We are live with episode 219 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 fellow analyst Anshul Saag. Let's get started
with my first topic and I wanna talk about T
-Mobile and they are readying their plans for
5G advance in the United States. And this is
actually a light reading article that our friend
Mike Dano wrote after speaking with Will. at
T -Mobile. Now, one of the challenges is the
whole definition of 5G advanced according to
the 3GPP is pretty vague and ambiguous. Broad.
Yeah, very broad. And so this is how Ulf and
the team at T -Mobile define it. Not surprisingly,
number one has to involve a standalone 5G core,
which T -Mobile launched in 2020. T -Mobile also
defines 5G advanced utilizing carrier aggregation.
and today t -mobile currently aggregates four
bands on the downlink and t on the uplink and
they expect to increase that downlink to five
in the near future we've talked about red cap
reduced capacity 5g t -mobile includes that as
part of what they're going to do with 5g advanced
and then finally this is something new to me
you may be aware of it l4s which is a technology,
yeah, available on wired networks, but it's intended
to reduce network latency and packet loss while
maintaining high throughput, thereby improving
real -time application performance. There's really
not a timeframe on when this is going to occur,
but T -Mobile has indicated that they've begun
the process of deploying 5G Advanced. And from
my perspective, this is their opportunity to
put their foot on the accelerator, continue to
leverage what they've done with standalone. to
drive uh new value and and you know performance
and flexibility within their network and i know
you caught this my friend what are your thoughts
about all this is this a true definition of what
we would consider 5g advanced from your standpoint
i think 5g advanced is going to actually carry
a lot of weight in the future yeah i think there's
going to be a lot of features that will be added
in the future and it's really interesting because
If you look at all the new 5G modems that are
out, they're not release 18 modems. They're release
17 modems with release 18 features. I think right
now the problem with release 18 is it's not technically
finished yet. It's a little bit nebulous still.
And I think once the standard is like fully released,
then I think it'll be a lot easier to talk about
5G advanced a little bit more clearly. But yeah,
I have no reason to believe that they don't have
a release 18 network or they won't. They've been
the fastest to deploy most new standards. And
they probably have the largest standalone 5G
network in the world. Yeah, for sure. So I wouldn't
be surprised to see them leveraging that to deploy
Release 18. In terms of steps, I see Release
15 was a big one. Release 16 was a little bit
less big. 17 was a little bit also incremental.
And 18, I see, is a big jump. But the thing is...
18 builds on everything in the previous releases.
So you have to be up to date to be able to do
release 18. And I think that's one thing to consider.
And maybe some networks are going to skip. We've
seen things happen where Geo, they just skipped
NSA entirely and went full SA, right? And I could
see Geo being a release 18 network fairly soon
as well. I have no reason to question T -Mobile's
aspirations here. And their definition seems
pretty on point. And we are seeing a lot of use
of L4S specifically in a lot of trials and tests.
The T -Mobile XR trial with Qualcomm and Ericsson
that utilize L4S network slicing. I think we're
on the right path. And I think we'll probably
see more release 18 networks or release 18 -ish
networks in the next year or two, especially
since we're seeing a lot of Chinese operators
talk about that as well. Yeah, the L4S thing
was an education point for me. Obviously, you're
very aware of it. You're Mr. Technical. I'm technical
too. But yeah, it was interesting to learn about
that. And I think from my perspective, what T
-Mobile is focused on is finding their own focus
on 5G advanced. It's straight up from my perspective.
It makes a lot of sense. So it'll be interesting
to see how things progress and how the actual
release standard comes to fruition. But let's
go to your first topic. And this is pretty big
news. So late breaking news. Intel has appointed
its permanent CEO. And you want to talk a little
bit. I wasn't very familiar with this particular
person. I know that he was formerly on the board.
Obviously, you're much more knowledgeable about
the new CEO. But you want to talk about how his
appointment might affect the future of 5G and
what Intel is doing. And by the way, at Mobile
World Congress, I did sit down with Intel. I
think we talked about that on a prior podcast.
Got an understanding of what Intel is doing with
Xeon 6, that SoC, to drive not only CPCing with
that, but also managing a whole host of virtualized
network functionality with that. But hey, let
me let you take it away there. Yes, Liputan was
previously on Intel's board from 2022 to 2024.
So he was on the board for about two years. Yeah.
And he actually resigned. about seven months
ago, there wasn't a clear indication of why,
but the timing was very close to when Intel's
former CEO, Pat Gelsinger, was, I guess, asked
to retire. I'm not really sure what the clear
terminology there is, but did not finish the
job. And I think a lot of people would have liked
to have seen him finish the job. And Liputan
actually left before that. It's very interesting
that Lipu Tan is now the replacement for Pat
Gelsinger. He's actually a little bit older than
Pat. Yeah, 65, right? Yeah, I looked at his age.
And the reason why that's relevant is actually
because before Pat Gelsinger, Intel had a policy
of forced retirement at 65. So it's interesting
that this is beginning at 65. But other than
that. I would say he's one of the few people
in the industry that has the experience of turning
around a semiconductor company like he did with
Cadence, but also having the ability to understand
foundry and chip design, which he's very uniquely.
He served at Cadence as CEO from 2009 to 2021.
He was able to help that company recover its
share price and its place in the market. And
yeah, I just think that. When you look at what's
possible, I think there's very few people who
have the experience and knowledge that he does.
So I think he's the most qualified person for
this job. And honestly, he was at the top of
the list for most people, including myself and
our boss, Pat. Pat knows him well, right? Yeah.
Yeah. And I just think that I'm more inclined
to believe that he knows that Intel needs to
stay the course. And if you look at where Foundry
and Product are today, they're actually... pretty
good place. I think the biggest weakness that
Intel has is on AI, specifically with AI in the
data center, not so much on client. And that's
actually where he has a lot of experience. He's
on the board of a lot of companies and has lots
of experience in AI investment as well. So I
just think that he's the right person for this
job. My biggest concern is like whether or not
he has the time before he needs to retire because
65 is already. up there that's considered retirement
age in most places right so it'll be interesting
to see how long he sticks around there's a serious
revamp that needs to happen in the data center
for intel and they might be on the right path
but it's still unclear about accelerators and
maybe they have to acquire or event joint venture
with some companies and make that happen but
regardless i i think that this is the right move
and i think Intel stock popped 12 % on the news.
So it was very clearly a vote of confidence from
investors. And Intel will be having its big vision
conference in Las Vegas, I believe, April 1st
and 2nd. I think there will be some opportunities
there to get an update from the company and hear
from Liputan himself about the direction. He
did publish a long letter to the employees. talking
about remaking the future of the company and
how they want to be engineering focused. And
it'll be really interesting to see where the
company moves under his leadership. But there's
definitely changes that need to be made. And
I think that's quite obvious to everyone. It's
just important to see how those changes are made
and what direction they go in. Yeah, I'm reading
between the lines, but I did read some excerpts
from that employee letter. And certainly he wants
to bring Intel back into its engineering prowess.
That's what Intel has been known for. And I read
between the lines that I think one of the reasons
why he departed the board was that he fundamentally
disagreed with some of the direction on outsourcing
engineering work and that sort of thing. So I
feel like he's the right person for the role.
He's got the pedigree. He brings the engineering.
background to your point he has a record of with
cadence and bringing him back to profitability
as well so i think it's a strong move into your
point after hours the stock was up 12 so that's
a very positive indication and then not not that
i that i put a lot of credence in what a lot
of the the financial analysts on wall street
say but in general i think it was very well received
that the news was very well received on wall
street and that's important for info Because
it's been a roller coaster there. They've had
their ups and downs. And engineering execution
has been a big issue for Intel. So it'll be interesting
to see what transpires. But on the surface, this
is very positive. I will add that as of today,
the market was down like 5 % or 10%, depending
on the company. Intel's up 15 % after the additional
on top of the after hours growth. So it popped
a total of 15 % on this news. Excellent. Interesting.
Cool. Well, we'll keep our eyes and ears peeled
to all of this and see how things progress. But
let's go to my second topic. And I want to talk
about Broadcom. And this is an announcement that
I did not catch during Mobile World Congress,
but this was something I found on the Fierce
Wireless Network. But Broadcom apparently announced
a converged 5G fiber and satellite appliance,
and it's called VeloSky. And what's interesting
is that Broadcom is targeting this particular
solution to help mobile network operators, communication
service providers, supposedly recoup their investments
in 5G and satellite. And it's targeting the enterprise
needs for a converged architecture that can feed
AI applications. And I read through the article
and from my perspective, I think the value. in
providing a single link for multiple network
types could be potentially very compelling. This
plays really well into Broadcom silicon strings
within networking. And so I think it's interesting,
basically. What the Fierce Network article summarizes
is that given the shift with AI applications,
the cloud, the whole notion of hybrid deployment,
and then the notion of software -defined networks
has just created additional complexities. And
when you're managing multiple connectivity links,
it complicates things, especially for enterprises.
So this seems to me to be the Broadcom's easy
button for the enterprise. And the timing is
great, obviously, given... ai workloads and the
the challenges and demands that those create
on on network infrastructure in general so i
don't know if you caught this but any thoughts
before we move to your next topic no i think
it's interesting the converged nature of it i
think will potentially save money but it's unclear
whether or not this requires a re -architecting
of the rest of the network So I think it's probably
beneficial to companies that are already utilizing
Broadcom infrastructure. But yeah, I think it's
interesting that it's a clever name. And yeah,
I think it's definitely interesting, especially
since they talk about faster monetization of
5G. Yeah, and that's the classic rub, right?
For operators that invest billions of dollars
in license spectrum and infrastructure for each
of these generational network. topologies and
finding opportunities to monetize beyond just
simply access is super important. And there's
tremendous potential, obviously, with AI as a
news hybrid. But I think the timing is great,
plays very well into Broadcom strengths. And
so it'll be interesting to see how things play
out here. But let's move to your second topic.
And this is pretty interesting. I didn't catch
it. So I'm interested to learn more from you
about it. But you want to talk about Vodafone
UK and Ericsson and the use of AI. to actually
reduce the energy consumption on 5G networks.
Yes. So this actually, I'm surprised you didn't
see this because every publication wrote about
it. But basically they did a trial in the UK
using Ericsson Advanced AI and ML powered software.
And they were able to lower the power usage of
5G radio units by as much as 30 select sites
in London. That's crazy. And this was... Using
Ericsson's advanced AI and machine learning -based
software solutions, the Ericsson Service Continuity
AI App Suite with intelligent energy efficiency
dynamically adjusts the network power consumption
based on demand. Say that fast three times. I
know. It's way too many words. But they said
that they implemented three key energy -saving
features, 5G deep sleep. 4g cell sleep mode orchestration
and radio power efficiency heat map and erickson
further explained that 5g deep sleep uses ai
driven predictive algorithms to allow radios
to enter an ultra low energy hybridization state
reducing power usage by up to 70 during off peak
hours and then that 4g cell sleep mode orchestration
does a behavioral model of network cells to fine
-tune sleep parameters to ensure that power savings
doesn't affect performance and then the radio
power efficiency map uses ml to create a visual
representation of all the network cells identifying
and ranking underperforming sites for targeted
efficiency improvements so those are like the
big three things that they were able to implement
and that's how they achieved these capabilities
they used ericsson's antenna integrated radio
530 5322 and baseband 6651 and they use a snapdragon
x65 modem to rf system in the devices yeah my
god like a third energy efficiency that's huge
man it is yeah it's operators some of their biggest
costs oh it's the number one operational expense
line is your power bill when chris sambar was
running networks at at &t he told me it was like
their power bills like in the billions We were
just complaining before we got started on our
podcast about your power bill and your double
payment. Yes, of course. Yeah, think about the
power bill that these mobile network operators
have to fit. Super compelling. Hey, man, let's
hit my third and final. I'm going to be really
quick on this one before the cold medication
wears off. But I caught this on, where was this?
This was also, this was on the Fierce Electronics
website, and I didn't catch this, but Qualcomm
recently acquired a company called Edge Impulse
to accelerate its drive. Dragonwing IoT design
one. So we've talked about Dragonwing. We've
talked about how that's Qualcomm's new brand
for its infrastructure extension. What's really
interesting about Edge Impulse, apparently they
were already working with them. And this is typical,
right? I think Qualcomm works with these really
cool companies and then they figure out, wow,
the IP is awesome. We ought to integrate it.
But Edge Impulse already supports Dragonwing,
two processors, the QCS6490 and 5430. But what's
interesting about Edge Impulse is that it provides
a developer toolset that allows applications
to be built for asset tracking and monitoring,
manufacturing, anomaly detection, predictive
maintenance, and other things, including the
use of AI with computer vision. audio and speech
recognitions. And this complements what obviously
Qualcomm is doing, integrating NPE and XPE functionality
into its ASICs. And also, I think on a prior
podcast, it was probably last year, you and I
talked about how Qualcomm launched its AI Hub.
which is designed to provide better inference
performance with reduced model sizes and memory.
So this is highly complementary to their overall
IoT strategy. And from my perspective, Qualcomm
dabbled there for a while, but now they're super
serious. New branding, a recent acquisition to
really double down on IoT. compete with the likes
of MediaTek and others in this space. So I don't
know if you caught the news, but what do you
think about all that? Sorry, I had to run quickly.
I think it really integrates well into Qualcomm's
IoT growth strategy. They've been making lots
of acquisitions in the IoT space. It naturally
makes sense that they would go after someone
like Edge Impulse. And it seemed like our colleague,
Bill, really thought this was a good fit for
a lot of reasons. Yeah. And in general, I think,
yeah. And I think the market in general kind
of received it pretty positively. Yeah, I know.
I agree with that as well. Qualcomm is just a
machine. They continue to execute and be very
laser focused on all of these adjacencies within
their wheelhouse. Let's hit your third and final.
And you want to talk about NTN and VSAT and Space
42 have signed an MOU. So what's that all about?
I didn't catch that either. So like I. So Viasat
is a San Diego satellite company and Space 42
is a Emirati space company. And they are they've
signed an MOU to try to figure out how they're
going to serve the direct to device satellite
connectivity market and implement 5G NTN as a
technology and. have the two companies work together
because Viasat's already partnered with the European
Safety Agency to also work with NTN direct -to
-device systems. So there's a lot of synergy
here for Viasat. They're a big satellite provider.
They provide the connectivity services on American
Airlines, I know, because I've been living on
an airplane the last six weeks. So they're working
together to... deploy these technologies. Space42
is a startup in the space tech space, and they
are working hard to make these partnerships work
together. But yeah, it's really cool, and it's
interesting to see more competition coming. I
was wondering when Biosat was going to enter
this space, but they've already announced some
partnerships with the European Space Agency as
well. Yeah, that's it. That's the click of it.
Yeah, and boy, this is the whole notion of it's
just going to continue to heat up. I think you're
going to continue to see more entrants. I think
I mentioned this on our last podcast when Abel
Avillian and I met sort of towards the end of
Mobile World Congress. And I'll be publishing
a Forbes article, by the way, that sort of captures
my highlights and insights from the show. And
I'm hoping I get that posted by the end of this
week or very early next week. But one of the
things that I go into a lot of detail about are
the edge use cases that are beyond what's considered
the standard fare for low Earth orbit satellite,
which is. terrestrial network gap coverage and
so and one of the things that about i talked
about was the ability to improve the whole broadband
connectivity experience on aircraft because it's
today right i saw our illustrious leader patrick
moorhead sharing something about a you know terrible
experience he had on a on a flight i don't know
if it was american or delta and i popped for
the internet on my way back from barcelona it
was less than ideal we don't want people doing
video calls on airplanes obviously but there
there's a tremendous opportunity to improve that
overall experience and just a host of other use
cases i'm going to say it one more time i've
said it a million times on this podcast over
the last nearly five years innovation Competition
breeds innovation, and it's a good thing, I think,
for the industry. But, my friend, it was another
great podcast. I got through it without coughing
once. I think I'm over the hump here. I'm over
the Spanish flu that I caught in Barcelona last
week, but 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 is at WillTownTech,
and I'm at Anshul Saag. We hope you have a great
weekend, and please tune in again next week.
And rate and subscribe. And yeah, don't forget
to rate and subscribe.