Welcome to episode 241 of the G2 on 5G. It's
the latest insight scoop on everything 5G and
6G. 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 Sag. Let's get
started, but before we do, I have some news to
share. After nine years of More Insights and
Strategy, I've decided to strike out on my own
in the new year. It's been a great run, and our
podcast, unfortunately, is going to be coming
to an end. But I'll share more details soon about
my new adventure. So stay tuned to that. And
with that, let's get started with my first topic.
I want to talk about Verizon. And until recently,
Verizon issued some pretty deep price cuts. This
applies to its unlimited ultra, unlimited plus,
and unlimited welcome plans, where subscribers
can lock in for three years. And by many measures,
these are some of the most aggressive rate plans
available out there. There's a lot of concern,
including from myself, that this could spark
a price war. And is this really what Verizon's
new CEO should have done as his first move? I
know you're going to talk about something they're
doing for enterprise and FWA, but what do you
think about this pretty aggressive move? They're
typically not the low cost leader, are they?
Yeah, I think this is a consequence of them not
being the market leader they once were and them
wanting to find growth. and maybe increase some
of their competitors' churn. And I think we're
in a place where everyone's essentially battling
for the same market share. And yeah, price is
a great way to do that. If Verizon believes that
they can do it and that their investors won't
balk at this, then by all means, I think it would
be very interesting because let's be honest,
T -Mobile started kind of their growth with a
price war. In the end, consumers win, and I can't
really see it as a bad thing. But it really comes
down to whether or not investors will allow this
to sustain itself. Yeah, Verizon's ARPU was already
under tremendous pressure. They've been shutting
subscribers left and right. And that's based
on the fact that they've really been in last
place with respect to delivering, from my perspective,
5G standalone. It's interesting how this will
affect the bottom line. And it's one thing to
claw back customers, but if you don't do it profitably.
I don't know. It could be a challenge to your
point. So it'll be interesting to watch this
and see how it rolls out. But let's go to your
first topic. You want to talk about Ookla and
something about cellular is better than Wi -Fi
in airports? Yeah. So Ookla did a report where
they compared cellular carriers to Wi -Fi. And
they did this at major airports in the country.
So they had, let's say at Midway International
in Chicago, AT &T had almost a gig while the
airport had 120 megabits per second. John Wayne
in Orange County, 711 megs on AT &T, 115 over
Wi -Fi. They were showing the top five and bottom
five for mobile versus Wi -Fi. They did have
some occasions where Wi -Fi was faster than 5G,
like in George Bush in Orlando. at DFW, at least
on AT &T. But they also showed all, they showed
Verizon, they showed T -Mobile. And yeah, in
a lot of cases, 5G at airports is better than
Wi -Fi. There's also plenty of cases where it's
worse, but they also showed arrivals. And also
they even had some, they showed different carriers
performance in different airports. And they showed
that T -Mobile and Verizon are tied while AT
&T lags a bit. And then they also showed where
their mobile providers win and then where they
lose and how many airports it is. So in most
cases they win and they even have the color coded
chart on their website. So if you go to the website,
you can find this. The article is called cellular
faster than wifi in US airports. And yeah, it's
just, it's very interesting to see that there's
very specific airports that are problematic.
And then there's certain carriers that are just
better overall. But it was really interesting
that all three carriers were better than the
wifi. and george bush airport for example except
for at &t it's just we live this every day and
it's very interesting that like they even compared
like wi -fi 5 wi -fi 6e wi -fi 7. unsurprisingly
wi -fi 7 is non -existent in top u .s airports
yeah there's a lot of wi -fi 5 which is probably
one of the reasons why yeah and about 25 is wi
-fi 6 just wi -fi 6 at the top airports Global,
across the US, it's almost 50%. But it definitely
seems like there's a modernization that needs
to occur, which might have been the incentive
for Ookla to do this. But it's really interesting
data. I love data. And yeah, I just think that
we're in a place where Wi -Fi needs to improve
in places that are venues. And we're about to
be on Wi -Fi 8. Yeah, I think it's a function
of two things. Number one, you highlighted...
The age of the infrastructure. My assumption,
and it sounds like you've confirmed it, is that
there's a lot of older, I don't want to call
it legacy Wi -Fi infrastructure, but it's quite
a few generations old. And I would say the second
challenge is lack of densification. What's happening
with this older infrastructure? Because I experienced
it, you experienced it, because I traveled half
a million miles this year, and I still have a
few more to go. It's just not properly, the access
points aren't properly scoped to handle. the
number of people that are required. And then
you've got older infrastructure and it just makes
for a terrible Wi -Fi experience. Other than
like when I'm able to get into American Airlines
lounge. Yeah, I'm on my smartphone. I'm not even
trying to pull my notebook out unless it's correct.
Yeah, let's do a 5G notebook. Yeah, there you
go. I need a 5G notebook. Yeah, I hope this really
provides an impetus to airports that are modernizing,
especially like my airport that's going through
a major renovation. Let's factor in the guest
Wi -Fi as well, not just for... back office operations
and that sort of thing, but actually for passengers
as well. I think it'd be a great idea. I was
just there. I saw the construction happening
in the middle of the airport. It's definitely
a lot going on. And we just got a new airport
terminal in San Diego. And I actually haven't
used the wifi yet. Now that I think about it,
but I guarantee you it's at least wifi six. Yeah,
I'm sure it is. Can't wait to experience that
next time I go to San Diego, buddy, because I
was not impressed. Yeah, that old terminal is
dust. Oh, dude. I already leveled it. That's
amazing. Congratulations on that. Hey, let's
go to my second topic. I'm going to start, I'm
going to continue to talk about mobility as well.
And I want to talk about NTT DoCoMo. And in November,
I had another opportunity to go to Tokyo and
attend NTT's R &D forum. And then I got to spend
a day with DoCoMo. And we got to see some of
the same demos that I saw the year before. But
what I learned was that they've been demonstrating
something around sensing technology. And this
is something I think you and I have talked about
on prior podcasts. They presented, at least to
our group, that sensing technology as part of
their future 6G stack, if you want to call it
that. And they're calling it like a human augmentation
platform with radio sensing. And so let me just
provide some of the high level points here. They've
worked with some academia to develop this, but
they're calling it field tech. And what's really
cool is that over a very low latency, high throughput
network, you can actually manipulate robotics.
But what's really cool, there's also a haptic
capability to it. where i participated in this
demo where someone moved something and it made
me twitch the hand that was wearing the sensor
and it gets you thinking like what could obviously
there's some medical applications for this there's
some physical therapy applications for this but
it's quite interesting and i don't want to go
into all the details because it gets pretty technical
but You heard it first here on our last podcast,
unfortunately, that that's how NTD Docomo is
going to somewhat differentiate what they're
doing from a 6G perspective. You and I have talked
about what other carriers and operators are thinking
about. There's a lot of AI -infused capabilities
in the RAM and the core infrastructure that I
think we'll see with 6G. It'll be interesting
to see what the spectrum profiles look like for
6G. But I thought it was interesting. I don't
know if you spent any time with Docomo and know
anything about this field tech. What do you think?
Could there be some pretty cool applications
from your perspective? Yeah. The way I look at
it is the networks are already going to be sensing
on their own. Yeah. And being able to sense other
objects and people and things, I think that makes
sense if the network is even lower latency, because
it's basically impossible without super low latency.
But I also think it would be really interesting
if that sense capability flows through some kind
of AI that determines which sensory outputs or
inputs you should be feeling or be aware of,
because there's probably going to be lots of
inputs and it's going to be important to be able
to understand which ones are relevant. So I think
that that will be interesting, but I also, I'm
also cautious because they, they really tried
to pitch robotics or 5g specific robotic surgery.
They did that never panned out. So. I think it's
also important to understand what things are
realistic and what things will actually get taken
advantage of. And I still think we haven't even
scratched the surface with 5G. But I think, unfortunately,
a lot of those use cases will probably roll into
6G, even though they're very technically feasible
in 5G. Yeah. Initially, when I was exposed to
this technology through Docomo, they were positioning
it within their 5G stack. But now it's decidedly
it's going to be a part of what they do with
6G. And it's smart. Because it gives them a level
of differentiation that's not exactly like everyone
else. Interesting stuff. But hey, let's move
to your second topic. And I know that you got
to spend some time with T -Mobile. And you were
in Las Vegas for the F1 Grand Prix, correct?
And you want to share some of your experiences
from that. Yeah, I actually have a write -up
that's publishing pretty soon. And it talks about,
one, T -Mobile's expanded partnership with Formula
One. They're going to be the... infrastructure
provider in Las Vegas and in Austin. I think
you and I talked about on Twitter. That's going
to be huge for Coda because that place is a nightmare.
And it seems like the only infrastructure improvements
they've made were for private 5G deployments
for commercial uses, not for consumers or broadcast.
So that'll be huge, especially with Apple moving
to take over the entire Formula One license.
They're probably going to want to shoot 4K everything.
And that's going to require a lot of bandwidth.
So I think T -Mobile doing that would be great.
In addition to that, T -Mobile has a huge area
of the Las Vegas Grand Prix that's basically
their zone right around the sphere. And they're
doing lots of cool activations. They had a 5G
concert there where the people on stage were
performing and had people walk around with smartphones
that were basically live cameras feeding straight
into the video on stage. So it's like a fan cam
for a concert. which was cool they also had some
drones using 5g but also just like enabling the
teams to be cable and then also broadcast cameras
they're really taking advantage of what they
can do with 5g to improve the fan experience
but also the broadcast which i think is good
for people and there was a lot of illusion to
xr and ar and it sounds like they want to potentially
enable that both for people at home and people
who are there and i will tell you I brought my
Meta Ray -Ban display glasses with me. And while
I did get some photos and video and I heard something's
too loud for that, there are multiple times where
like true AR glasses would have actually been
incredible here. Because you can see where the
cars are on the track while you're at the track,
right? Who wouldn't want that? At least a fan
that cares. But in addition to that, there was
a lot going on. They talked about the whole un
-carrier move and how they're going to... make
it easier for people to switch. Since that announcement,
TNT has pushed back saying that T -Mobile is
violating their terms of service. So that's going
to be a battle that occurs. But ultimately, this
is one of those things where it's a real pain
point for consumers. of any carrier and being
able to reduce that friction is a net positive
for the industry. It may be a net negative for
T -Mobile's competitors, but people will start
to have an expectation that switching should
be easier and faster and it will push Verizon
and AT &T to catch up. And that's ultimately
what I think matters. And in addition to that,
to enable that feature and that capability of
their new service, they're also allowing people
to have their phones delivered via DoorDash,
which is an expansion of T -Mobile's. partnership
with DoorDash where they offer free DoorDash
memberships to their customers. T -Mobile is
doing a lot to reinvigorate the whole un -carrier
move because they're getting a little bit stale.
If you ask me, I think the most compelling un
-carrier was probably the satellite connectivity.
And that was a couple of years ago now. Obviously
it took them a while to roll it out, but the
announcement at least. I think this un -carrier
move is much more. compelling and it fits more
into the ethos of changing the way the cellular
industry works which was i think how uncarrier
was originally supposed to be and yeah i think
t -mobile kind of deepening its partnership with
f1 and the las vegas grand prix is big because
it's a growing sport in the u .s popularity is
growing and that's just like a great marketing
opportunity but also it's a great way to grow
with the sport and to continue to be relevant
and they have perks for T -Mobile customers.
They have a whole magenta lounge people can use,
and they have free battery banks you can borrow
for the day. So it's a pretty good experience.
And I'll say that they did a good job so far.
And I think it's only going to continue to grow
with Apple kind of being the exclusive partner.
Yeah, I like what T -Mobile is doing from a sports
activation perspective. We've talked about MLB
as well, right? Because you and I are big baseball
fans. And going back to that switching tool,
I understand that AT &T's concern was that they
were scraping customer data without opt -in.
And I believe that for at least for AT &T customers,
T -Mobile deactivated that auto, that kind of
that auto scrape capability. I believe it's still
activated for Verizon customers. But I do know
what T -Mobile's doing. They're being aggressive.
They're recognizing, to your point, the friction
that's associated from moving from carrier to
carrier. It's gotten better over the years, but
there's still a lot of friction there. Yeah,
so I agree with you. They're leaning back into
their own carrier routes, and I like it. So good
stuff. But hey, let me hit my third and final
topic. I want to talk about Nokia. We haven't
done a podcast in a while. There's been a lot
going on, a lot of travel between you and I,
and just a lot of work in general. But this was
back in November. It was right before Thanksgiving,
and obviously Nokia's under new leadership. They
announced that they're splitting its business
into two. No surprise, they're betting really
big on AI with the partnership with NVIDIA and
the billion dollars that's being plowed into
that. But what's really puzzling is that they
are basically parking their whole focus on private
enterprise cellular networking. And that's really
interesting. For years, you and I have been talking
about this. It's been a slow tail from an adoption
perspective. But when you looked at Nokia relative
to Ericsson and there are other players there,
you could argue that they've been the most successful
if you look at number of customers, number of
wins, that sort of thing. And so it's really
puzzling that just, I'm not going to say just
now, this year we've seen really the momentum
shift with the adoption of private cellular networking.
And now Nokia is going to park it. And I just
find that really interesting. I think a lot of
other analysts find it interesting and a little
puzzling. What is your take on all that? I find
it equally puzzling, but I would say that it
also may be a factor in they have a new CEO in
Justin Hotar, right? Yeah. It seems like they're
trying to go in a different direction. And the
truth is, I think private 5G is just too slow
for what they're trying to achieve. I think private
5G to me feels like something that would be much
more. You would give someone like a Siemens to
deploy, right? Ten -year contracts. Or an NTT.
Yeah. Somebody who has the ability to stick with
it and service the customer and ensure like a
solid bring up. And it just seems this is another
knock on Nokia's constant changes, right? Yeah.
People, I think one of Nokia's biggest weaknesses.
is that they're constantly changing, whether
it's for good or for bad. And it's not great
in the business world because people want dependability.
Stability. Yeah, they want stability and dependability.
I think that's probably the biggest mistake I
think they're making here, is that they're just
not engendering much confidence in their future
if they are dropping one of the businesses that
have been successful for them. Yeah. Yeah, it's
been a very bright point for them. You could
also argue, What they've been doing with their
autonomous networks platform, something that
I've been involved in with Nokia, has been successful.
But you're right. I think there's a perception
that at a corporate level, they're going guardrail
to guardrail. So if you remember it a couple
of MWCs ago, when Pekka, the CEO at the time,
was at the helm, there was this whole new rebrand
and all this excitement around that. And then
a couple of years later, we're down. And also...
with that rebrand it was a declarative that they
were serious about enterprise but the challenge
has been for nokia their route to market into
enterprise is not as strong as say a cisco or
an hpe aruba now with juniper that has alphanet
5g core and they're doing private 5g so the route
to market's been a little more difficult for
them and their significant expense and their
significant friction that goes along with that
I'm not counting them out, but I agree with you.
This guardrail to guardrail, at least at the
corporate level, it really makes a lot of people
wonder, hey, is there going to be staying power
here? So it'll be interesting to see. And Justin's
still fairly new in the role. Big announcements
with NVIDIA. Everyone's betting big on agentic
and generative AI and physical AI and how that's
all going to progress. I was going to say, you
mentioned HPE. It's not one of our topics, but
I wanted to call out that they sold their telco
unit to HCL Tech. Yeah, that was $160 million
deal. That was another surprising thing. I wasn't
expecting HPE to just unload their whole telco
business. So that was the group, CTG, that was
focused on Carrier. And so they had divested
some assets. They were looking for a buyer for
that for quite some time. So now they're focused
on enterprise and private cellular within the
enterprise. But that's interesting news. Thanks
for bringing that up, man. Hey, let's hit your
third and final topic, and we're going to close
it out with Verizon. And you want to talk about
what they're doing with an enterprise class FWI
solution. Yeah, so they are deploying another
network slice in addition to the ones that they've
already announced. And this one is... enhanced
internet which is specifically targeted towards
enterprise customers which it considers as large
corporations with 500 or more employees and this
will leverage some of the new c -band spectrum
but they are not saying how much of the spectrum
they're dedicating to this and verizon has a
pretty big fixed wireless business they were
actually one of the first ones to deploy with
millimeter wave initially and they're saying
that they're going to offer that this offering
will have 200 megabits down and 45 megabits up
with prioritized access during instances of network
congestion we have deprioritization for prepay
and cheap lines and then we have prioritization
for the customers who pay for the slice and this
is something that i think they want to offer
i'm really curious to see how they're going to
actually offer it to enterprises, but they're
talking about media construction and healthcare
as being target markets. So I could see definitely
for broadcasting that can be useful to guarantee
a certain level of coverage and SLAs, actual
SLAs for FWA. And then on top of that, there
could be use for backups or for mobile healthcare
applications. So I think there's definitely some
opportunities there, but it sounds like it's
more of an offering for people who are already
Verizon customers. Just another business connection
that they can offer to these people because their
pre -existing not enhanced network slice for
5G business internet offered speeds of 8 megabits
to 30 megabits, depending on tier and other factors.
This is a much more enhanced offering for FWA
that I think actually feels a lot more compelling
in terms of speeds, but no word on price. Interesting.
Yeah, I'm wondering, as you talk through that,
it made me think about like edge AI use cases
as well, because you're going to need quality
of QoS for that sort of application. But yeah,
I know we opened the podcast with my sort of
dogging Verizon on these price cuts. But then
on the flip side for enterprise, they're doing
something that's a little more innovative. I
don't know, maybe their new CEO has got this
push -pull plan going on. to win back consumers
and enterprises. Yeah. And continue to service
their enterprise customers, which have been some
of their bread and butter for quite some time,
but it's a, Hey buddy, it's bittersweet, man.
We've been doing this for five and a half years,
almost six years now. And I just want to thank
you. It's been a lot of fun doing this with you.
I'm not going away. We're going to see each other
at events and that sort of thing, but I just
really want you to know like how much I've enjoyed
working with you over the years. and how much
I've enjoyed doing this podcast with you. So
thanks for the opportunity. And who knows, there
may be something new that we can do together
in the new year. We'll just have to wait and
see. Appreciate it, Will. It's been a long journey
of making these podcasts work with our schedules
and random things getting in the way or acts
of God. Babies, you're a father, you're twice
over now, right? Yep. Yeah, awesome. I've had
two kids over the period of this podcast. I know,
man. So we've lived through a lot together. But
this was a great podcast. Why don't you take
us home? Yeah, and I will say that I'm not sure
I'm going to let this podcast die on its own.
All right. I will try and revive it as something
maybe new and interesting. Yeah. Maybe some 6G
focus. So that's the plan right now. Cool. But
nothing too concrete because I refuse to let
this die. I know. We've both invested a lot in
it and I hope to see it continue. Almost 250
episodes. Yeah, man, it's crazy. And I'm actually
talking to someone about doing something in the
new year that's telco related as well. I don't
want to compete with you, but yeah, keep it going,
my friend. Keep it going. Thanks a lot. And thanks
a lot to our listeners. We hope you have a great
weekend and we'll be back hopefully soon with
some more updates on what's next for both of
us. Thanks a lot. Happy holidays.