WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.580 Welcome to episode 240 of the GTO on 5G. It's 00:00:03.580 --> 00:00:06.620 the latest Insight Scoop on everything 5G and 00:00:06.620 --> 00:00:10.000 6G. We cover six topics in about 20 minutes, 00:00:10.039 --> 00:00:11.460 and it's brought to you by More Insights and 00:00:11.460 --> 00:00:13.599 Strategy. I'm Will Townsend, and joining me again 00:00:13.599 --> 00:00:16.339 this week is fellow analyst Anshul Sag. Let's 00:00:16.339 --> 00:00:18.480 get started with my first topic. And Anshul, 00:00:18.500 --> 00:00:20.800 I want to talk about T -Mobile. I spent some 00:00:20.800 --> 00:00:24.300 time with them last week at, of all places, a 00:00:24.300 --> 00:00:28.910 Gartner symposium. That is where we held the 00:00:28.910 --> 00:00:32.950 fourth annual awards. It was called the unconventional 00:00:32.950 --> 00:00:36.789 awards, but it's been changed to innovate. And 00:00:36.789 --> 00:00:39.030 we moved it from mobile world Congress where 00:00:39.030 --> 00:00:41.710 we had held it for three years prior. So it was 00:00:41.710 --> 00:00:44.710 a great event. We were celebrating customer successes, 00:00:45.109 --> 00:00:48.570 utilizing T -Mobile's infrastructure. And that 00:00:48.570 --> 00:00:52.560 is a great segue to my first topic. At the event, 00:00:52.700 --> 00:00:55.759 T -Mobile used it as an opportunity to launch 00:00:55.759 --> 00:00:59.359 what they call their edge control solution. And 00:00:59.359 --> 00:01:02.219 what edge control does, it combines the company's 00:01:02.219 --> 00:01:06.079 5G advanced network with local breakout. And 00:01:06.079 --> 00:01:08.939 what that does is it delivers almost a private 00:01:08.939 --> 00:01:11.439 -like cellular experience. But what I love about 00:01:11.439 --> 00:01:14.780 it is that it doesn't require any infrastructure 00:01:14.780 --> 00:01:18.540 on -premises. So there are other solutions that 00:01:18.540 --> 00:01:22.049 are light. that use routers with a degree of 00:01:22.049 --> 00:01:25.689 intelligence and then use cloudified core infrastructure 00:01:25.689 --> 00:01:29.150 to make that all work. But again, what I really 00:01:29.150 --> 00:01:31.189 like about this solution is that it requires 00:01:31.189 --> 00:01:35.370 zero on -premise infrastructure. And it's very 00:01:35.370 --> 00:01:37.810 interesting. It's very forward thinking from 00:01:37.810 --> 00:01:41.609 my perspective. And it has the potential to really 00:01:41.609 --> 00:01:44.549 reduce the complexity of taking advantage of 00:01:44.549 --> 00:01:47.579 a cellular private network. T -Mobile has done 00:01:47.579 --> 00:01:49.519 some pretty innovative things with their advanced 00:01:49.519 --> 00:01:52.359 network solutions, basically combining their 00:01:52.359 --> 00:01:54.819 public network with private infrastructure to 00:01:54.819 --> 00:01:56.760 deliver a hybrid approach and meet customers 00:01:56.760 --> 00:01:59.219 where they're at from a deployment perspective, 00:01:59.560 --> 00:02:03.219 from a CapEx perspective. But I really like this. 00:02:03.359 --> 00:02:05.340 And I know you caught the news. Any thoughts 00:02:05.340 --> 00:02:07.719 here? Is this a game changer? Because you and 00:02:07.719 --> 00:02:10.900 I have talked about the fact that it took a few 00:02:10.900 --> 00:02:13.949 years for private cellular. to really get its 00:02:13.949 --> 00:02:15.530 footing because there were so many different 00:02:15.530 --> 00:02:18.349 ways to get there and i thought it really confused 00:02:18.349 --> 00:02:22.250 enterprises but what are your thoughts yeah i 00:02:22.250 --> 00:02:24.810 think that this is an interesting solution especially 00:02:24.810 --> 00:02:27.150 for someone like t -mobile who doesn't have as 00:02:27.150 --> 00:02:31.430 much of an edge play as say verizon or att do 00:02:31.430 --> 00:02:35.129 so i think that this will expand their capabilities 00:02:35.129 --> 00:02:38.469 for edge compute um and satisfy a lot of the 00:02:38.469 --> 00:02:41.530 needs that that people might have that they didn't 00:02:41.530 --> 00:02:43.849 previously have as an offering And I think it 00:02:43.849 --> 00:02:46.169 strategically improves their competitiveness 00:02:46.169 --> 00:02:50.169 against Verizon and AT &T, considering that they 00:02:50.169 --> 00:02:53.469 do have a pretty good 5G network. I feel like 00:02:53.469 --> 00:02:55.750 edge control is something that they probably 00:02:55.750 --> 00:02:58.770 needed. And I think it really rounds out all 00:02:58.770 --> 00:03:01.030 the other offerings that they have. I agree. 00:03:01.229 --> 00:03:04.090 And you and I, I think we spoke about this. We 00:03:04.090 --> 00:03:05.770 may have referenced it, but we couldn't go into 00:03:05.770 --> 00:03:08.050 a lot of detail because it was under NDA. But 00:03:08.050 --> 00:03:11.370 you and I spent time several weeks ago with T 00:03:11.370 --> 00:03:14.639 -Mobile and Bellevue. And we were briefed on 00:03:14.639 --> 00:03:17.340 the roadmap. And so this is one of the things 00:03:17.340 --> 00:03:19.580 that's coming from the T -Mobile for Business 00:03:19.580 --> 00:03:23.060 enterprise roadmap. And all I can tell our viewers 00:03:23.060 --> 00:03:25.360 and listeners is that there's a lot of other 00:03:25.360 --> 00:03:27.819 pretty compelling stuff that's behind edge control. 00:03:28.680 --> 00:03:31.020 And from my perspective, it really legitimately 00:03:31.020 --> 00:03:33.939 places T -Mobile right there in the thick of 00:03:33.939 --> 00:03:36.419 things with Verizon and AT &T that have traditionally 00:03:36.419 --> 00:03:39.379 had very strong cellular enterprise offerings 00:03:39.379 --> 00:03:43.080 just beyond access. So it's great to have a third 00:03:43.080 --> 00:03:46.740 player in the mix here in the U .S. that's providing 00:03:46.740 --> 00:03:48.580 customers with a lot of flexibility and a lot 00:03:48.580 --> 00:03:51.659 of choice. So it's fun to watch. But hey, let's 00:03:51.659 --> 00:03:53.139 go to your first topic. And we're actually going 00:03:53.139 --> 00:03:55.379 to make this a two -part topic. There was a big 00:03:55.379 --> 00:04:00.360 event, NVIDIA held its GTC. D .C. event. Our 00:04:00.360 --> 00:04:02.360 fearless leader, Patrick Moorhead, was there. 00:04:02.460 --> 00:04:05.340 There was a very interesting sort of pregame 00:04:05.340 --> 00:04:09.759 session where Patrick spent time with a number 00:04:09.759 --> 00:04:11.979 of different folks. There was someone from the 00:04:11.979 --> 00:04:14.719 media. I don't recall her name. I think there 00:04:14.719 --> 00:04:18.100 was a very well -known venture capitalist. Yeah, 00:04:18.240 --> 00:04:20.639 CNBC. And there was a very well -known venture 00:04:20.639 --> 00:04:23.139 capitalist. And so the three of them anchored. 00:04:23.519 --> 00:04:26.019 this this pregame event before the actual conference 00:04:26.019 --> 00:04:28.040 started and then they had a bunch of different 00:04:28.040 --> 00:04:31.240 ai companies perplexity you name it filter through 00:04:31.240 --> 00:04:33.699 there so it was like three and a half hours i 00:04:33.699 --> 00:04:36.360 think you can catch the replay online but that's 00:04:36.360 --> 00:04:38.860 a long preamble but i'm going to let you take 00:04:38.860 --> 00:04:40.600 it away because you want to talk about a big 00:04:40.600 --> 00:04:45.079 partnership between nokia and nvidia yeah so 00:04:45.079 --> 00:04:49.050 this is like a Kind of an extension of what we 00:04:49.050 --> 00:04:52.490 heard during the Capital Markets Day with NVIDIA 00:04:52.490 --> 00:04:55.990 building this ARC computer for 6G. Obviously, 00:04:56.069 --> 00:04:58.069 Nokia was already kind of part of that announcement 00:04:58.069 --> 00:05:02.230 back, I think it was May in San Francisco. And 00:05:02.230 --> 00:05:04.589 that was when OpenAI and NVIDIA and T -Mobile 00:05:04.589 --> 00:05:06.470 all had these big announcements. And Nokia and 00:05:06.470 --> 00:05:09.750 Ericsson were part of that as well. This announcement 00:05:09.750 --> 00:05:13.170 is an extension of that in the sense that they're 00:05:13.170 --> 00:05:15.790 still going to be doing. the arc aerial ran computer 00:05:15.790 --> 00:05:21.930 for 6g and there's still ai ran but the the explicit 00:05:21.930 --> 00:05:25.889 call out of t -mobile was there i read the linkedin 00:05:25.889 --> 00:05:28.350 post of the ceo of nokia and he also mentioned 00:05:28.350 --> 00:05:30.769 dell which i thought was really interesting yeah 00:05:30.769 --> 00:05:35.180 for sure yeah So there's clearly a more strong 00:05:35.180 --> 00:05:38.420 US focus on all of this. And then the big deal 00:05:38.420 --> 00:05:40.699 was that NVIDIA is investing a billion dollars 00:05:40.699 --> 00:05:44.819 into Nokia, which is what they did with Intel. 00:05:45.060 --> 00:05:48.680 Very similar kind of partnership slash investment. 00:05:49.139 --> 00:05:52.639 And I think it also catapulted the stock like 00:05:52.639 --> 00:05:56.920 25%, which is crazy. But what it does, it's like 00:05:56.920 --> 00:05:59.779 a vote of confidence from NVIDIA that Nokia is 00:05:59.779 --> 00:06:01.500 on the right path and investors are going to 00:06:01.500 --> 00:06:05.019 pour in. It's really interesting because the 00:06:05.019 --> 00:06:08.879 way I see what NVIDIA is doing here is leveraging 00:06:08.879 --> 00:06:12.899 its strength in the market to give itself an 00:06:12.899 --> 00:06:15.339 opportunity to get undervalued companies really 00:06:15.339 --> 00:06:19.240 cheaply, have a significant share of the company's 00:06:19.240 --> 00:06:22.199 stock, and also be able to profit off of the 00:06:22.199 --> 00:06:24.339 success that they are enabling with their technology. 00:06:24.540 --> 00:06:26.759 It's really interesting. There's not that many 00:06:26.759 --> 00:06:30.170 details. Not that many more details on what's 00:06:30.170 --> 00:06:32.089 actually going to roll out, but this is very 00:06:32.089 --> 00:06:35.610 much an America -focused announcement, even though 00:06:35.610 --> 00:06:38.449 Nokia is a Finnish company and Ericsson actually 00:06:38.449 --> 00:06:42.170 has a U .S. factory. But nonetheless, this is 00:06:42.170 --> 00:06:45.269 still a very interesting announcement and a continuation 00:06:45.269 --> 00:06:48.050 of what's already been talked about. I think 00:06:48.050 --> 00:06:50.790 the Dell component is relatively new. I don't 00:06:50.790 --> 00:06:52.529 seem to recall that having been brought up before, 00:06:52.670 --> 00:06:55.639 but there's still a long way to go. We still 00:06:55.639 --> 00:06:57.819 need to get a lot more detail on what this is 00:06:57.819 --> 00:06:59.240 actually going to do and how it's going to look. 00:06:59.420 --> 00:07:02.100 But T -Mobile seems to be the lead here. And 00:07:02.100 --> 00:07:06.240 I'll say the whole GTCDC event was very focused 00:07:06.240 --> 00:07:09.360 on the US. And in my write -up that I think you 00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:11.639 and I will do together, I think that the focus 00:07:11.639 --> 00:07:14.240 is going to be that this is really about addressing 00:07:14.240 --> 00:07:16.439 the needs and concerns of the US government. 00:07:16.879 --> 00:07:19.959 So there was a lot of HPC stuff. There was some 00:07:19.959 --> 00:07:25.279 auto, tons of AI. and then also 6g i think this 00:07:25.279 --> 00:07:29.680 was very a very catered event to satisfy dc's 00:07:29.680 --> 00:07:32.199 concerns and you can say this is the trump administration 00:07:32.199 --> 00:07:34.620 specifically but really if you look at it all 00:07:34.620 --> 00:07:37.439 these concerns have been in place for quite some 00:07:37.439 --> 00:07:39.519 time and it's really about addressing what the 00:07:39.519 --> 00:07:43.600 dc audience wants to hear Yeah, no, I agree. 00:07:43.639 --> 00:07:46.120 Those are spot on insights. The Dell relationship 00:07:46.120 --> 00:07:49.660 is not new. So a few years ago, NVIDIA retired 00:07:49.660 --> 00:07:52.680 its compute infrastructure and they moved over 00:07:52.680 --> 00:07:56.000 to Dell Technologies. There's some NEB certification. 00:07:56.339 --> 00:07:59.569 So this isn't just common off the shelf. type 00:07:59.569 --> 00:08:03.009 server solutions. And obviously with the disaggregation 00:08:03.009 --> 00:08:05.170 with Open RAN and that sort of thing, Dell's 00:08:05.170 --> 00:08:07.689 been playing there. But this just provides another 00:08:07.689 --> 00:08:11.209 opportunity for Dell to strengthen its partnership 00:08:11.209 --> 00:08:14.769 with Nokia and sell more compute infrastructure. 00:08:15.329 --> 00:08:19.350 I think from my perspective, NVIDIA choosing 00:08:19.350 --> 00:08:22.910 Nokia was somewhat strategic just based on some 00:08:22.910 --> 00:08:24.709 of the recent work that I've done with Nokia 00:08:24.709 --> 00:08:28.829 around their autonomous networks platform. and 00:08:28.829 --> 00:08:30.750 so our viewers and listeners if you're interested 00:08:30.750 --> 00:08:32.570 you can hit the more insights and strategy website 00:08:32.570 --> 00:08:35.730 i've published a few formal papers and i've done 00:08:35.730 --> 00:08:38.309 some contributed writing what we call our analyst 00:08:38.309 --> 00:08:40.769 insights so go hit our website if you want to 00:08:40.769 --> 00:08:44.090 learn more about that but that kind of is a nice 00:08:44.090 --> 00:08:47.990 segue to my part two on gtc dc where i want to 00:08:47.990 --> 00:08:52.139 talk about what was announced as an all -American 00:08:52.139 --> 00:08:55.320 AI -ran stack. That sounds like apple pie and 00:08:55.320 --> 00:08:59.779 football and whatnot, but obviously the federal 00:08:59.779 --> 00:09:02.019 government has been very focused on the need 00:09:02.019 --> 00:09:05.159 to domesticate the supply chain to a certain 00:09:05.159 --> 00:09:08.720 extent. That happened with Open RAN and 5G, but 00:09:08.720 --> 00:09:11.960 there's a real opportunity with 6G to get ahead 00:09:11.960 --> 00:09:14.620 of this. And again, it's been a very strategic 00:09:14.620 --> 00:09:16.980 focus for the federal government when you look 00:09:16.980 --> 00:09:19.259 at the rip and replace that started with Chinese 00:09:19.259 --> 00:09:22.879 infrastructure and then Open RAN. And I've published 00:09:22.879 --> 00:09:26.679 something on LinkedIn a few months ago around 00:09:26.679 --> 00:09:30.539 Open RAN, its successes, its failures. It'll 00:09:30.539 --> 00:09:32.139 be interesting to see how that sort of all winds 00:09:32.139 --> 00:09:34.279 up. But let me get to the crux of what this all 00:09:34.279 --> 00:09:37.740 American AI native wireless stack is. It's obviously 00:09:37.740 --> 00:09:40.360 involving the aerial platform that you talk about, 00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:44.480 which, by the way, at GTCDC this week, NVIDIA 00:09:44.480 --> 00:09:47.220 also announced the fact that they are open sourcing 00:09:47.220 --> 00:09:50.200 that. So that's pretty exciting. So that's going 00:09:50.200 --> 00:09:53.919 to really remove the barriers for adoption and 00:09:53.919 --> 00:09:57.399 certainly NVIDIA will benefit. You need the hardware 00:09:57.399 --> 00:09:59.940 acceleration and networking and all of that to 00:09:59.940 --> 00:10:03.179 make this all work. But I think their move to 00:10:03.179 --> 00:10:05.940 move it to open source, I think is great. It's 00:10:05.940 --> 00:10:07.820 just going to accelerate all the development 00:10:07.820 --> 00:10:11.159 behind it. But when you look at the partners, 00:10:11.240 --> 00:10:14.220 this is a full stack solution. You've got Cisco 00:10:14.220 --> 00:10:17.940 providing user plane function and 5G core software. 00:10:18.860 --> 00:10:23.299 And you've also got some specific 6G -like applications 00:10:23.299 --> 00:10:27.639 from MITRE and from Booz Allen as well. Specifically 00:10:27.639 --> 00:10:31.059 going into the applications, there's a lot of 00:10:31.059 --> 00:10:34.419 camera vision, computer vision with spectrum 00:10:34.419 --> 00:10:38.659 censoring. And the whole notion of AI RAN is 00:10:38.659 --> 00:10:40.879 to more effectively utilize spectrum, right? 00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:43.179 And you and I have talked about there are many 00:10:43.179 --> 00:10:46.399 different schemes to go do that. But that is 00:10:46.399 --> 00:10:49.000 going to be important. And from my perspective, 00:10:49.299 --> 00:10:51.980 you know, and then you've been playing with the 00:10:51.980 --> 00:10:55.500 DGX Spark as well. So a lot of the focus at the 00:10:55.500 --> 00:10:58.080 event as I tuned in over the last couple of days 00:10:58.080 --> 00:11:00.940 was around the developer. And you might want 00:11:00.940 --> 00:11:02.919 to share some of your initial experiences because 00:11:02.919 --> 00:11:04.580 you've got one of those units, right? You've 00:11:04.580 --> 00:11:09.279 been playing around with it. Yes, it's a cool 00:11:09.279 --> 00:11:11.899 little device. It does get a little warm while 00:11:11.899 --> 00:11:13.779 you're using it. because it doesn't really have 00:11:13.779 --> 00:11:16.779 very active cooling but you'll appreciate one 00:11:16.779 --> 00:11:18.899 of the coolest parts of it which is this port 00:11:18.899 --> 00:11:22.360 right here that's for the 200 gigabit link using 00:11:22.360 --> 00:11:26.340 connect x7 and then you can scale two of them 00:11:26.340 --> 00:11:28.480 together and double the memory capacity that 00:11:28.480 --> 00:11:31.200 you have it's just a cool little box to have 00:11:31.200 --> 00:11:34.169 for ai development because It gives you that 00:11:34.169 --> 00:11:37.529 big model support with that 120 gigs of unified 00:11:37.529 --> 00:11:41.690 memory, CPU and GPU. And it's got a 20 -core 00:11:41.690 --> 00:11:44.429 CPU. It's pretty powerful. And then a pretty 00:11:44.429 --> 00:11:46.990 powerful GPU as well. And it can do a decent 00:11:46.990 --> 00:11:48.809 amount of AI inference that doesn't really bog 00:11:48.809 --> 00:11:51.049 down your machine, especially if you have a laptop 00:11:51.049 --> 00:11:53.289 or something where that's your primary development 00:11:53.289 --> 00:11:55.929 environment. And yeah, you can also just have 00:11:55.929 --> 00:11:59.590 it as a server for other things as well. So it's 00:11:59.590 --> 00:12:02.350 a Linux box. Really what it is, NVIDIA has just 00:12:02.350 --> 00:12:04.950 made the entire software stack on that device 00:12:04.950 --> 00:12:09.110 really easy to use. And all you need to do is 00:12:09.110 --> 00:12:11.110 just find the different samples and different 00:12:11.110 --> 00:12:13.769 playbooks that NVIDIA has built for replication 00:12:13.769 --> 00:12:16.269 you're looking for. And you might not even have 00:12:16.269 --> 00:12:19.190 to know how to code to deploy some of these things, 00:12:19.330 --> 00:12:22.009 which is really cool because this ease of use 00:12:22.009 --> 00:12:24.529 is really one of the biggest challenges for coding 00:12:24.529 --> 00:12:27.629 and deploying AI. So yeah, I think it's really 00:12:27.629 --> 00:12:30.460 cool. And they announced a bunch of... networking 00:12:30.460 --> 00:12:34.679 stuff as well, or at least rehashed it. It's 00:12:34.679 --> 00:12:36.980 been like a lot of things were also rehashed, 00:12:37.080 --> 00:12:40.100 like the T -Mobile and Nokia announcement. I 00:12:40.100 --> 00:12:44.039 think this is a very America rah -rah kind of 00:12:44.039 --> 00:12:48.340 thing. It was in DC, right? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. 00:12:48.399 --> 00:12:51.240 So I think it's important to understand the context 00:12:51.240 --> 00:12:56.159 of it and why it was done. But ultimately, I 00:12:56.159 --> 00:12:58.639 think NVIDIA is kind of the center of the AI 00:12:58.639 --> 00:13:02.179 universe right now. And I think it's smart for 00:13:02.179 --> 00:13:06.460 the U .S. government to mostly let them do what 00:13:06.460 --> 00:13:08.860 they need to do to be successful. And yeah, I 00:13:08.860 --> 00:13:10.820 think the U .S. government doesn't want to enable 00:13:10.820 --> 00:13:14.179 someone else that's not a U .S. company to be 00:13:14.179 --> 00:13:17.139 successful because ultimately they want that 00:13:17.139 --> 00:13:20.019 orbit to be around U .S. companies and for the 00:13:20.019 --> 00:13:22.559 U .S. to be able to deploy things. But I will 00:13:22.559 --> 00:13:25.460 say, I do think this administration is a little 00:13:25.460 --> 00:13:28.779 bit short -sighted on power and they need to 00:13:28.779 --> 00:13:33.570 be accelerating power deployment and not canceling 00:13:33.570 --> 00:13:36.190 multi gigawatt projects just because they're 00:13:36.190 --> 00:13:39.750 green. So I think power is going to be the biggest 00:13:39.750 --> 00:13:42.289 challenge. And I think NVIDIA knows it. Everybody 00:13:42.289 --> 00:13:44.669 else knows it. And even the Chinese government 00:13:44.669 --> 00:13:46.309 knows it. And the Chinese government's building 00:13:46.309 --> 00:13:49.750 so much capacity that if they don't use it for 00:13:49.750 --> 00:13:52.090 AI, they will not know what else to do with it. 00:13:52.250 --> 00:13:54.710 Last thing I'll mention, I want to circle back 00:13:54.710 --> 00:13:58.340 to the Nokia NVIDIA announcement. The interesting 00:13:58.340 --> 00:14:01.120 thing, and I shared some insights as I was taking 00:14:01.120 --> 00:14:03.419 off from Austin because I'm in the Bay Area for 00:14:03.419 --> 00:14:06.440 another event this week, but the space mob jumped 00:14:06.440 --> 00:14:09.039 on my one post and they probably jumped on your 00:14:09.039 --> 00:14:12.500 X post as well. Airscale, a souped up version 00:14:12.500 --> 00:14:16.539 of Nokia Airscale is used within AST Space Mobile's 00:14:16.539 --> 00:14:20.600 low Earth orbit satellite deployment. And there's 00:14:20.600 --> 00:14:22.840 some speculation by the space mob out there that 00:14:22.840 --> 00:14:26.679 that can position AST Space Mobile quite well. 00:14:27.440 --> 00:14:31.179 Because again, The 6G standards have not been 00:14:31.179 --> 00:14:33.559 defined. There's a lot of pre -definition. Qualcomm 00:14:33.559 --> 00:14:36.679 has done this. Even T -Mobile has predefined 00:14:36.679 --> 00:14:40.659 5G advanced. But suffice it to say, we know that 00:14:40.659 --> 00:14:44.940 some form of AI is going to be a part of that. 00:14:45.080 --> 00:14:47.919 And most likely, we're going to see low Earth 00:14:47.919 --> 00:14:50.179 orbit satellite become a big component of that. 00:14:50.320 --> 00:14:52.019 I wanted to mention that as well before we move 00:14:52.019 --> 00:14:54.200 to your second topic. But let's do that. So you 00:14:54.200 --> 00:14:56.659 want to talk about Samsung Networks and SoftBank 00:14:56.659 --> 00:15:01.809 signing an MOU. Yeah. So I originally thought 00:15:01.809 --> 00:15:05.509 this was an MOU with Samsung Networks. And then 00:15:05.509 --> 00:15:08.610 I looked at the actual release and it says Samsung 00:15:08.610 --> 00:15:12.990 Electronics, which is interesting because it 00:15:12.990 --> 00:15:16.350 says it's an MOU for joint research into next 00:15:16.350 --> 00:15:18.389 generation communication technologies, including 00:15:18.389 --> 00:15:22.909 6G and AI based RAM, which sounds like Samsung 00:15:22.909 --> 00:15:26.309 Networks, right? Yes. Yeah. And it even goes 00:15:26.309 --> 00:15:28.909 into more detail. It says. The two companies 00:15:28.909 --> 00:15:30.649 will categorize next -generation communications 00:15:30.649 --> 00:15:34.830 technologies into four candidate areas, 6G AI 00:15:34.830 --> 00:15:38.610 for RAN, AI and RAN, and large telecom models. 00:15:38.789 --> 00:15:43.250 So all of this sounds like Samsung Networks. 00:15:43.250 --> 00:15:45.529 But for some reason, this is being called Samsung 00:15:45.529 --> 00:15:49.269 Electronics. Maybe it's because Samsung Electronics 00:15:49.269 --> 00:15:51.990 is technically the bigger parent company. But 00:15:51.990 --> 00:15:54.309 I thought it was really weird. That's very much 00:15:54.309 --> 00:15:57.179 a networks announcement. But nonetheless. What 00:15:57.179 --> 00:16:01.000 this means is that a Korean company is going 00:16:01.000 --> 00:16:04.460 to be building a Japanese company's network or 00:16:04.460 --> 00:16:06.620 at least helping build it, which is very interesting 00:16:06.620 --> 00:16:09.399 because there's some cultural challenges there. 00:16:09.559 --> 00:16:12.320 Oh, yes, there are, my friend, because I've spent 00:16:12.320 --> 00:16:15.799 time in both Seoul and many... Yeah, so you know 00:16:15.799 --> 00:16:18.460 that this is actually a very big deal. And yeah, 00:16:18.559 --> 00:16:20.879 it's just very interesting because most of this 00:16:20.879 --> 00:16:23.879 is about AI RAN, but also AI RAN orchestration 00:16:23.879 --> 00:16:28.860 and using... 6G and AI together. So this is very 00:16:28.860 --> 00:16:32.759 interesting because SoftBank is one of the foundational 00:16:32.759 --> 00:16:37.580 carriers in Japan. And Samsung Networks is one 00:16:37.580 --> 00:16:40.539 of the bigger infrastructure providers in the 00:16:40.539 --> 00:16:44.259 world. They're not necessarily like an Ericsson 00:16:44.259 --> 00:16:46.519 or Nokia, but they're constantly catching up. 00:16:46.779 --> 00:16:49.320 And this is just another demonstration of them 00:16:49.320 --> 00:16:52.500 really building partnerships in places you wouldn't 00:16:52.500 --> 00:16:55.700 expect them to. And SoftBank is a... pretty big 00:16:55.700 --> 00:16:57.700 carrier. It'll be really interesting to see how 00:16:57.700 --> 00:17:00.860 this actually manifests itself in the 6G network. 00:17:01.220 --> 00:17:04.180 We obviously are not going to know the reality 00:17:04.180 --> 00:17:05.960 of that for probably a few more years at the 00:17:05.960 --> 00:17:08.460 very minimum because we're talking about research, 00:17:08.700 --> 00:17:10.700 but it's still an MOU. So there's definitely 00:17:10.700 --> 00:17:14.119 some real meat to it, but it'll be interesting 00:17:14.119 --> 00:17:16.779 to see how they actually manifest as partners 00:17:16.779 --> 00:17:19.819 and whether Samsung networks ends up being a 00:17:19.819 --> 00:17:24.009 bigger part of the Japanese market. Yeah, clearly 00:17:24.009 --> 00:17:26.490 from my perspective, because I have spent a lot 00:17:26.490 --> 00:17:29.529 of time with the Samsung Networks team, they 00:17:29.529 --> 00:17:33.549 clearly established a leadership position in 00:17:33.549 --> 00:17:38.369 VRAN and Open RAN. The challenge, and they traditionally 00:17:38.369 --> 00:17:41.730 weren't strong in RAN, if you think back to even 00:17:41.730 --> 00:17:47.730 4G and 3G, right? But because that's been their 00:17:47.730 --> 00:17:51.769 core focus when... When, you know, the RAN, when 00:17:51.769 --> 00:17:53.890 the RAN infrastructure got all built out and 00:17:53.890 --> 00:17:56.710 then carriers were focused on core deployment, 00:17:57.029 --> 00:18:00.069 their business, I won't say tank, but then they 00:18:00.069 --> 00:18:03.250 saw a significant dip because the lion's share 00:18:03.250 --> 00:18:04.769 of what they were driving out of their networks, 00:18:04.869 --> 00:18:07.650 BU, was RAN infrastructure and in particular 00:18:07.650 --> 00:18:11.089 DRAN and to a lesser extent Open RAN. So yeah, 00:18:11.250 --> 00:18:13.710 it'll, it'll be super interesting to see how, 00:18:13.809 --> 00:18:16.609 how this MOU sort of moves forward, but they 00:18:16.609 --> 00:18:19.740 certainly have some very solid strengths. when 00:18:19.740 --> 00:18:23.079 it comes to introducing virtualization. And there 00:18:23.079 --> 00:18:26.740 is AI that's infused in that infrastructure as 00:18:26.740 --> 00:18:29.660 well. And in fact, I can't really share the details, 00:18:29.779 --> 00:18:32.960 but I'm hoping that we'll get to the point where 00:18:32.960 --> 00:18:36.440 we can publish more insights and strategy research 00:18:36.440 --> 00:18:39.299 paper that goes into a little more depth around 00:18:39.299 --> 00:18:41.380 what Samsung Networks is doing in that regard. 00:18:41.619 --> 00:18:44.019 But with that, I'm going to go to my third and 00:18:44.019 --> 00:18:46.240 final topic. I'm going to be really succinct 00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:49.329 on this one. But I recently got back from the 00:18:49.329 --> 00:18:52.549 Baltics. It was my sixth or seventh year to go 00:18:52.549 --> 00:18:56.450 to this event. It was called 5G Techratory. This 00:18:56.450 --> 00:18:59.430 year they dropped the 5G because the event is 00:18:59.430 --> 00:19:03.630 becoming more than 5G, right? It's cloud, it's 00:19:03.630 --> 00:19:05.430 AI and that sort of thing. So they wanted to 00:19:05.430 --> 00:19:09.130 recast it. But I had the opportunity to host 00:19:09.130 --> 00:19:11.430 two panels and the one in particular that I want 00:19:11.430 --> 00:19:15.349 to highlight was titled The Defense of 5G. And 00:19:15.349 --> 00:19:17.329 it's funny, even some of the panel members thought 00:19:17.329 --> 00:19:19.890 that title was misleading. It's like, are we 00:19:19.890 --> 00:19:22.910 going to talk about defense use cases for 5G? 00:19:22.950 --> 00:19:25.269 Because obviously in that part of the world, 00:19:25.569 --> 00:19:28.410 you know, you're very close to Russia. And a 00:19:28.410 --> 00:19:31.690 lot of the operators like Latvia Mobile Telephone, 00:19:31.730 --> 00:19:35.289 LMT, are focused on defense applications with 00:19:35.289 --> 00:19:37.829 5G, whether they're backpacks or they're drones 00:19:37.829 --> 00:19:41.430 or whatnot. But at a high level, like my take 00:19:41.430 --> 00:19:43.769 on it, spending time, and it was obviously I'm 00:19:43.769 --> 00:19:46.230 the American and the panel members were from 00:19:46.230 --> 00:19:49.869 Europe and they were from 6G consortiums, research 00:19:49.869 --> 00:19:54.190 institutions. We had Dean Buble, who is the 5G 00:19:54.190 --> 00:19:57.369 doubter. We had another doubter on the panel 00:19:57.369 --> 00:19:59.349 as well. And I'm the optimist about all this. 00:19:59.430 --> 00:20:02.690 But the reality is, I think in Europe, they've 00:20:02.690 --> 00:20:06.299 experienced the same. challenges that we've seen 00:20:06.299 --> 00:20:08.640 in the U .S. and other parts of the world with 00:20:08.640 --> 00:20:13.279 respect to GSMA, please never, ever do another 00:20:13.279 --> 00:20:18.160 split with NA and NSA. And it complicates things 00:20:18.160 --> 00:20:21.339 in the European Union because each individual 00:20:21.339 --> 00:20:26.119 country manages the regulation and spectrum auctions 00:20:26.119 --> 00:20:28.259 and that sort of thing. So it makes it even far 00:20:28.259 --> 00:20:30.740 more complex. We've had a delayed rollout with 00:20:30.740 --> 00:20:34.250 standalone. Finally, AT &T announced just a few 00:20:34.250 --> 00:20:36.809 weeks ago that they've achieved nationwide SA. 00:20:37.470 --> 00:20:39.289 I expect, and you and I have been talking about 00:20:39.289 --> 00:20:41.430 this, you and I have been predicting for years 00:20:41.430 --> 00:20:44.829 that eventually AT &T and Verizon would close 00:20:44.829 --> 00:20:47.930 the gap sometime in the second half of this year 00:20:47.930 --> 00:20:50.970 so we can take our victory lap on that. But it's 00:20:50.970 --> 00:20:53.089 been even more complicated in Europe. And when 00:20:53.089 --> 00:20:55.970 the subject of 6G comes up, there were a couple 00:20:55.970 --> 00:20:57.670 of panel members who said, hey, you know what? 00:20:57.809 --> 00:21:00.369 Hold on. We got to get through 5G. We're not 00:21:00.369 --> 00:21:02.869 even at 5G advanced yet. And I'm also hearing 00:21:02.869 --> 00:21:04.970 what are the applications? What are the use cases? 00:21:05.109 --> 00:21:08.150 They've been very focused on access. I brought 00:21:08.150 --> 00:21:10.589 up sort of the killer use case that we've seen 00:21:10.589 --> 00:21:14.509 in the U .S. around FWA and they agreed. T -Mobile's 00:21:14.509 --> 00:21:17.690 done a great job with that. Now you've got AT 00:21:17.690 --> 00:21:21.529 &T with its internet air product delivering that 00:21:21.529 --> 00:21:23.750 both to consumers and enterprises when fiber 00:21:23.750 --> 00:21:27.549 is not available. But suffice it to say the... 00:21:27.960 --> 00:21:32.119 The viewpoint on the success of 5G is I think 00:21:32.119 --> 00:21:34.880 it's pretty similar to the U .S. as well. And 00:21:34.880 --> 00:21:37.680 so I think we've learned a lot going through 00:21:37.680 --> 00:21:40.019 this process and this journey and you and I doing 00:21:40.019 --> 00:21:42.980 this podcast for the last five plus years. And 00:21:42.980 --> 00:21:46.059 so I just hope that we don't make the same mistakes. 00:21:46.180 --> 00:21:48.640 GSMA doesn't make the same mistake, and I don't 00:21:48.640 --> 00:21:51.720 think they will, in that we see a much more successful 00:21:51.720 --> 00:21:56.940 and accelerated role to 6G when the time is right. 00:21:57.849 --> 00:22:00.269 Any additional commentary there before we close 00:22:00.269 --> 00:22:02.890 it out with your final? I think there's going 00:22:02.890 --> 00:22:05.710 to be a lot of cool use cases for 6G. I'm happy 00:22:05.710 --> 00:22:09.130 that there isn't going to be an NSA -SA battle 00:22:09.130 --> 00:22:12.029 again. It really screwed a lot of things over. 00:22:12.190 --> 00:22:14.789 It's okay. Just wait to deploy the G when you're 00:22:14.789 --> 00:22:18.150 ready and no weird stuff. Even if it means 5G 00:22:18.150 --> 00:22:20.930 comes later, or if it means 6G comes later, it'll 00:22:20.930 --> 00:22:24.230 be what people expect, right? We still don't 00:22:24.230 --> 00:22:28.640 have... nationwide in a lot of places. So yeah, 00:22:28.859 --> 00:22:31.700 there's so much to talk about. It would be its 00:22:31.700 --> 00:22:34.359 own podcast. We might have to do another podcast 00:22:34.359 --> 00:22:37.240 on that topic alone. Hey, let's close it out. 00:22:37.579 --> 00:22:41.240 And boy, it seems like Verizon's new CEO is already 00:22:41.240 --> 00:22:43.920 on the job, right? So you want to talk about 00:22:43.920 --> 00:22:48.460 some late breaking news at Verizon. Yeah, so 00:22:48.460 --> 00:22:52.960 Verizon has inked a deal. It's a wholesale deal. 00:22:53.500 --> 00:22:56.440 with Eaton Fiber. And basically what it is that 00:22:56.440 --> 00:22:59.539 Eaton will build out the network for Verizon, 00:22:59.740 --> 00:23:03.039 and Verizon will be able to serve and market 00:23:03.039 --> 00:23:06.740 those customers and be able to basically expand 00:23:06.740 --> 00:23:10.619 its fiber footprint beyond where Verizon is today, 00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:14.299 or in addition to where Frontier is also today. 00:23:14.420 --> 00:23:16.660 So it's going to be even bigger than the combined 00:23:16.660 --> 00:23:20.440 assets of what Verizon will have with the Frontier. 00:23:21.299 --> 00:23:25.559 I will say that I haven't really heard that much 00:23:25.559 --> 00:23:29.619 about Eaton before. But it seems that Tillman, 00:23:29.700 --> 00:23:33.500 which is a parent company of Eaton, has some 00:23:33.500 --> 00:23:38.359 capacity in Florida. And it's unclear if there's 00:23:38.359 --> 00:23:42.140 other locations where they will be able to expand 00:23:42.140 --> 00:23:45.400 capacity. But it seems like Verizon is looking 00:23:45.400 --> 00:23:49.759 for ways to... build out fiber with partners. 00:23:50.019 --> 00:23:54.380 I believe Tillman slash Eaton will fund a lot 00:23:54.380 --> 00:23:56.579 of this development. Verizon won't technically 00:23:56.579 --> 00:23:59.319 own the networks, but they will be serving them 00:23:59.319 --> 00:24:02.660 and basically marketing those networks and buying 00:24:02.660 --> 00:24:07.500 that wholesale from Eaton. And the Tillman fiber 00:24:07.500 --> 00:24:10.660 company in Florida has T -Mobile as a tenant. 00:24:10.819 --> 00:24:14.059 This company is very clearly like a wholesaler 00:24:14.059 --> 00:24:17.160 that builds out networks for. companies that 00:24:17.160 --> 00:24:19.700 want to have capacity, but don't want to spend 00:24:19.700 --> 00:24:22.079 the capital to build them out. And yeah, it would 00:24:22.079 --> 00:24:24.259 be really interesting to see what other deals 00:24:24.259 --> 00:24:27.259 they sign. But very clearly, this is a continuation 00:24:27.259 --> 00:24:31.359 of Verizon's expansion into fiber, which is a 00:24:31.359 --> 00:24:35.480 very clear fast follow after AT &T's fiber build 00:24:35.480 --> 00:24:37.960 out. And so is T -Mobile. T -Mobile is also following. 00:24:38.160 --> 00:24:40.900 AT &T is definitely leading here. And it'll be 00:24:40.900 --> 00:24:43.339 interesting to see Verizon also acquired Starry, 00:24:43.420 --> 00:24:46.720 which is also like a FWA, which we talked about 00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:49.000 before. So there's a lot of really interesting 00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:51.740 things that Verizon is trying to do to expand 00:24:51.740 --> 00:24:54.160 their broadband business. And it's funny because 00:24:54.160 --> 00:24:56.680 a lot of people don't remember this, but Verizon 00:24:56.680 --> 00:24:59.660 sold their fiber business to Frontier and bought 00:24:59.660 --> 00:25:02.259 it back, which is very funny by just buying the 00:25:02.259 --> 00:25:04.779 whole company. But I will say I'm happy for a 00:25:04.779 --> 00:25:07.619 company to admit its mistakes. And that mistake 00:25:07.619 --> 00:25:10.079 happened under the old CEO and was corrected 00:25:10.079 --> 00:25:12.380 under the old CEO as well. Yeah, I think this 00:25:12.380 --> 00:25:15.180 is good for Verizon. I think more competition 00:25:15.180 --> 00:25:18.400 is better. If people have more choice on any 00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:19.599 kind of internet connection, it would be great, 00:25:19.660 --> 00:25:22.819 let alone fiber. I know some people who lived 00:25:22.819 --> 00:25:25.059 in Austin and other areas where Google Fiber 00:25:25.059 --> 00:25:27.880 was the only option, and the prices were okay, 00:25:27.960 --> 00:25:30.099 but once another fiber option became available, 00:25:30.180 --> 00:25:32.539 prices fell through the floor. Fiber is great, 00:25:32.619 --> 00:25:35.440 but competition in fiber is better. Yeah, no, 00:25:35.519 --> 00:25:37.539 I totally agree. You know what's really interesting? 00:25:38.109 --> 00:25:40.849 This has been AT &T's mantra, right? With fiber 00:25:40.849 --> 00:25:43.490 and they're over -investing in areas, even in 00:25:43.490 --> 00:25:47.829 areas that have lower population density. And 00:25:47.829 --> 00:25:50.670 for the longest time, and this was before T -Mobile 00:25:50.670 --> 00:25:54.069 launched its FWA product, but T -Mobile had the 00:25:54.069 --> 00:25:57.269 attitude that, hey, it's not strategic, right? 00:25:57.410 --> 00:25:59.990 If you need fiber for backhaul, but it wasn't 00:25:59.990 --> 00:26:02.769 until they really got serious about using their 00:26:02.769 --> 00:26:05.869 spectrum at T -Mobile. to launch their consumer 00:26:05.869 --> 00:26:09.509 and enterprise fwa that they really started doubling 00:26:09.509 --> 00:26:12.569 down on fiber and like verizon's been in and 00:26:12.569 --> 00:26:15.589 out they had their fio service and to your point 00:26:15.589 --> 00:26:17.769 i'm glad you brought it up it's this pac -man 00:26:17.769 --> 00:26:20.950 thing with frontier but clearly when you look 00:26:20.950 --> 00:26:23.869 at recent earnings they crushed it they're ahead 00:26:23.869 --> 00:26:28.859 of their very aggressive plan on fiber ARPU is 00:26:28.859 --> 00:26:33.019 super healthy, super high. Mobility was fairly 00:26:33.019 --> 00:26:34.960 strong for them as well. Fiber is foundational. 00:26:35.240 --> 00:26:37.720 It's driving broadband. It's the best broadband 00:26:37.720 --> 00:26:40.559 experience. And you've got to have fiber for 00:26:40.559 --> 00:26:43.299 backhaul for mobility. TNT doubled and tripled 00:26:43.299 --> 00:26:46.160 down. They've got quite a large checkbook. But 00:26:46.160 --> 00:26:48.200 yeah, we're seeing T -Mobile and seeing Verizon 00:26:48.200 --> 00:26:50.079 follow suit as well. Hey, my friend, it was another 00:26:50.079 --> 00:26:53.089 great podcast. Why don't you take us home? Absolutely. 00:26:53.269 --> 00:26:55.329 We hope our viewers and listeners found this 00:26:55.329 --> 00:26:57.490 week's topics interesting. If anyone would like 00:26:57.490 --> 00:26:59.930 to provide insights for our future podcasts on 00:26:59.930 --> 00:27:02.549 our future 5G topic, please reach out to us on 00:27:02.549 --> 00:27:05.150 social media. Will is at WillTownTech and I'm 00:27:05.150 --> 00:27:07.470 at Anshul Saag. We hope you have a great rest 00:27:07.470 --> 00:27:09.470 of your week and please don't forget to rate 00:27:09.470 --> 00:27:09.990 us and subscribe.