Welcome to episode 239 of the G2 on 5G, its latest
insight scoop on everything 5G and 6G. We cover
six topics in about 20 minutes, and it's brought
to you by More Insights and Strategy. I'm Will
Townsend. Joining me again this week is fellow
analyst Anshul Sag. Let's get started with my
first topic. And Anshul, I want to talk about
AT &T. And just yesterday, on October 8th, the
company declared its nationwide 5G standalone
deployment. This is obviously big news. You and
I for years have talked about the true promise
of 5G matching RAN and 5G core infrastructure.
And so AT &T has finally accomplished this major
milestone. This also follows recently on the
heels of the company's announcement around 5G
REDCap technology, and it's available nationwide
as well. So this is a great milestone for AT
&T. We knew it was going to come. I do recall
that we predicted that this would happen for
AT &T in the second half of this year. So we
can take our victory laps there. I'm expecting
now that sort of paves the way for some very
innovative services, especially when it comes
to slicing. When you look at what T -Mobile has
done with T -Priority, with T -IoT, their SASE
solution that has a security slice. and most
recently super mobile so what are your thoughts
what do you expect to see from at t now that
they've established this huge milestone i have
a lot of thoughts i think this is a long time
coming i'll say for a future topic i'm surprised
that it took this long yeah i was really expecting
them to launch it last year honestly even before
that but i think it was so closely tied to their
mid -band rollout that it took a little bit longer
than I would have liked. They do have a very
strong enterprise customer base, and they're
going to have lots of business opportunities
here. I think the one thing that people don't
really realize is that application developers,
ISVs, and a bunch of other companies that are
doing software, they can't really optimize for
standalone until there's enough carriers to support
it. And when T -Mobile was going out on their
loan, and being ahead of everybody it wasn't
enough for application developers to want to
build towards standalone and with the expectation
that standalone would be available so i think
we're getting to the point where maybe people
actually start building for standalone more and
obviously verizon needs to come to reality and
launch 5GSA. But it's quite clear that AT &T
was very close, like you said, with the standalone
thing, REDCap, because you can't do REDCap without
standalone. It's not possible. It was quite clear
AT &T was close. I'm glad that they have gotten
over it. Their fixed wireless services are also
standalone only. It was quite clear they were
close, but they hadn't reached that nationwide
claim yet. And yeah, I just think it's super
important. It's going to be huge for business
applications. I think we're going to see... a
lot more use of the 5G network in ways that 4G
didn't really deliver. A lot of people have this
negative sentiment towards 5G because we didn't
have standalone networks. So we weren't really
able to create new applications and new use cases
for 5G and also take advantage more of the network.
So this is huge. This is really huge. And it's
a really big milestone for AT &T. It's important
for the industry. And now we just need Verizon
to catch up because once they do, I think we're
going to see, a lot of uptake on 5G, which might
end up rolling into 6G, but it will have been
5G who kind of started it. Yeah, no, I agree.
And I think your insight on the developer community
is spot on. There have been sandboxes available
with 5G Core and 5G RAN, but now that... You've
got AT &T declaring nationwide standalone. And
I expect Verizon is going to be very close by
the end of the year as well. But I think to your
point, that's really going to provide the incentive
for developers to really focus on it. And competition
is a good thing. I always like to say competition
breeds innovation. And I'm excited to see we're
just starting to begin to see some of the red
cap solutions in the market. And you've talked
quite a bit about that portable modem that you
have there and just the opportunity to extend
connectivity to wearables and do that very cost
effectively. I think it's going to be an exciting
development as well. I'm good friends with Egal
Bez that basically manages the entire network
as the CTO for AT &T. So I just want to congratulate
Egal. And the team, this is a huge milestone.
And I'm hoping to spend more time with him in
the future just to learn about the roadmap. You
and I had that opportunity with T -Mobile several
weeks ago. Now, a lot of that, most of it, if
not all of it, we cannot share because that's
under nondisclosure. But suffice it to say, I
think you're going to see some pretty exciting
things from T -Mobile. And I do agree that with
AT &T, we're going to see the same thing as well.
But hey, let's move to your first topic. And
you want to talk about Intel and some node advancements
and also just some general updates on Panther
Lake and Clearwater Forest. Yeah, these aren't
inherently 5G products. Yeah, they're CPUs, right?
Yeah. Yeah. So interestingly enough, Panther
Lake is a consumer product running on Intel's
new 18A foundry, Fab 52 in Ocotillo, Arizona.
So that helps bring leading edge. node manufacturing
to the United States, but also Clearwater Forest
is a server CPU and it is a 288 core CPU with
tiny little cores that are highly efficient.
And there was a demo of it helping run a 5G network.
So this is going to be targeted towards telecom
applications because of the really power efficient
and numerous cores. So that's the 5G angle there,
but also there will be Panther Lake. based systems
that will have 5G modos attached to them. Intel
will not provide them, but they will have partners
using the PCIe lanes to do 5G PCs. But really
what this means is that there's going to be a
lot more performance and lower power, both in
the server and at the client side for 5G. And
they did show us some edge IoT applications as
well. specifically for AI at the edge using Panther
Lake for a more embedded application as opposed
to something like a consumer PC. Robotics or
edge gateways, but extremely low power, but also
high performance with new GPU cores, new NPUs,
and new CPU cores, which are built on 1880. A
quick breakdown is Intel has this chiplet architecture
where it will combine different types of cores
from different foundries to... make the most
cost efficient, high performance chip possible.
This was kind of forced upon them based on their
lack of leadership in Foundry, which is why 18A
is such a big deal because they're actually able
to use 18A to build their CPU cores for both
products. And then also Mixed between Intel and
TSMC for the GPU and some of the IO tiles as
well. So it's very tiled, chiplet -like approach.
And it's going to be good for everybody, I think,
in terms of competition, cost, and also giving
OEMs more choice in how they build their systems.
Yeah. Hey, so did you do that tour with our colleague
Matt Kimball? Yeah. So I was there longer than
he was, actually. So I did the fab tour with
him. The first day was client day. Second day
was server day. Okay. Q &A and NDA discussions
and panels and things like that. But yeah, it
was a long day and I went straight from Hawaii
home for less than 12 hours and then went to
Arizona for three or four days. So that was my
last trip of the year. Yeah, before you were
expecting your new little one. Matt was quite
impressed just walking some of these fabs and
just the expanse. And one of the comments he
made was just... the really high degrees of automation
and he said that on his little one mile sprint
around it may have been 18a that that he said
that he could count the number of actual human
beings on both of his hands yeah very highly
i'll explain that the lower the process note
the bigger the foundry the fewer the people yeah
because the precision required needs more automation.
They have these carriers going around with 25
wafers each, 30 mile track around the foundry,
walk through 52, which has these gigantic EUV
ASML machines. They've got lines of them in rows
because they want to have that capacity to build
and they have room for expansion. It's also,
it's like a class 10 clean room. So the air gets
recirculated every six minutes and it's designed
to be leading edge, top of the line for Intel
or their customers. And that's really the message
you're trying to send is like, they're ready
to do business. And I think having these products
come out and be successful will ultimately cause,
give people cause to move to Intel as a foundry.
Yeah. Yeah. I believe so too. And we need very
efficient, high production semiconductor. capacity
in manufacturing in the United States. We can't
continue to rely on TSMC to do everything. I
don't subscribe to the belief that Intel is too
big to fail, but they're on a roll when you look
at the most recent news with what's been going
on with them. And the stock has done quite well.
There have been some major changes that have
had to be made. And unfortunately, we both know
some folks that have had to retire early or move
on. But it's going to be fun to watch. And I
believe that Intel has a lot of potential. And
I'm not going to say that they're too big to
fail, but we desperately need what they can provide
from a manufacturing and capacity perspective.
And just domesticating the supply chain, right,
given the warranted concerns with TSMC and Taiwan
and escalating tensions with China, with all
the geopolitics that are going on there. But
I don't want to get too far into politics, man.
We're going to stick to technology on this podcast.
So I'm going to go to my second topic. And I
caught the news recently about Vodafone. They're
claiming that they have launched the first low
Earth orbit satellite mobile broadband research
hub. This is at the University of Malaga. And
they are partnering, no surprise, with AST Space
Mobile as well to do this. And as I read through
the press release on the Vodafone website, it's
interesting. The vision here is to streamline
the process of testing and validating hardware
and software required for basically combining
non -terrestrial network solutions with terrestrial
ones. There are other third parties that are
going to be involved in this. This is great for
Europe, from my perspective. Obviously, when
you look at the infrastructure providers, you've
got Nokia, you've got Ericsson, they're obviously
European as well. But I really like what Vodafone's
doing. Obviously, they have a vested interest
in this because they have invested in AST Space
Mobile. I'm still sticking by my guns with the
assertion that I do believe that the AST Space
Mobile overall tech stack is superior to what
exists in the market today. That doesn't mean
it can't change tomorrow. There have been some
delays in getting their birds in the air. They're
working through that right now. I think I've
mentioned on a podcast a few weeks ago that I'm
hoping to have some additional time with Abel
and his team in Midland. And I'll even be in
Barcelona in December, and I know that they have
an operation there as well. But hoping to get
some time with him and the team just to get an
update on where they're headed and their vision
for what's going on. But I don't know if you
caught this news. Any thoughts before we move
to your second topic? I didn't really catch this
news, but... It's not really a surprise considering
Vodafone's interactions with AST Space Mobile.
I think it makes sense for them to have something
like this established, but it will be interesting
to see how this evolves and how it expands within
Europe. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Let's go to your
second topic. And I'm going to talk about Verizon
too, but I'm going to let you start off. And
you want to talk about a strategic acquisition
and what that might mean for the company, I believe
for its fixed wireless access service, right?
Yes, Verizon acquired Starry. And Starry is a
fixed wireless provider. Not to be confused with
the lemon -lime soda drink that I see in Vegas
all the time. Yeah, and Starry is still fairly
small. They're mostly focused on multi -dwelling
units in Boston, Denver, LA, New York, and DC.
yeah and it also recently pulled out of columbus
ohio they're not really in the best financial
situation yeah because they laid off half their
workers in 2022 and filed for bankruptcy in 2023
they currently serve 100 000 customers and was
that you or me that's fire alarm testing yeah
during a podcast of course but yeah they're fairly
small but verizon thinks that they have the ability
to grow their fixed wireless space to 8 million
customers, 8 to 9 million customers using Starry
as like a launchpad because multi -dwelling units
are a great way to get lots of customers quickly.
But it seems like maybe Starry didn't really
have the resources to grow in a way that I believe
Verizon could actually help them. And the truth
is that Verizon's fixed wireless business has
been good, but it's not been as great as T -Mobile's
and they've lagged behind. So I think it's a
good opportunity for them to grow. ironically
their fixed wireless business is the oldest because
they started it with millimeter wave if you remember
that yeah and yeah i think there's a this is
just a natural synergy here they didn't say what
the acquisition price was but i can't imagine
was very much they probably have a lot of debt
still yeah and the import interesting thing is
that they say they expect this acquisition to
be expected to be closed by the first quarter
of 2026 but i think that there's good synergy
and i think star customers will probably be happier
that they have a bigger more reliable company
behind their ifp and yeah it's 100 000 customers
isn't much but i could see verizon easily doubling
that or tripling that in that first year or two
just because they already have a footprint in
place and verizon has lots of spectrum as well
yeah i saw the news but i didn't dig into it
so this is clearly this is not verizon acquiring
this company for any sort of intellectual property
it's acquiring this company as a distribution
Channel right yeah and they specifically said
this architecture is less expensive to build
so they're using stars architecture which is
low cost so there is some like so there's some
IP and so they say this architecture is less
expensive to build quicker to deploy and uniquely
addresses the complexities of urban settings
where we can leverage our existing fiber and
millimeter wave assets. So they're looking for,
this is like a good, easy way for them to get
that last mile cheaply, leveraging their already
existing network, because let's be honest, Verizon's
present in most major markets. This would be
a way for them to roll out these MDU, multi -tooling
unit, fixed wireless solutions that are cheaper
and they can... charge less yeah no that okay
so i get it so it sounds like it's some sort
of mesh it's probably got a radio and then yes
the cpes are probably less expensive and yeah
and this kind of reminds me when google fiber
bought web pass i think it's very similar right
where it's like you're buying a fairly small
customer base but you're also buying technology
that's cheaper and easier to deploy got it got
it and i think yeah okay that makes sense and
but i think yeah this could potentially be from
a distribution perspective yeah verizon could
pump some bucks into this and yeah and to your
point support it and it solves their last mile
challenge and i like it okay so it's a combination
of some ip that's definitely a distribution channel
play as well cool Yeah, it'll be interesting
to see. Verizon has lagged, not only with its
standalone rollout with 5G, but it's had a big
hole, obviously, in its spectrum footprint. They
filled that. They did that very expensively,
as you and I have discussed on numerous podcasts,
but interesting stuff. I'm going to end with
my third topic about Verizon, too, and I want
to talk about Hans Vestberg's somewhat hasty
exit. One of my favorite journalists, Ian Morris,
that writes for Light Reading, he's a cheeky
Brit and he's always got something controversial
to say, but he posted something on Light Reading
recently. It's talked about, hey, this was a
pretty sudden announcement and there wasn't a
lot of information provided other than it was
just time for the company and the AIR to move
on. And what he did is he went back and looked
at... Several years ago, when Hans was named
CEO, there was a lead up. So it wasn't super
sudden. And we have talked about the transition
at the CEO position at T -Mobile, how that's
been fairly telegraphed out. There appeared to
be a succession plan around that. It's not out
of the ordinary, right, given their cadence.
What Ian talks about in his article is that when
Hans took over several years ago, it was telegraphed
out. It was orchestrated. There was a lot of
time. He's intimating that maybe Hans, maybe
he was pushed out for other reasons. And it's
interesting. You and I have talked about him.
Hey, listen, I've met him. He's a very charismatic
guy. He's got friends in very high places. And
I won't name the infrastructure company, but
there's someone at a very large cellular infrastructure
company that he and - Where did he come from?
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And where he came from as
well, but has remained friends there. But long
and short of it, Verizon's missed. They've missed
on their execution with their 5G deployment.
They went from hero, I don't want to say hero
to zero. In the LTE world, they absolutely, it's
hard to argue that they didn't have the most
reliable, the most expansive LTE network. That's
not been the case with 5G. And I follow the financial
somewhat with Verizon. They've been, and you
and I have covered their financials on many podcasts.
They've been good, but they haven't been like
just kick ass, knock it out of the park, like
T -Mobile or even AT &T as well. When you like,
especially look with the mobility ads that T
-Mobile has been able to bring in with its investment
in its 5G standalone network. And when you look
at the investment that John Stanky. and team
have made it to AT &T with respect to basically
overbuilding fiber, going into parts of the country
that were underserved and basically investing
forward and not expecting the typical ROI that
they see on fiber deployments in less dense populated
areas. There's a lot to be said here. So it'll
be interesting. I don't know a lot about the
Verizon, the new Verizon CEO, but - Yeah, he's
ex -PayPal. PayPal's had its ups and downs as
well. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see if
Dan Schulman can turn, I don't want to say turn
things around, but accelerate the company on
the right trajectory. So what do you think? Am
I being overly harsh? Is Ian being overly harsh
about Hans? No. Hans is a CEO, was CEO, correction.
He should have pivoted. when it was clear that
the millimeter wave push was not it. Was not
going to happen. That it was not going to be
economically viable, right? Correct. The problem
is they doubled down on it. Instead of just saying,
we need spectrum, let's get an auction going.
Because that's the truth. It's like they needed
the spectrum. They weren't going to be able to
buy Sprint. No one was ever going to let them
buy Sprint. TNT tried to buy T -Mobile. That
didn't happen, if you remember. they couldn't
acquire their way out of the situation so they
clearly needed a spectrum auction the c -band
auction was the answer to that question admittedly
it came late so i can't fully blame him for not
having the spectrum that he needed but also that
there were other ways there are other paths and
they fumbled millimeter wave they fumbled dss
they really pissed off a lot of their customers
and i think that's really the ultimate problem
is instead of being open with their customers.
They were just admitting, they were basically
saying that they've got the fastest, best network
and they just did it. And with mid band, I think
in C band, they're doing a lot better. I just
actually was at the park with my daughter and
I ran a speed test in the park and I was getting
over 500 megabits per second. Although in the
same spot, I got 800 on T -Mobile. They're still
not in that leadership position, but they've
plugged a lot of the holes that they had before.
I just think that honestly, I think Hans should
have been removed a while ago. And I don't know
if that's more harsh or less harsh than you,
but I think that this was a long time coming
actually. And the timing is surprising mostly
because like why now? Honestly, it's funny that
AT &T announced their standalone network like
the day after, which to me is maybe they fired
him because they heard AT &T is going to launch
standalone. I don't think that's actually happening,
but what it does is it firmly puts Verizon in
third place in terms of. Oh yeah. What their
network can do. That said, if you look at a lot
of the metrics, Verizon's network is a little
bit faster than AT &T's in a lot of ways. But
I just think AT &T's network is more capable.
Another thing is Verizon really invested a lot
in edge compute. But what are people going to
do with edge compute if the network isn't capable
of leveraging that? I think they made a lot of
the wrong bets and they did not pay off. And
that's why we are where we are today and why
the CEO has been replaced. Yeah. Yeah. They just
they hung their hat on millimeter wave way too
long. And that was the spectrum that they had
in their toolbox. Right. But they should have
let it go. Now, a lot of this was like the FCC
was dysfunctional and the whole management of
spectrum farming and that sort of thing has needed
a total overhaul. And so they had to wait for
C -band. And then when they got it, they paid
an astronomical amount of money for it. right?
Like $40 billion of my recollection serves me.
52 .9. Okay. I was off by that. With clearing
costs. With clearing costs on top of that. So
anyway, we're not going to beat this horse anymore.
So let's wrap things up with your third topic.
And you want to frame like all these big AI deals
that we're seeing and what that means for 5G
and 6G. And it's interesting that you picked
this as a topic because Matt Kimball and Paul
and I recorded our data center podcast this morning,
and we led with the OpenAI AMD deal and how unconventional
that is. And so I'm really curious to see how
you're going to tie that to 5G and 6G. I think
I know where you're going, but why don't you
share that? I'm looking at it from the perspective
of, of course, 5G and 6G, but really it's okay.
OpenAI is driving a lot of this right now, right?
whether it's Nvidia, AMD, Oracle, you name it,
right? Like everybody's getting into the party.
And the truth is like what a lot of this is focused
on is agentic AI. And I'm thinking about like,
how do these deals affect 5G and 6G one in terms
of how, what does the architecture look like
to get this compute closer to the users to give
them a good experience? like how much edge compute
does open ai need to invest in and what does
that edge compute look like and then also how
do the carriers work with open ai to leverage
this capability because right now the only carrier
that's like explicitly working with open ai is
t -mobile verizon has like a me too announcement
as well but it was very clear that sam altman
showed up at the T -Mobile. That was strategic.
That was strategic. I completely agree with you,
man. I completely agree. So I'm thinking about,
like, how do all of these investments in OpenAI
and clearly how OpenAI is accelerating its plans,
how does that affect what's going on with NVIDIA
and OpenAI? And there's going to be a little
piece of compute left over. that's not running
the network, not running the RAN, not doing orchestration,
but can be utilized for applications that will
be at the edge. And what does that look like?
And I would love to see OpenAI and T -Mobile
talk about that a little more. They haven't really
since the capital markets day, but I think that
everybody's betting on OpenAI right now. I don't
think they're the only dog to bet on, but I think
that they're clearly pushing the envelope in
everywhere that they can. yeah i agree and just
the creativity of this deal with amd for six
gigawatts of gpu that's massive that's billions
of dollars potentially for amd and then amd in
turn issuing equity as i read through the deal
and our fearless leader patrick moorhead has
weighed in on on social media on this as well
there's certain triggers that have to be met
for that equity to flow but what i really like
about it is It allows AMD that's been in kind
of second position, not that they've been in
second position relative to NVIDIA on the compute
side. It provides them some tailwind to really
drive the volume on their GPU platform and what
they're in the GPU platform because they're accelerators
that leverage Nsando as well. And like I always
like to say, competition breeds innovation. And
what this means is that there's going to be more
choice. And to your point, There are lots of
other models. There's OpenAI, there's IBM Granite,
there's ChatGPT. But I really like this deal.
We live in very unconventional times. And that
was what I shared on the Data Center podcast
earlier this morning. But I do like it. And I
agree with you that there is a potential impact
on telecommunications services. Not the infrastructure,
we've talked about that, AI RAN, that sort of
thing, but really on the applications and the
services. And I'm glad I had forgotten about
the OpenAI T -Mobile announcement. We need to
hear some more about how that is progressing,
right? Because it has a lot of potential. It
was a little squishy. There weren't a ton of
concrete details, but that's how partnerships
start. I can't imagine that partnership is just
like... on paper because they had jensen they
had sam altman like you don't get those guys
to show up to your capital markets day to talk
about what they're doing in ai unless they're
actually doing something because that could be
a press release yeah they could send someone
who's not the ceo so it was very clear that there's
something going on there And I hope we get an
update soon. Yeah, I do too, buddy. Hey, we went
a little bit long, but it was a great conversation.
Why don't you take us home? Absolutely. We hope
our viewers and listeners found this week's topic
interesting. If anyone would like to provide
a topic for a future podcast, please reach out
to us on social media. Will's at WillTownTech
and I'm at Anshul Saag. We hope you have a great
weekend and please tune in again next week. And
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