And we are live. Welcome to episode 225 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 Sai. Before
we get started, we've got a pretty big milestone
coming up, don't we, my friend? Yeah, we are
about to hit our five -year anniversary of starting
this podcast. We originally wanted to start it
in February of 2020, and then I caught COVID.
So we pushed it back and we started, I think,
May 30th of 2020. So we've been doing this for
almost five years. We're about to hit five years
a week from today. We're hoping to keep on doing
this for another five years until 5G is done
and dusted and we've moved on to 5G. Yeah, five
years for 5G. Man, it's been a lot of fun doing
these with you, buddy. And it's hard to believe
it's five years. And I've been at the firm. I
know you just passed your 10th year anniversary.
I'm on nine, going on 10. It's my longest gig,
I think, ever, even compared to what I did in
corporate America. And it's a lot of fun. I think
you and I are blessed to do what we love. And
without further ado, let's jump into it. So I
want to talk about my first topic. And I had
received this news when I was over in Paris,
so it was a little time delayed. Big news with
AT &T doubling down on fiber with its Lumen acquisition.
And I'm sure you're going to have some things
to share about this, but this is pretty massive.
So basically AT &T is acquiring the fiber portion
of Lumen's mass markets business unit for nearly
$6 billion. And you and I have talked on numerous
podcasts about AT &T investing in fiber. You
use their service. I've used their service in
the past. Fiber is foundational. It provides
the best experience when it comes to broadband
support, backhaul that's needed for mobile services.
And this just really cements what AT &T is doing
from a fiber investment. The company's had very
bold plans, a goal to reach 60 million locations
by 2030. And certainly this, from my perspective,
helps in that regard. And what more can we say
about this? This is big news. What do you think
about all this? Yeah, I was a bit surprised to
hear this news, but it makes tons of sense. AT
&T is expanding their fiber business. This gives
them even more customers, predominantly on the
West Coast. And I think I was a bit surprised
because I didn't think Lumen was trying to divest
from their consumer business. They do still get
to keep their copper wireline business for customers
that don't have fiber. I think it's a great thing
because I think AT &T Fiber is a great service.
I continue to use it. And if I move, there's
now a much higher probability that I'll still
have AT &T Fiber. Yeah, it certainly looks like
that. And the consumer footprint is massive that
comes along with this acquisition. I believe
like over 4 million locations. Yeah, I mean,
it's certainly... From my perspective, it's a
consolidation play. This is also, I wasn't aware
of the geographic location. You're indicating
that it's West Coast, but this certainly helps
with what AT &T is doing to focus on converged
connectivity services. Converged being obviously
fixed and wireless broadband to the home with
its internet 5G air service. as well as mobility
as well. And we've talked about that. I wrote
a Forbes article after speaking with Jen Robertson
that leads mass markets. This is a huge business
for AT &T. I'm not surprised. Before this deal,
about $90 billion of top -line revenue comes
out of the mass markets consumer business for
AT &T. So this will continue to add to that.
And it'll be really interesting to see how creative
this is over time. In other words, Not being
just a share sort of consolidation for AT &T,
but something that the company can meaningfully
grow, having these additional locations. Congratulations
to AT &T. It's a huge announcement. And I'll
be sharing some insights on social media. I'm
a little behind just getting back from Paris
after a delay last night. But with that, let's
go to your first topic. And I don't think you'll
get too political on this, but you want to talk
about President Trump wanting to auction 600
megahertz spectrum. or 5G and eventually 6G deployment.
Yes. Our dear leader, President Trump, whom I...
You say that so affectionately. ...whom I have
opinions about, tweeted out that the big, beautiful
bill... I'm just going to do this verbatim and
use the quote. We must maintain our status as
the worldwide leader in Wi -Fi, 5G, and 6G, connecting
every American to the world's best networks,
while also keeping everyone safe. We can do both
at the same time. Bottom line, I'm going to free
up plenty of spectrum for auction. So Congress
must put 600 megahertz in the big. In the one
big beautiful bill, let's make sure all options
are on the table. Never bet against American
ingenuity. Make America great again. Okay. The
problem with that is 600 megahertz. There are
no contiguous 600 megahertz bands. So this is
really a call to auction whatever potential frequencies
might be available in the 1 .5 to 10 gigahertz
band. So this is really also what they've been
talking about in the lower three gigahertz band
as well. There were no actual details because
the actual legislation says 600 megahertz in
the 1 .3 to 10 gigahertz band. So clearly it's
not a millimeter wave call. It's very much about
mid band, low band, and even mid to high band.
But the reality is this is very like surface
level, but it does show that there are lobbyists.
who have been in the Trump administration's ear
on freeing up more spectrum for 5g and 6g and
potentially wifi. And while I did not have this
as a topic, I saw a LinkedIn post from some of
the people I follow at Intel where they have.
started to test some Wi -Fi spectrum in the 7
gigahertz band, low 7 gigahertz band, and they
were doing this with Broadcom. It's really interesting
to see these spectrum discussions occurring,
but I think it's fairly low stakes at this point.
And if anything, I hope that any spectrum auctions
that do occur will occur in a better fashion
than the last one under the Trump administration.
I'll also just add that I think there's... some
appetite to generate revenue like they did with
the last auction. And I think they're more focused
on the fact that there is an opportunity to monetize
government spectrum and to force people off of
it as the government. And I think that they're
once again attracted to this idea. I agree with
you. There's a huge monetization opportunity
here. There is benefit. And from my perspective,
the FC, and I'm going to talk about Spectrum
here in a minute as well. in a different vein,
but there needs to be a better process just for
the allocation spectrum in general. And it just
seems like we need to be, it just seems to be
that the FCC is not proactive in managing this.
And then all of a sudden our elected officials
look at something and say, oh, here's an opportunity
to put more money in the treasury coffers. Yeah.
I mean, from my perspective, it'll be interesting
to see how this winds out, but that's a great
segue to my second topic. And I want to talk
about the upper 12 gigahertz spectrum band. And
can low Earth orbit satellite connectivity get
a boost with it? CAR, the current chairperson,
has been speaking to the opportunity to free
this up, to facilitate service providers like
AST Space Mobile and Starlink. And the challenge
is that these companies are having to work with
mobile network operators and the terrestrial
spectrum holdings that are already in place to
enable this. Now there's discussion around, hey,
looking at this upper 12 gigahertz spectrum profile
and allocating that to all of these low Earth
orbit satellite companies that are getting into
the game. Amazon is getting into the game. OneWeb,
I think they're still after it to some extent.
But what do you think about all this? Is this
sort of a kind of a non -news thing, your first
topic? Or can this really move the needle and
maybe accelerate? services from AST Space Mobile
and Starlink and everyone else? I think there's
potential. I think it's important that if this
band is made available, that it's fairly accessible
and that the auction is not heavily weighted
towards one player or another. So I think fair
rules would be important to enable startups to
be successful because I hate to admit it, but
I just think that Starlink and SpaceX are going
to get favorable. treatment every time. And I'm
just not about that. Yeah. And we've talked about
this in the past too. Starlink has been very
aggressive in trying to lobby the federal government
with respect to DISH and Echo Star sitting on
spectrum. And that's a topic that you and I have
probably discussed a dozen times on this podcast.
And so it will be interesting given Elon's current
participation or maybe that's ended now. with
the Trump administration. But if this does happen,
it's going to have to be fairly divvied up from
my perspective. But it will be interesting to
see how this all winds out. But hey, let's go
to your second topic. You want to talk about
Apple. I love what you do. You like to read between
the lines and do the research, but you've done
some research and you believe that Apple may
be preparing its focus on 6G. Yeah, I actually
believe that. They probably already have people
working on 6G. I think they're trying to hire
more people. Whether those people are already
experienced in the realm, it seems like that's
their focus. They want people who are already
developing 6G. And I think they want to be a
bigger player in 6G than they were in 5G. Especially
now that they have a 5G modem, they're going
to need a 6G modem as well. And I think that
they're going to need to build an IP portfolio.
I also think they're going to need to... have
a patent portfolio so that they can actually
negotiate royalty rates with someone like a qualcomm
to get better rates so that they don't have to
pay as much even though they're using their own
modem i think there's a lot of factors in this
i think they also need to be prepared for 6g
when it comes yeah i don't think they want to
be as late to 5g as they were you know they're
about five years late so i think they're we're
really in a place where 6g They should already
have had people involved. As far as I understand,
they haven't really been that involved in the
standard setting. I think that they are already
late to a certain degree, but that has never
really stopped Apple. But I do believe that they
should be doing more active involvement in setting
the standards and creating new IP, enabling new
features, and hopefully they'll be a driver of
things like XR. into the standard even though
3gpp release 18 which is known as 5g advanced
already has a lot of them i think apple as a
smartphone manufacturer and modem creator should
have a lot more influence in the 5g standard
than they currently do today i agree and like
you mentioned five years to 5g there there are
a lot of challenges within that journey they
probably learned a lot But there are examples
of even like Qualcomm getting in front of, too
far in front of lower orbit satellite connectivity,
right? Before the standards were baked and they
eventually had to abandon that, right? Yeah,
it'll be interesting to see how this materializes.
Obviously, Apple is a huge player when you just
look at their very dominant market share and
in smartphones, but that's not going to get the
job done at the end of the day. So I totally
agree with you. They're going to have to be.
become more participant in helping steer the
3GPP standards here for 6G. But hey, let's hit
my third and final topic. We're being very efficient
today. I want to talk about AWS. And in 2021,
they launched a private 5G solution. Just this
week. AWS has announced that it is ending its
efforts in that regard. And I had several journalists
reach out to me. And fortunately, it was when
I was flying back to Paris. So you may not see
any of my insights in any of those articles that
are being written. But I'm not surprised to see
this because it was very competitive with what
the carriers like T -Mobile and AT &T are trying
to do, number one. Number two, it wasn't complete
and it was very complex when compared to offerings
from, say, NTT in Salona as well. So from my
standpoint, there were just too many hurdles,
too much complexity to already navigate what's
already a very complex endeavor with private
cellular. But any additional thoughts from your
perspective on where maybe AWS failed to deliver?
I'm not totally surprised. I never really heard
that much traction for this solution. I think
this was more of a solution looking for a problem.
I agree. And I think that there might be some
opportunities down the road, but I'm not sure
that it would be enough to stand up an entire
business within AWS. And more likely, it's better
served by startups and utilizing AWS infrastructure
potentially, because I think that's what this
play was. And I think it was just a little bit,
to your point, too complicated for people to
deploy as is. But I think they'll be back probably
with something else and potentially partnered
with a startup in the space. Yeah, telco is difficult,
man. It is typically a low margin business. And
that's evidenced by... sort of the hits or misses
and really the longer tail adoption with private
cellular in general and yeah when you look at
microsoft azure and the fact that they've pretty
much and they weren't necessarily focusing on
private 5g services but they had a whole telecom
group that's basically been disbanded. And so
I think the hyperscalers have figured out, and
there's all this promise around telco cloud as
well. But at the end of the day, you've had the
incumbents in the space, the infrastructure incumbents
in the space from the likes of Ericsson and Nokia
and Huawei that are doing telco clouds. From
my perspective, hey, I understand the rationale
for the hyperscalers to want to participate in
this, but at the end of the day, it was probably
just not a great fit for them. So interesting
stuff. Let's hit your third and final topic.
You want to talk about Xiaomi and they've launched
a, I believe an SOC with ARM, right? Yeah. So
we were talking about this, I think last week.
Yeah. And it was my third and final topic that
week too. So this is Xiaomi's new X -Ring 01.
It's interesting because the rumors were that
this was going to be more of a mainstream SOC,
but it will utilize ARM's... ARM V9 Cortex CPUs
and their Immortalis GPUs. What's interesting
is that ARM posted a blog about this on their
own website. And so they've been promoting it
quite a bit as well. And yeah, it's really interesting
because it's going to be debuted in Xiaomi's
S15S Pro smartphones and their Pad 7 Ultra. So
this is not necessarily their flagship phones
and tablets, but it's more of a... upper middle
tier and it's yeah it's really interesting because
get different perspectives of how this competes
with the rest of the market but truthfully i
think this is a more of a play to potentially
satisfy the chinese government with homegrown
silicon it has a 10 core cpu with two of arm's
latest x925 cores and then and then a bunch of
other low power lower power cores and then it
has a 16 core immortalis g925 so it's not using
custom cpu cores it's using off -the -shelf cores
from arm which are competitive but they're not
top tier like apple and qualcomm's but yet so
it's really interesting to see that this is happening
at the same time that this happened xiaomi also
announced a long -term agreement with qualcomm
to continue to buy their chips for their flagship
phones and for their cars it's really interesting
the timing of these announcements and to see
how these companies are jockeying for position
in silicon space but i think that really what
this is more of a an agreement to for xiaomi
to build their own chips to keep the chinese
government happy but also to work with qualcomm
to get the latest fastest most advanced chips
for the products because they've been working
together for 15 years and This announcement was
another extension of that partnership. They didn't
really say how many years. It says multi -year
agreement, but generally these tend to be three
to five year agreements. And I think we will
probably see Xiaomi continue to ship Qualcomm
at the high end. And if anything, this might
be more of a threat to media tech than Qualcomm
specifically in terms of the high end. Although
I will say Xiaomi does use both in their phones,
but I do think that Xiaomi. wants to keep the
Chinese government happy, but also still get
the best chips. Yeah, they're a very prominent
Chinese brand. And so I think it checks the box
on Chinese domestic supply chain, number one.
It also gives them some supply chain diversity,
I would think. And then the third thought I have
is that it could be a margin enhancement opportunity.
As you mentioned, it's in the mid -tier, right?
It's not the low end, but it's in the mid -tier.
that it might be a margin enhancement opportunity
for them as well. Yeah, I mean, I think it's
always good to be supply chain diversified, even
at the silicon level. Yeah, and I'll just add
one thing. It's being fabbed at TSMC on the N3E
node, which is actually a current node, which
is the same as MediaTek's 9400. So it would actually
be pretty close to performance to the MediaTek
Dimensity 9400. But oddly enough, I don't know
that Xiaomi... is on the banned entity list.
So they can produce these at TSMC for the foreseeable
future until someone decides that they are dangerous
enough to be banned from using TSMC and other
fab entities. So I don't know how they managed
to get this done, but it might be that this is
low enough volume that it's not a concern. And
they're also a consumer brand, right? And so
you don't... They don't do anything from an enterprise
infrastructure perspective like ZTE and Huawei
do, right? Correct. So I think because it's consumer,
it's low risk. I own a couple of their scooters.
Because they bought Ninebot, which then bought
Segway. Yeah, yeah, that I keep at my condo in
Isla Morada. But I think it's probably because
they're a consumer kids company primarily, if
not entirely, and it's low risk. But yeah, interesting
stuff. Hey, my friend, we got through that pretty
quickly. Given it's a three -day weekend upon
us, 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 WillTown Tech, and
I'm at Entre Saug. We hope you have a great holiday
weekend, and please tune in again next week,
and don't forget to rate us and subscribe. And
we wish all the best to all the veterans that
have fought in all of these wars over the years.
So happy Memorial Day. Thanks.