.
And you wanna talk about Vodafone
and their plans to cover Spain pretty ubiquitously
with 5G by the end of this year.
Yes, first of all, Spain is one of the largest countries
in Europe and covering 90% of the population is a big deal.
That said, it's not 90% of the country
because the center of the country
is almost completely unpopulated,
which is really interesting.
It's also one of the hottest parts of Europe in the summer.
It's like a, it's not a desert, but it's almost a desert.
What would Matthew Potter say in whatever movie that was?
It's like an Africa hot.
Yeah.
And yeah, this is their 5G network,
mostly deployed on 700 megahertz,
but they've got, they said that this expansion
includes bringing 5G to approximately
a thousand additional municipalities across 49 provinces.
And that coverage will extend to 513 municipalities
with fewer than a thousand residents.
So that's very much our rural push.
And then it said 388 municipalities with under 10,000,
which is still very rural.
And then 56 municipalities with populations
between 10,000, 50,000.
So those are all very much like small towns
that are getting improved 5G or just getting 5G coverage.
700 megahertz seems to be the core of this enablement,
which makes sense because low band is really great for that.
T-Mobile is one of the few carriers in the world
that has access to 600 megahertz.
But Verizon and AT&T have used 700 and 800
to do that as well.
So it won't necessarily be lightning fast 5G,
but it will give an improvement potentially over 4G,
even if it's the same amount of spectrum.
Hey, I didn't catch this announcement,
but obviously Vodafone is heavily invested
in AST Space Mobile and you're talking about rural coverage.
Was there any mention of like how direct
to smartphone connectivity will factor in all this
via lower orbit?
No, but I think the important thing to remember
is that generally speaking,
a lot of this direct to cell satellite connectivity
isn't going to be very fast.
And you're more likely to want to use terrestrial
when you can, but I'm sure there are going to be places
even within Spain where Vodafone's partnership
with AST Space Mobile will come in handy.
People will be able to message
and potentially down the future of voice and video.
I just think that it's a long-term thing.
And I strongly believe it will be more
of a carrier component.
I still believe it's going to be like a component carrier
kind of thing where people will use 5G as an anchor
when it's possible to maintain coverage
and then everything else will latch on later on.
But yeah, it's an interesting thing.
There was no mention from what I can tell,
but I think it's a net positive
because Spain is actually like pretty progressive
in terms of anticipating growth
and using technology to accelerate growth.
And Spain has actually been having
quite the economic renaissance
over the last five or 10 years
as they've planned their build-outs
of technology and infrastructure.
And I was going to joke and say,
maybe I get a chance to try this out when I go to Barcelona,
but I'm not going to seriously.
You might get a chance to experience this
maybe up in the mountains above Barcelona.
Yeah, I agree with you.
When you look at Europe
and you look at technology leadership,
traditionally that's been in places like Germany,
but you're right, Spain has really picked up the slack.
And hey, Mobile World Congress,
the big event is in Barcelona every year
and I'm already taking my vitamins
and getting ready for that.
I'll be there with our chief analyst, Patrick Newman
or Patrick Morehead, excuse me,
and Daniel Newman, the CEO of the Future and Group.
Hey Pat, I apologize for,
but you guys are becoming the same person
it seems as you hit the road together.
But hey, let me go to my third and final topic
when we dig myself out of that hole.
And I want to talk about Red Hat, DRIID and NAPATEC
and they're teaming up
for private 5G network edge deployments.
And I've talked about DRIID and NAPATEC in the past.
So DRIID is an Irish-based core infrastructure,
mobile infrastructure provider in Ireland.
If I didn't mention that,
I'm actually wearing my Irish sweater
that I purchased when I was there a year ago.
I had a chance to wear it here in the snowy tundra
of Grain Valley, Missouri outside of Kansas City.
But this is an interesting announcement
and it got me thinking,
you and I have been talking about hybrid AI
and the need to enable edge connectivity.
And what's really interesting is what DRIID is doing.
It's taken a version of its 5G core
and it's basically re-architected it
for distributed private 5G deployments
for enterprises and network edges.
And I've talked about NAPATEC in the past as well.
They do user plane function offload.
And so they're partnered with Red Hat as well
to provide sort of a turnkey solution.
And in reading, this was an article
that RCR Wireless wrote up.
They quote a statement, I think, from all three companies
about that this effort is maximizing the benefits
of standalone networks
and bringing functions like 5G packet core
more performant to the edge.
And I think that's gonna unlock a host of new use cases.
And I'm beginning to see that.
I've talked about when you put computing near closer
to the data creation points on a network,
you can really supercharge and unlock use cases.
And I'll mention, this is somewhat related
to service provider, but I was spending time
with Cisco in Amsterdam a few weeks ago
and they announced a series of smart switches
that embed DPUs to basically embed network
and security services.
So they can do a lot of edge functionality here.
And there's certainly a service provider angle
to that as well.
But it's interesting, NAPATEC's a fairly small company,
not well known.
Gotten to know Charlie over the years.
He's led a lot of the efforts there.
He is retiring.
So Charlie, I know you listen to the podcast every week.
I hope I'm doing this announcement justice,
but it's been great working with you
and I wish you all the best in retirement.
But at the end of the day, I think this is
a very strong partnership and certainly Red Hat
brings a lot of credibility to it.
I know you're the device guy and the infrastructure guy.
This probably doesn't excite you very much,
but anything to add before we move
to your third and final topic?
I would say that this sounds like a good team up.
I don't really understand the Red Hats role in this
because I know what Druid and NAPATEC do.
But generally speaking, I think 5G network edge deployments
are going to ramp up as 5G becomes more prominent
with non-consumer applications
and industrial applications become more common
and require more expertise.
Yeah, to answer your question,
Red Hat handles a lot of the orchestration
that makes all of this happen and function.
But yeah, good insight there, my friend.
Let's hit your third and final topic
and you want to talk about OPPO and Huawei.
Yes, so this week OPPO launched its new Find N5,
which is a foldable, it's a book foldable
and it's actually the thinnest in the world.
It is 8.93 millimeters folded.
So it's four and a half millimeters unfolded.
It's only 229 grams.
They say it's as light as a coffee cup.
When it's open, there's almost no visible hinge.
In addition to that, it has a 6.62 front screen
and they claim, I don't know if they claim,
but I saw someone claim that their 8.12 inch screen
is actually bigger than an iPad mini,
which is pretty crazy.
That is crazy.
And then on top of that, it's like IP 60,
I think it's IP 6X.
It's got improved durability, better cameras,
2,500 nit brightness, 120 Hertz refresh rate.
It's really like the pinnacle foldables.
But then this same week,
Huawei expanded their tri-fold foldable,
which is the Mate XT to markets outside of China.
And I think they did their launch in Malaysia
while OPPO launched in Singapore.
So basically in the same place.
And I've been seeing a lot of people
posting about both phones.
I'm really excited and hope to get my hands on one of them,
but no word on US market availability of either.
But the one thing to note is when the Huawei tri-fold
is fully unfolded, it's a 10 inch screen, which is-
Yeah, it's massive.
It's massively expensive too.
What's the street price on the Huawei product?
I think that it's not gonna be in dollars.
It looks like, yeah, everyone's talking about this
and the N5, cause they both launched at the same time,
but I don't see any pricing.
Not it's, I had Huawei's site open.
People are selling it for five grand.
I was gonna say, I think the street is like four grand.
Right now it says, so there's a 3,500 euro price point.
Okay.
Yeah. Yeah.
They're saying, yeah, it's 3,500 euros.
I think the Chinese price was 2,700 or 2,800
converted from Yuan, but that's without any kind of transport
or tariff costs.
And there are artificially deflate prices
into phones in China,
cause there's a lot more competition there too.
But yeah, I think these are both great foldables,
but I think the thing that makes me the saddest
is that they're not gonna be available in the US,
especially since a lot of people are expecting the Find N5
to actually be available in the US as an OPPO,
sorry, as a OnePlus Open 2.
And OnePlus posted like a couple of days before the launch
that they weren't gonna be launching any foldables this year.
So I was really bummed out
cause I'm a big fan of the OnePlus Open,
which was like the Find N3, if I remember correctly,
they're like very similar.
They're part of the same BBK group.
But yeah, this OPPO is 5,600 milliamp hour battery.
It uses just an absolute,
it's using a Snapdragon 8 Elite,
but it has everything you would want
from a flagship phone that's also a foldable,
which is what I want.
And I was really hoping to get that from the Pixel Fold
or Pixel Pro 9 Fold, but I didn't.
So I'm back on the Samsung S25 Ultra.
Yeah, it's unfortunate, but those are great phones.
And if you're not living in the US,
I would recommend either of them if you can afford them.
Yeah, well buddy.
Hey man, it's been another great podcast.
I'm gonna have to pack up and drive 12 hours in the snow
from Kansas City back home.
Do you have any big plans for Friday or the weekend?
No, but I am going to be in New York next week.
So that's my travel.
Amazon's having a devices launch.
So I'll be there covering that.
Awesome.
I get a week in my home in Florida next week,
supervising a little counter installation,
my annual DIY trip.
And then I head out to Mobile World Congress.
You and I are gonna both be on the road
for the next several weeks,
but hey, it's been another great podcast.
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 write insights
on a specific 5G topic for a future podcast,
please reach out to us on social media.
Will is at will.tech and I'm at Anshul Saag.
We hope you have a great weekend
and please tune in again next week.
And don't forget to rate and subscribe.