Welcome to episode 237 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. But before we do,
let's talk some baseball, my friend. So, my Astros.
we jordan is obviously injured but we swept the
rangers so i'm pretty excited about that and
i've been keeping tabs on your padres how are
they doing they're okay i think they'll make
the playoffs pretty sure they will yeah but they're
not looking playoff caliber let's put it that
way I gotcha. Hey, listen, we had a slow start
to our season last year and we picked it up at
the end, but didn't follow through at the end
of the day. But baseball's fun, man. I plan to
watch some. I'm going to be in London next week.
So it might be hard to watch it. Probably just
probably a lot of soccer and whatever else going
on there. But without further ado, let me jump
in. So I caught an article on Light Reading and
we've talked about Maveneer and I'm not intending
to bash them. But what I want to do is provide
an update. And this article highlights what the
Maveneer CEO believes could revitalize the company
and surprise its agentic AI. And everyone's talking
about agentic AI and the opportunity for driving
full -scale automation and that sort of thing.
Maveneer, one of the things they had to do within
their debt restructuring was to get out of selling
radios. That was not a great move on their part.
There was a huge write -down, but they are doubling
down. And they're doubling down on agentic AI.
And I found it interesting in the article that
Coley, the CEO, spoke to the fact that he believes
that agentic AI can replace OSS. And that, for
viewers and listeners that aren't familiar with
what OSS is, that is the orchestration set of
solutions that bring the magic to mobility services.
Now, I think that's quite a bit of a stretch.
I also think that a lot of other companies are
making claims around agentic AI and what it's
going to do to reimagine what they're doing.
But Maveneer, they're very focused. They're a
software company. They're delivering software
solutions that facilitate disaggregated infrastructure
deployments and management. I don't know, man.
I want to get your take on this. Do you think
it's a stretch that agentic AI could completely
replace traditional OSS? I think it's a buzzword.
that everybody wants to use. I would need to
see more details on how they would consider it
to be agentic. I didn't see the details on that,
but I do think when you consider that there's
a lot of automation occurring, there could be
some agentic aspects to that. But I feel like
it would mostly be in the operational side and
trying to draw whatever automation is already
running in the network and do it in a more intelligent
fashion. But I think Agentic might be a stretch.
I think it is too. And there wasn't a lot of
sort of detail behind all of this. And it's no
surprise. Nokia has been very focused on its
autonomous networks platform. And we've talked
about that on prior podcasts as well. And Agentic's
a part of it, but it's not the whole ball of
wax. And time will tell. My New Year's resolution,
almost three quarters of the way through the
year, is I'm done getting on the bandwagon and
poking my veneer. I actually did get invited
to their analyst event in Dallas. Unfortunately,
I've got a travel conflict, but I'm hoping to
re -engage with the company, spend a little bit
more time with them and possibly on a future
podcast, come back with some additional insights
if I have a chance to speak with its CEO or any
other executives there. But let's go to your
first topic. And this is pretty darn big news.
So news dropped today about Intel and NVIDIA
both partnering together. And you want to talk
about what that could possibly mean for 5G. Yes,
it's a huge announcement. I've been covering
both Intel and NVIDIA for the last 20 years almost,
if not longer. And the truth is that there have
been a lot of, first of all, they are competitors.
They have been competitors for quite some time.
But Intel is definitely in a more vulnerable
place. But also, I also think a big part of this
is also that NVIDIA doesn't want Intel to go
away. If you think about it, AMD can really focus
its sights on NVIDIA if Intel's no longer there.
So competitively speaking, it's in NVIDIA's best
interest to have Intel be competitive with AMD,
who's competitive with NVIDIA. That's just like
a fundamental there. There have actually been
extensive lawsuits and settlements between Intel
and NVIDIA that go way, way back. Like Intel's
GPU division, when they first made their... made
first major effort in gpus and failed one of
the reasons they failed was because they couldn't
license nvidia ip and there was the whole thing
there and it's crazy but clearly they've buried
the hatchet and now nvidia's investing five billion
dollars in intel the stock's already up like
25 today as a result of that yeah It was up 33
% or out before opening. And yeah, I woke up
this morning very early because I had to catch
a flight because my flight to San Diego was canceled
last night after I was coming back from Meta.
I was awake, aware. Of course, our principal
analyst, Pat, was like way ahead of it and have
some lot of similar thoughts. i've been bombarded
with requests of everybody because it's really
such a big deal because when you think about
what that means is now intel cpus can directly
connect to nvidia gpus through mv link and that
could actually empower even more powerful 5g
and 6g radio and ai at the edge because the truth
is nvidia makes their own cpus because They want
to be independent, but they are ARM CPUs, and
so they're not as necessarily compatible with
a lot of the legacy software that's built on
x86. Now, NVIDIA can give their customers choices
of x86 or ARM directly connected to NVLink and
not using PCIe, which is a slower interface in
a lot of ways. But NVLink is proprietary, or
was, because now they've been licensing it to
so many different CPU vendors, some ARM. some
not and now that kind of leaves amd the odd man
out because qualcomm and intel now have a vlink
but amd does not there's very interesting like
competitive dynamics happening here and this
also brings nvidia closer to intel who is a foundry
but they were very careful about saying that
has nothing to do with intel foundry and that
invidious night suddenly Correct. And I feel
like that's the one missing piece that would
have made everybody lose their minds. But I think
that's still a possibility. It might not be with
18A, it might happen with 14A, but it's very
interesting to see where things are right now
and how this could affect 5G because I think
realistically it's more of a 6G play because
likely these things won't really... hash out
for a couple more years. And by then, we'll be
looking more at 6G, especially with NVIDIA's
aerial platform. I think that's what will happen
right now, based on what we know. They did a
really fun little Q &A earlier today, which I
also listened to, and it clarified a lot of misconceptions,
including the Foundry stuff. But they also did
announce some client product things as well.
That will be interesting because they're going
to pair Intel CPUs and NVIDIA GPU chiplets. which
gives NVIDIA a bigger opportunity to address
a broader part of the market. And we'll see what
happens. But what it means is NVIDIA GPUs on
x86 on the same SoC as opposed to NVIDIA's current
platform, which is ARM -based. That's not really
as much of a 5G play, but I'm explaining it so
people who are interested can understand. Yeah,
and I think there is a path towards, obviously,
Intel sold its mobile modem business to Apple,
something that we've been on for years. What
I thought is really interesting is like the sort
of the co -development that they're going to
pursue with the chiplet stuff. Why I think that's
interesting is that when you look at AI and you
look at training and inference, certainly training
that requires the horsepower of GPU technology.
It's typically done in the cloud with large language
models that are foundational. What's really interesting
with x86 is that Xeon can actually perform. a
lot of inferencing function and where that really
becomes important is for edge ai right and so
i think it's going to be really interesting to
watch how this all unfolds to see what happens
with you know this chip chiplet you know sort
of co -development because i think you could
really take the whole notion of edge ai and inferencing
to the next level would you agree with that Yeah,
I would say you make a really good point because
I didn't really think about that until now that
you could easily start having NVIDIA GPUs in
Intel's already existing edge platforms. Although
the fate of that business is still a little bit
unclear, but it might get a boost if it's running
on NVIDIA GPUs. Because ultimately, I think Intel
would be happier to ship a platform with or without
an NVIDIA chip. as long as it ships. I think
they're definitely in a more delicate place.
And as a result of that, I think they're open
to all kinds of ideas, including this one. Yeah,
no, I think it's great. Intel needed a win, and
this is a big win. And certainly the US federal
government's investment in Intel, 10%, is helpful
as well. And I don't want to say that Intel is
too big to fail, but... What I really like about
Intel and NVIDIA coming together, these are two
very traditionally strong, certainly NVIDIA has
been on a tear. Intel has a long history of success.
And this brings two very important strategic
American semiconductor companies together. And
I think that's a good thing from my perspective,
but it'll be fun to watch for sure. But hey,
let's go to my second topic. And I want to talk
about voiceover new radio. And I had no idea.
who Mass Orange was. And I'm assuming it's a
regional section or division of Orange. So Mass
Orange, they're actually the largest mobile network
solution provider by subscriber in Spain. And
they have now officially commercially launched
their 5G voiceover in our service. And what they're
stating is that it's available in all of the
major cities, Madrid, Barcelona, and a few others,
Santier, and a few others that I can't pronounce,
even though I took Spanish in high school and
college. But we've talked about Moner in the
past and its advantages compared to legacy voice
services. It can support high definition audio
using HD voice and codecs, lower latency for
faster call setup. an uninterrupted multitasking
with simultaneous data use and improved capacity
to handle more connections in dense environments.
I think this is interesting. Will it have a huge
impact in Spain versus other parts of the world?
Time will tell. But what do you think about this?
It's a pretty big deal. My understanding is that
OS Orange is a kind of like a joint venture between
Orange and Moss Mobile. And when I did the research
on this, I didn't realize it's like a bunch of
different brands. So it's, and I've used a couple
of these. You'll be familiar with these names.
Orange, Yoigo, Jazztel, Masmovil, Pepephone,
Simio, Leica Mobile, Labara, Yamaya, Escucatel,
and Telecable. They have a lot of brands. It's
like a 50 -50 JV, probably like a merger of assets
in Spain. So that's why they're so big. But yeah,
I think when you see Foner really being deployed,
it's going to massively improve, first of all,
bandwidth utilization, but also voice quality.
There are some people like my mom who still talk
on the phone. Still talk on the phone. But the
truth is she's on the phone all the time and
I couldn't get her to switch because she was
always complaining about phone calls and then
she switched to T -Mobile because she traveled
a lot. I just think that we're in a place where
It's necessary to make the switch, especially
since most users' devices are capable. It's a
no brainer at this point. And I'm actually a
little surprised it took this long, but they
are fairly large. They have 37 million broadband
and mobile lines. So it's not a small by any
means. And that's a lot of users to service,
but they're a very big company and I'd love to
see more companies do it. Yeah, same on my side.
And yeah, like I said, they weren't on my radar
screen. You know, what's interesting too, I did
a little bit of further research and they also
claim to have deployed the country's first 5G
advanced network in Seville, where my youngest
daughter did a study abroad with Texas Tech University.
So it seems like they're a very progressive operator
and you need standalone to do all of this stuff.
I think it's good stuff. It could be a model
for... other parts of Europe to follow. But with
that, I know you want to talk about Meta and
they've released, I mean, sort of AI smart glasses.
You and I were talking about this a few weeks
ago. It's like you said, hey, there's something
new coming, but I can't talk about it. I'm under
double secret, top secret NDA, that sort of thing.
But you were also at an event, weren't you, for
Meta? Yes. So they had their event yesterday.
I was there. I can talk about all the things
that I've seen and done. They basically announced
a whole new line of smart glasses, which none
of those have 5G connectivity, but they are going
to connect to your phone and leverage AI on your
device over 5G to put AI on your face. I stupidly
left my glasses and my backpack, which is in
another room, so I can't use it as a showcase
for anything other than my own stupidity. Don't
be so hard on yourself, buddy. Don't be so hard.
They announced second generation Meta Ray -Bans.
So those double the battery life and improve
the image quality by double to 3K video. They
also introduced these called, they're called
Meta Oakley Vanguard, which are the wraparound
glasses. And I kid you not, you will not be able
to tell that they look different from regular
Oakleys. They just are fully integrated. And
everybody I know who's into sports of any kind
are all about it. Like everybody's saying. for
cycling they will automatically adjust the volume
based on your speed oh man i'm buying a pair
because i'm i ride bikes i own and they connect
to your garmin and your strava and You can like
track all your rides and upload your rides and
photos and videos of your rides. And you can
do 120 frame slow motion video. It does hyperlapse.
You can record your rides. It has nine hour battery
life. So you can just record the whole ride.
Like it's that kind of stuff. They do everything
people want to see. Imagine people are going
to wear these for skiing, for snowboarding, for
surfing. All these different kinds of things.
We're going to get so much content and people
are going to love it. And it's so much louder
than every other pair of Meta Ray bands that
like it's six decibels louder. So like literally
you can be surfing and still hear the music.
You can take calls from the slopes and do a phone
call while you're skiing. There's so many possibilities.
I want them to put them on some baseball players
so they can wear them like out in the outfield
and like catch a ball. I'm really excited about
that. They just released a video today with all
of the athletes that they've already signed.
I'm trying to think of who they have. But it's
like all of the, some of the best athletes in
the world that they've already signed to use
these glasses and people are like, oh my God,
I need a pair. They're 500 bucks starting price,
which isn't crazy when you consider Oakleys are
already pretty expensive. And these ones have
quite a bit of functionality as well. And they
still have meta AI on top of all that. So you
can like voice text family, you can ask it questions.
But what's lacking is a display, which is what
the new version of the metabray bands with the
display are doing. So you're going to have one
display and one eye. It's a color display. And
you can actually, it comes with a wristband.
You can wear to control it. One of the cool motions
that they're working on is the ability to turn
volume by just turning your fingers like this,
like a dial. Oh, my BMW X6, I can do that. Right.
But then you can also type on the surface of
the table. or you can manipulate things on in
that screen including navigation it can also
give you like real -time translation while people
are talking to you and even give you captions
like if you're in a really loud place you can
just caption what they're saying in case you
can't hear it And there's even some amplification
features for listening to people. There's just
so many cool AI enhanced capabilities that are
coming with this display feature or this display
model. And then they're also launching a bunch
of other stuff as well, including some added
software capabilities and developer access to
these classes. And they're also refreshing a
bunch of colors and designs. But those are the
three big ones, which is the MetaRay bands upgrade
and then the Oakley. vanguards and then the ones
with the display so those are the big three announcements
that they made they made some other smaller vr
announcements like their own they have their
own engine now that will actually be powering
all the ar and vr stuff because ar and vr are
very similar in a lot of ways but we didn't we're
not going to get full of ar quite yet that's
still further down the road but these metabray
bands with the display in them it's like a halfway
step and It's really cool. I've got to try it
out. And the battery life on those are even better
than it is on all the other glasses. They're
really focusing on battery life because that
was one of the biggest complaints of the last
generation. Yeah. Are these available for sale
yet, buddy, or not? Yes. So you can pre -order
all of them. I believe the ones with the display
you have to go into a store to order and try
out and get measured and stuff because they want
to make sure you have a good experience. But
the Vanguard's already up for pre -order on the
Oakley website. Those are $4 .99. They ship October
21st. And then the new Meadow Ray -Bans, I think
those are available for pre -order now, and I
think ship at the end of the month. Cool. Yeah,
I didn't tell you that when I was in Alaska with
my wife last month, I did take my Meadow Ray
-Bans, and it was fun going on hikes and being
able to look down and ask Meadow, what am I looking
at? It's like, you're looking at a trout. You're
looking at a salmon. So I've been having a lot
of fun with them. I still haven't taken them
yet to a UT Longhorn home game, but I plan to
do that as well. But I'm super excited about
the Oakleys and that I ride bikes. Everybody
I know that rides bikes is just, I need it now.
I know. I'm going to put my order in probably.
I put my order in last week for my AirPod Pro
3 with the Transat. My iPhone, I think, arrived
today. So I got an iPhone Air. Oh, cool. Okay.
So did you pay for that one yourself? The Air
was given to me by Apple, but the Pro is mine.
Gotcha. Cool, man. I can't wait to check it out
next time. Yeah, the Air looks really cool. So
I can't wait to check it out next time. Yeah,
another me not getting something and being able
to show it off as a prop for our podcast. There
you go, man. Let's just say. I've had a very
rough last 48 hours, so it's a miracle I'm even
stringing sentences together. Oh, good, man.
Was it just travel hell or what? I don't know
if you heard, there was a crash at San Diego
Airport last night. No. That's why I didn't make
it home last night. Oh, you said you didn't make
it home, yeah. So I had to fly at 6 .30 this
morning to get here as soon as possible. I had
to cancel an interview, but then the whole Intel
and video thing happened, so it's been a whirlwind.
Yeah. Crazy. Yeah, it's just the joy of business
travel, right? Hopefully, I won't have the same
experience when I fly to London on Saturday for
Connected Britain. I'm going to do a couple of
panels in London next week and work remotely
from London. So I'm looking forward to that.
But hey, let me hit my third and final topic.
And I want to talk about NATO and how they're
leaning into 5G for military communications.
But I think we've talked about 5G applications
that are military. But I thought this was interesting.
This is part of an effort called the Multinational
5G, which is MN5G initiative. But it's a dual,
they call it a dual paradigm use where they're
taking civilian technologies and adapting them
for defense purposes and applications and that
sort of thing. And a proof of concept launched
last year. And today, just Spain, Italy, and
Turkey are participating in the official program,
but they do expect others to participate over
time. I think it's interesting when you look
at especially conflict that continues to go on
between Ukraine and Russia and how 5G is being
leveraged for drone surveillance and for military
comms and that sort of thing. And I've also,
I'll be spending time again. in Latvia, later
this year in Riga, and Latvia Mobile Telephone,
LMT, they have a whole division that is focused
on just developing services for the military
that leverage their network infrastructure. And
they're doing a lot with drones as well and that
sort of thing. But I found it interesting that
it's this whole blend of civilian and military.
And I think some of the comms that result from
this Could also have civilian applications as
well. If you think about for critical infrastructure,
right? For safeguarding utility grids and that
sort of thing. But what do you think about all
that? I actually think it's very interesting.
I wanted to bring up the whole Latvia and all
the Baltic countries and their current unease
with their neighbor. And the first thing I thought
of was every single mobile network operator is
going to be leveraged by. their military as drone
sensing like we already talked about drone sensing
so we did and when Ukraine uh has been fighting
this war with Russia with drones they've been
using Russia's 5G networks for that and the Russians
recently flew drones into Poland and Poland didn't
really have anything any infrastructure in place
to fight to ward off these drones or to fight
them effectively they had to scramble some jets
which is ridiculous yeah so now the ukrainians
are training them on drones but yeah i just think
drones are going to be a big part of warfare
now and i think 5g networks are going to become
a big component of how those drones are detected
and hunted down and shot down yeah no i totally
agree Let's hit your final topic for this week.
And we talked about Echo Star and we've been
talking about Echo Star for quite some time now,
but you recently came across something online
where they're lamenting their huge spectrum sell
-off. What's that all about? There was an event
called World Space Business Week, which happened
in Paris. And the CEO of Echo Star and chairman,
Charlie Ergen, talked about that they're going
to be an asset -light growth company, which means
they don't really have very many assets left
because they've auctioned most of them off to
the tune of, what is it? Billions. $40 billion.
They do have a lot of cash now. And he said that
it was a forced pivot that they had to make by
disposing of their spectrum. They had not planned
on selling it at the time, but over time they
could. that they could have had a more value
-enhancing infrastructure for them, much more
than we managed to get today. That sounds like
they're lamenting the current situation. I will
say those who are invested in the Echo Star are
not upset because I believe their stock is at
its highest it's ever been. The shareholders
are happy, and so are AT &T and SpaceX. The stock
has dropped off from its high, but it's still
the highest it's ever been. And yeah, I just
think that I feel for them to a certain degree.
But also, the truth is, Charlie's always had
this reputation of being a spectrum squatter.
I think that the FCC ran with that and forced
their hand. Do I think that should have happened
the way it went down? No. But it did happen much
more quickly than if they had been forced to
give up their spectrum and a new auction had
occurred. I do think there should have been an
auction because everybody should have had a chance
to buy that spectrum. And I do think... at &t
and spacex likely got that spectrum at a deal
relative to if there was a an auction but the
truth is that echo star shareholders did get
a premium on what the spectrum was paid for i
think they doubled their money in both of them
yeah yeah yeah it's really unfortunate it doesn't
feel right to me but i do think it will accelerate
the pace of innovation because spectrum has become
more available more quickly. And I think AT &T
having more spectrum will make them more competitive
with Verizon and Timo, which is ultimately a
good thing. Yeah, I agree. I read this article
as well and it got me thinking like when Charlie
talks about they're going to be an asset light,
whatever enterprise, what does that mean? Does
that mean they're going to become like a soft
bank vision fund? Like what's your interpretation
of that? That's them saying they're going to
be an MVNO without saying that they're going
to be an MVNO. But I'll also say the CEO specifically
said, this was a forced situation for us. We
actually have no way forward but to make the
most of what we have, which we believe would
have been far more value enhancing in the long
term. But in the short term, we had to liquidate
some of our spectrum to meet the needs of the
nation and the FCC. Whoa, boy, that was a...
very state department like response, wasn't it?
But that's the quote. That's the quote that kind
of got me to pull into this article and want
to say something because they just, they didn't
really feel like that. They were given a fair
chance, even though I think they were to a certain
degree. And yeah, they just, they really, this,
I wanted to use the word lament. And I am going
to use the word lament because they really seem
to be lamenting this forced pivot. And I'm glad
they said something because I felt like I was
just inferring a lot. But when there's direct
quotes like this, I feel a lot better saying
that they were forced. There you go, buddy. Hey,
my friend, it's been another great podcast. Why
don't you take this home? Absolutely. We hope
our viewers and listeners found this week's topics
interesting. If anyone out there would like to
provide insights on a future podcast for a future
Fraudgy topic, please reach out to us on social
media. Will is at Will & Teletech, and I'm at
Akshal Saad. We hope you have a great weekend,
and please tune in again next week.