Welcome to episode 224 of the G2 on 5g. It's
the latest insight scoop on everything 5g and
more. 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. We've
been a little dark for the last couple of weeks,
but Anshul and I have both been traveling quite
a bit. This is the 5g bat phone in the Moxie
lower east hotel in Manhattan. And so that's
where I'll be recording our podcast today. But
I want to start with my first topic, AST Space
Mobile announcing a new consumer satellite service.
And so, Anshul, I don't know if you caught this,
but it was on the company's recent earnings call
where AST CEO Abel Avilian, one of my good friends,
talked about having a beta service available
sometime by the end of this year, then a commercial
service available in 2026. And this would include,
according to Abel, potentially text, internet
data, and access to applications like video conferencing.
So this is really interesting because when I
first weighed in on all of this a couple of years
ago, what I was really impressed with was that
AST Space Mobile was taking more of a middleware
approach, right? And enabling solutions and not
competing. And I contrasted. that with Starlink
because they obviously have a satellite service.
But now it seems AST Space Mobile's strategy
is changing a little bit. I can't find fault
with that because it's just a tremendous opportunity
for the company to monetize a service. But what
do you think? I'm assuming you caught this news.
I actually didn't. I've been buried. I've been
quite buried across many things. So I actually
did miss this. What I do think that's interesting
is that you're right. It does sound like they're
trying to become a bit more horizontal. And the
truth is, I think they started horizontal. Now
they're trying to move more vertical. But I think
what's interesting is this might be a function
of the agreements that they've put in place with
all of the different carriers. Because the thing
is that while AST does have the satellites and
the ground stations, they still have to also
have the spectrum. And I think maybe their agreements
with all of these carriers enables them to potentially
utilize these carriers spectrum around the world,
which would then potentially give them the opportunity
to use that spectrum for their own customers
and give those customers global coverage. Obviously
there would have to be, there's probably still
have to pay for that bandwidth, but I think it's
just. an opportunity for them to better utilize
the network they've already implemented make
the most of their satellite network because the
truth is if you look at the economics of a lot
of these satellite networks that predate all
these leo constellations that the number one
driver of profit for these networks is utilization
if they can get utilization as high as possible
without affecting the user experience i think
that's a real good thing for their long -term
viability as a satellite company because we've
seen a lot of satellite companies come and go
a few of them have gone bankrupt multiple times
i think that's really an important thing to consider
when it comes to ast is long -term viability
and and being that bridge between different parts
of the world parts of the world or world however
you want to say yeah yeah and hey a at t and
vodafone have both made a financial investment
in the company right You could think that, hey,
those carriers are not going to get in necessarily
to providing a discrete satellite -based broadband
service. But they will benefit with AST Space
Mobile doing that on their own because they've
made financial investments in the company. So
the strategy has changed a little bit. Last year,
the investments occurred by those two big MNOs,
including Google. So, yeah, I agree. They're
going to have to monetize the investment that
they're making. putting more and more satellites
in the air. So it makes perfect sense to me.
But hey, let's go to your first topic. And you
want to talk about Echo Star. I wasn't aware
of this, but they're potentially being investigated
by the FCC. Yeah, so this is an interesting development
because this actually started a few weeks ago.
And then it became clear that SpaceX's complaints
around Echo Star were very similar to what the
FCC. was investigating them about specifically
about their ability to deliver 5g services across
the us and whether they're using all their spectrum
licenses so this is really about echo star and
its boost mobile 5g network which i actually
recently got a tablet from boost to test out
their network so i'm excited to try that out
because it's been a while since they've launched
and i haven't had a chance to try it but really
what it is it's they're trying to say that Boost
isn't making their terms correct. And what's
really interesting is that there's a lot of political
back and forth because Erdogan is trying to get
the Trump administration to give them more wiggle
room like they did with Biden. And the FCC chair
Carr... has an investigation into Echosar specifically
regarding their their spectrum and the availability
to utilize a two gigahertz band. So it's interesting
as SpaceX wants to use this two gigahertz band.
Some people are wondering whether or not it has
to do with Trump's involvement with Elon and
whether or not SpaceX is part of this. It's really
unfortunate. And I really hope that. echo star
and boost do actually have a successful network
for for a lot of reasons but also they do have
a reputation for being a spectrum squad charlie's
got the biggest reputation doing that so i don't
care if we're talking about dish or echo star
it's the same thing it is but yeah it really
seems to be there's a lot of interest in the
spectrum that they have yeah but i i don't know
if i can really trust that it will be an objective
investigation, which is really my biggest concern.
Because it's not like we're the biggest fans
of Echo, Star, and Dish. But I just think that
it would be really unfair and unfortunate if
SpaceX was the one to be able to take advantage
of this technology, of this spectrum. So it'll
be really interesting to see how this investigation
moves forward and whether it will be a fair investigation.
So what's the expected sort of conclusion on
all this, Anshul? Has that been shared publicly?
expect when does the fcc expect to wind its its
investigation down and come to some decisions
they just said that they will they've started
their investigation yeah and there's a quote
in this light reading article it says carr said
he would do so to help inform the fcc's thinking
about echo star's use of spectrum so there's
A lot of really interesting things in here. The
context ahead of time is that there's some stuff
about SpaceX trying to convince FCC to take the
spectrum from Echo Star and give it to SpaceX.
SpaceX recently alleged in an FCC filing that
the 5G network built by Echo Star's dish network
in some cases operates at power levels that are
just 1 to 5 % of what would be expected as compared
to operations by its rivals. So they're trying
to say that they're not even trying to build
a network. And it's AWS four band. So it's two
gigahertz. It's 20, a block of 20 megahertz.
And then another block of 20 megahertz in the
2200 and 2000 megahertz bands. So there's a decent
amount of spectrum there. And it just, it seems
like SpaceX really wants a spectrum. And while
I think it's valid to question Echo stars. 5g
network i do think there should be an impartial
investigation to determine whether or not this
is spectrum squatting which we know they've been
responsible and caught doing before yeah i also
think other operators should have a chance at
that spectrum maybe it goes to auction i agree
but i don't think spacex should be the only ones
that have access to it i agree i agree and you're
right the optics on elon His involvement with
Doge, even if that's officially been concluded
or not, it puts a lot of things in question as
to whether is there going to be a fair evaluation
here. So I get it. We're not going to get political.
But yeah, it'll just be interesting. So we will
definitely monitor this situation. I wasn't aware
of this, and we might want to come back on a
future podcast and update our viewers and listeners.
Let me go to my second topic. I'm going to be
really quick with this. I hate to be cruel, but
I both got the email on Mobile World Congress
Las Vegas and its evolution, right? I think most
people know that MWC Las Vegas was a reconstituted
CTIA event. And the CTIA, wrong or indifferent,
just hasn't done a good job of getting people
to their event. So the GSMA folks came in, hoped
to save it. and turned it into a regional event
it was in la it was moved to vegas and i've attended
over the last few years and it's just never gotten
the momentum that it's needed and so now this
year you and i in our inboxes get this note around
how it's the events being rebranded to be focused
on more of an enterprise -led show and hey i
get it when you look at sort of private cellular
we are beginning to see the adoption ramp a little
bit although i did read some news recently from
another market research company that that kind
of they beg to differ they don't see the robustness
and the uptake on private cellular but wrong
or indifferent it's just really interesting and
just it makes me wonder and i think you and i
had a sidebar on this is it time just to put
a fork in this event because it's obviously it's
not getting the attendance that the other mwc
events get such as barcelona and singapore and
we're not singapore the asia events Shanghai
event as well. What do you think? Is it time
for folks to put a fork in it and move on? I
do think that this event should go away. But
I will also say, moving from LA to Vegas, I don't
think that really did anything for it. I think
it just made it easier for them to find hotels.
But what I do think is, I saw some recent news
that Verizon is going to start pivoting away
from talking about their network and more talking
about their services. And we've seen that from
T -Mobile and AT &T as well. So I think maybe
this is a change of sentiment from the carriers
who have been to the drivers of the CTIA event,
saying that maybe they want to turn this into
more of a telecom enterprise show where enterprise
companies and buyers and services can meld together
with telecoms to deploy appropriately. I'm not
really sure, but that's like... My only reasoning
why this might make sense is that operators are
trying to turn into enterprise solution providers
and that this might be their way of saying that.
Yeah, I know clearly with T -Mobile, what they're
doing with their advanced network solutions,
they are focused on outcome, not access. And
we're going to talk a little bit more about that
with my third and final topic. But I think it's
an accurate observation. And let's see if the
third time's a charm here, but I have your sentiment.
It's like, I don't plan to attend this year.
In fact, I've worked with the T -Mobile team
on the unconventional awards. This is part of
T -Mobile for business. And they've actually
moved that award celebration to a different event.
And so it won't be at MWC Las Vegas. And yeah.
So it'll be interesting. I don't want to throw
the baby out with the bathwater, but this event
just hasn't found its footing for many years.
So it'll be interesting to see what happens.
But hey, let's go to your second topic. You want
to talk about T -Mobile. They've got some information
that they posted from Ookla around the performance
of their network, and it's pretty impressive.
I did catch this news, but why don't you share
that with our viewers and listeners? Yeah, so
it's actually like a double whammy here. The
first was that they announced that they were
able to do 550 megabits per second uplink on
a sub -6 connection. So that's not with any millimeter
wave at all. So that's a pretty big achievement.
But then on top of that, there was an article
that I saw online reading that was about looking
at network performance. And there's a graph that
obviously I... I still have to figure out how
to use this platform, but in the future, I will
be able to show graphs as we do these live streams.
They showed the 21 Ultra, 22 Ultra, 23 Ultra,
24 Ultra, and 25 Ultra from Samsung and how those
perform on all three networks and how much better
your performance can improve as you upgrade to
a newer high -end smartphone. And the truth is
the S20 whatever Ultra is going to be the best
network performance device you have. That's why
obviously T -Mobile would benefit from this.
They were showing on the S25 Ultra that T -Mobile's
median download speed was 442 megabits per second.
That's compared to Verizon's 315 and AT &T's
216. But what's crazy is if you get like... let's
say you've got the s25 ultra on verizon you would
be as fast as the 22 ultra on t -mobile you know
now so it's really interesting because people
this is a conversation i always have with people
is if you're not having a good experience on
your phone it's probably your phone And it's
not the network. In fact, in some cases, you're
being left behind by the network because the
network's being upgraded. There's new bands being
introduced, new technologies. And your phone
doesn't have the capability. And your phone doesn't
support them. So if you had an S21 Ultra, your
peak speed on T -Mobile is almost half of what
it would be on a 25. So that's median download,
not even peak. So I just think that I live in
a world where I'm getting the latest S. S series
from Samsung. I'm lucky to be like that, but
the truth is it improves coverage, it improves
speeds, and it just shows when you have the right
equipment, you can really make the most of the
best network. And even on Verizon, you're getting
315 if you have the latest S25 Ultra. I think
it's really important that equipment makes a
difference. Modems make a difference. I'm actually
working on assessing the Apple C1 modem on the
new 16E and seeing how that compares to like
an S25 Ultra or maybe even a base 25 just because
those are more close in price. But anyways, just
something I'm working on, but also really shows,
you know, what you can do on a really good network
with a really good phone. Yeah. Yeah. You got
to have both, right? You got to have the phone
that's going to be compatible and you've got
to have a kick -ass network and T -Mobile's built
a kick -ass standalone network, right? But Verizon
and AT &T are closing the gap there. But yeah,
it's been interesting. Hey, and we'll just take
that victory lap again. You and I, like years
ago, when the whole notion of T -Mobile acquiring
Sprint was fading very quickly and we flash forward
now. It's been, boy, it's been about five or
six years, but it's been fun to watch for sure.
But hey, let me hit my third and final topic.
And I alluded to this. We were talking about
how mobile network operators really... In order
to monetize the billions of euros and billions
of dollars that are invested in these networks
from spectrum acquisition and infrastructure
perspective, they've got to move beyond access,
right? Security is a big deal. The nature of
mobile networks or the threat surfaces are massive
when you think about the number of subscribers,
the number of devices per subscriber. And it's
interesting that both AT &T and T -Mobile within
just a few weeks of one another have announced
partnerships with Palo Alto Networks. And Palo
Alto Networks does a number of different things
very well from a security standpoint. They've
really, Palo Alto Networks has really driven.
what I call the power platform, and moving away
from best of breed bespoke solutions to a cluster
of highly effective solutions that cover the
majority of security needs for enterprises and
organizations. There's a lot of advantages there
from a licensing perspective and from a management
perspective. And what I really like about Palo
Alto Networks is that they've been very focused
on secure access service edge, so SASE, but a
5G flavor of that. And so at RSA conference,
TNT announced a partnership with Palo Alto Networks
where TNT's dynamic defense is being leveraged
with Palo Alto Networks Prisma access solution.
And what this does is it enhances cybersecurity
posture from Both owned and own network. So an
enterprise that's managing the infrastructure
and all of that on their network, but also unowned
as, as traffic comes over the internet and there's
it enters into a private enterprise network.
Having a level of visibility and security with
that is, is very important. And security is all
about a layered approach, right? The more layers
you can bring to bear. from a very highly manageable
perspective, the better security posture you
can maintain. So that's the nature of AT &T's
announcement with Palo Alto Networks. Now, just
today, T -Mobile announced a similar partnership,
again, enhancing what they're already doing with
their 5G SaaS solution. And just to refresh our
viewers and listeners on this, T -Mobile has,
they're in the midst of deploying 5G Advanced
on their standalone network. They have a T -SIM
secure solution, which is a SIM -based clientless
authentication, something that leverages what
they've been doing with their TIOT solution as
well. And then you and I have talked about the
T -Mobile security slice as well. And that was
announced. It's been at least a year or longer.
And I've written about that and have commented
on how I think that's very unique and different
because, again, Because T -Mobile has the only
nationwide standalone network, they can do network
slicing. And so they've done the security slice
that's tailored to complement what they're doing
from the SASE perspective. So I really like this
because. For the longest time, T -Mobile was
just someone else's SD -WAN solution and SASE
solution. So this really brings a lot of, I think,
differentiation and value to what T -Mobile for
Business is doing with their 5G SASE solution.
And also, and I'm not going to throw water on
what AT &T is doing as well, dynamic defense
is a tremendous effort to embed security controls
directly into the network fabric. So it's a different
approach than T -Mobile's. Yeah, so I think this
is great. It's going to bring monetization up.
opportunities for Palo Alto Networks, AT &T,
and T -Mobile. And it's going to deliver just
stronger security for customers that utilize
it. And I know security is not a big strength
of yours. You don't focus on that too much. But
what do you think about the monetization opportunities
here? I would say most of my security focus is
client -based. It is. Versus infrastructure.
I would say that to me, it's interesting because
one of the biggest challenges I've seen with
5G networks And something like, let's say standalone
is just like industry adoption. So I think if
more operators are offering differentiated security
capabilities, I think what that does is it sets
enterprises and developers up for a better understanding
of the environment. And I think maybe it's one
of those things where it's like standardization
might be something that would benefit the operators
and the industry. And maybe a more standardized
approach for these kind of security solutions
would be great. But it also sounds like this
is something that the operators want to offer
as a differentiated offering and give themselves
a little bit of a unique approach to security.
I think in net, it's a good thing. And I think
it also builds on what I was saying earlier,
where these operators want to become more of
like a solution. as opposed to just a dump pipe
because they hate being called a dump pipe. So
it's like moving in the opposite direction. Yeah,
yeah. And I agree and didn't mean to cut you
off there, but I think AT &T and Verizon have
probably done a better job in the past in focusing
on enterprise solutions. versus T -Mobile, but
I got to give the TFB credit and Cali Field.
They're really upping their game. And I really
like this announcement. I really like the AT
&T announcement as well. And it really demonstrates
the depth and breadth and the strength of Palo
Alto Networks to be able to work with two of
the largest mobile network operators in the United
States. So I think it's great. But hey, let's
wrap things up. Let's go hit your third topic.
You want to talk about, I'm probably going to
mispronounce the company. Is it Jami? Am I pronouncing
that correctly? Xiaomi. And they are going to
announce their own smartphone SOC. And so you
want to provide some highlights on that. Yes,
this is going to be called the X -Ring 01. It
is their first smartphone SOC that they've built
in -house. It was announced by the CEO himself
on China's version of Twitter. And that whole
like... announcement on Weibo, which is the Chinese
version of Twitter. They said that they'll announce
it in late May and that some leaks have indicated
that it will be built on TSMC's four nanometer
process, which is not its most recent three nanometer.
It's actually been on like three generations
of three nanometer now. So it's a little bit
of an older node. It will be a seven core setup.
It will probably use standard ARM cores from
what I would assume. There haven't been very
many clear indications on what the specs will
be. They haven't really confirmed it. But what's
interesting is that people are already acknowledging
that it likely won't be close to the most current
flagships from Qualcomm and MediaTek, but that
it will probably be closer to something like
a couple of generations behind. So this won't
be a flagship SSE for flagship phones. But what
I'm hearing... from the market is that this is
a continuation of government efforts to push
chinese smartphone manufacturers to have their
own socs and what i find really interesting is
huawei has been banned from using tsmc but it
seems that xiaomi hasn't so i'm very curious
about how that's going to work out and what the
administration is going to do and How TSMC is
going to have to explain that, we'll see when
the launch happens later this month. But I do
think it's really interesting because they haven't
done their own in -house chipset since 2017.
It's been eight years. So I'm pretty sure most
of the people who built that first one aren't
with the company anymore. And it's just really
interesting because I think we're going to see
more homegrown Chinese SoCs. but they're not
going to be able to compete with the likes of
MediaTek and Qualcomm because they're probably
not going to have access to the latest process
nodes nor licenses. to the most recent ARM cores.
This is going to be an interesting development
that I think we should follow and continue to
pay attention to because it could also find its
way into wearables and other segments of the
market. But it's an interesting development just
because I think we're going to see more Chinese
OEMs having to do their own chips because the
Chinese government's probably mandating it. And
yeah, it's just a cool, interesting update. And
I'll stay on top of it because I'm our semiconductor
guy. You are. And I'm leaning into that as well
when it comes to interconnects. I've published
some stuff with Intel and Marvell and Broadcom
had a big co -packaged optics announcement today.
Hopefully I'm not breaking the embargo on that.
I just flew across the country and I'm a little
tired. Everybody has some kind of co -packaged
optics solution now. It's the hottest thing.
Credit NVIDIA GTC for launching. Intel, NVIDIA,
Broadcom. I'm sure we're going to see it from
AMD. And you're going to see a bunch of startups
as well. I just got off a call with someone that
you and I know that used to be at Qualcomm that's
at a startup now. And they took me through what
they're doing with Copack and Joptics as well.
But hey, my friend, it's been another great podcast.
We need to be doing these weekly. I'm to blame,
I think, for a lot of that with my crazy travel.
But why don't you take us home? Absolutely. We
hope our viewers and listeners found next week's
topics interesting. If anyone out there would
like to reach out and provide insights on a specific
5G topic for a future podcast, please reach out
to us on social media. Will is at WillTownTech,
and I'm at OnShell. We hope you have a great
weekend, and please tune in again next week.