Welcome to episode 246 of the 6G podcast. It's
the latest inside scoop on everything 6G. And
we cover six topics in 30 minutes, and it's brought
to you by More Inception Strategy. I'm Anshul
Saag, and joining me again this week is file
analyst Mike Gano from Ookla. Mike, how has your
weekend been so far? Yeah, no, it was a good
weekend. I celebrated Easter, so that was really
good. I had a nice relaxing time. I am. So I've
got a rock climb that I've been working on, but
I didn't get it this weekend. That was my goal
for this weekend. Was not able to do it. Good
and bad. How was yours? Lots of driving. I took
advantage of Easter to drive back home from the
Bay Area where I attended a media tech analyst
summit and also spent Passover with family. Also
a very busy weekend and slash week. I'm just
happy to be able and happy. I actually drove.
back to Sonoma to watch the Artemis 2 launch.
I'd love to roll that into my first topic, which
I know I'm sure you're excited to talk about
too. I know. I've been watching your posts on
social media about it too. I'm as excited as
you are, I think. We've both been watching it
really carefully. Yes. And I've been waiting
for the images to roll through. I'm very glad
NASA still uses Flickr so I can get the images
at their absolute best quality. And yeah, speaking
of the images. How are we getting them? It's
a new laser link called O2O, which is just short
for Orion 2 optical link. And it's a smaller
version of something that we had actually heard
about in 2013, where they were able to do the
gigabit link. But basically what it is, they
are limited by the receiver on the capsule. And
it's really interesting because They, this is
the size of the house cat, which is a very interesting
scale that they chose, but they're able to do
about 260 megabits per second. So they're uplinking
at 260 megabits per second and downlinking at
20. They're actually streaming at 4k from the
capsule, which is very cool being able to see
that. What's interesting is they're able to.
There's so much data that they're sharing constantly,
whether it's video, images, sensor data, all
kinds of things. They have to be very careful
with what they're sharing and when they share
it. And that's why we didn't get some of those
really awesome images from the dark side of the
moon until a few hours or almost a day later,
because there's a bunch of other stuff to upload
that's more important, like how they're getting
home. Which, by the way, they're splashing down
in Fandina by the clock. I'm going to be on the
coast looking for them. So I'm going to take
my kids with me and we're going to watch a spaceship
land in the water. Oh my God. Fantastic. How
do you beat that? I'm going to turn my little
daughter into a space nerd. What a nerd. Yeah.
So in addition to that, the one thing a lot of
people didn't realize is they have iPhones with
them up there in space. And while many of the
pictures. are being taken on Nikon V9 and V5
professional cameras, which if I were still in
the Nikon world, I would probably have. They
are also using iPhones to take selfies. And what
a lot of people didn't realize was some of these
really cool pictures of them with the planet
illuminating their face in a selfie were literally
the iPhone 17 center stage camera, which is an
18 megapixel camera that when it's in center
stage mode takes a 7 megapixel image. And then
when you need the bigger version, it gives you
a full 18 megapixel sensor. What's cool about
it, and I'm going to nerd out a little bit over
this, it's a square sensor. So whenever you take
a picture, you can take, you can hold it in portrait
and get both in portrait automatically with having
to turn it on. Because the sensor is perfectly
square. So you get both anytime you want. And
I think they added explosives on that technology.
So I don't think anybody's going to be able to
copy that for quite some time. But it's very
cool. And it's cool because you can like, I was
using Flickr to look through the stuff, and I
remember first thinking, yeah, it's the selfie
camera. This wasn't a IM camera. This is a selfie,
and it looks really good. And then if you actually
look at some of the other selfies they've taken
on it later on through the process, you'll know
that there's already some dead pixels in the
images because the radiation is destroying the
image sensor. So even with the amount of protection
that they have in the capsule, they're still
being irradiated. by cosmic rays and yeah that's
all i want to say i don't want to take too long
that's incredible that's so interesting i don't
know it really has been such a joy to be able
to live through this week and watch all the adventures
of the artemis crew and really cheer them on
and we wish them a happy and safe landing and
i just can't wait for that yeah to them for them
to splash down and to get all the stories out
of that but yeah i think it's what i think it's
interesting too is just as apart from all the
technological stuff it's like it's neat to see
what brands get associated with stuff like this.
I know, I think you actually tweeted about it
too, is what watches the crew are wearing. I
think they've got a version of the Speedmaster,
which is obviously the Omega. And they're mass
issued. Oh, there you go. Oh man, so cool. It's
cool. It's so cool. It's neat to see. They arrived
on fighter jets, which is awesome. They didn't
just come on a helicopter or plane. They were
like training jets, but they arrived on jets
because a lot of these guys are ex -fighter pilots.
Which is also so cool. So cool. Everything about
the Artemis project has been just wonderful to
watch. And so, yeah, it's exciting to see that
continue into Artemis 3 and 4 throughout the
next couple of years. But yeah, it's neat to
see the Omega watches, the iPhone brand that
they're using. And you've got a phone there that
you're showing. My screen. Your screen is so
cool. I do not. I know. It's just great. Yeah.
Yeah. Very excited for them to splash down and
yeah, see what else happens to them. So my first
topic is not nearly as cool as Artemis, that's
for sure. But it is relevant to our podcast in
that it is a little bit more detail from the
recent 3GPP meeting that happened in Japan. from
space will pivot into Japan. And so the 3GPP
just finished a meeting there. And those big
3GPP meetings are really worth watching. They
happen every couple months, but this was a pretty
pivotal one in that they are making some concrete
decisions about the 6G standard. And again, the
3GPP is the association that sets cellular standards.
They're really the ones to watch in terms of
what technical standards are going to be included
in. The 3GPP releases batches of new technologies
every year or so, and they're currently discussing
what should be included in the release of technologies
that will be the official 6G specifications.
And we talked a little bit about it last time,
but we got a little bit more. information about
the meeting that happened in japan recently and
actually it's i thought it was interesting it's
the post was written by guy daniels who is one
of the guys over at telecom tv he works with
uh ray la maestra who i know quite well and has
is just a solid dude and so it's interesting
to see it's interesting to see guy daniels covering
it's interesting to that he's writing about this
on substack and what he wrote is actually quite
interesting also so A couple of the takeaways
from his post that he wrote. First, he talked
about the timeline. So it'll be 3GPP release
21. That'll be the initial 6G specifications.
And the 3GPP has agreed to freeze work on this
standard in March 2027. So almost exactly a year
from now. And that's an important milestone because
as soon as they stop work on the standard, it
means they can't change it anymore. And it means
that... equipment vendors and handset makers
and other companies can start making products
that adhere to those standards. It doesn't mean
that it's finished, but it means that the initial
batch of standards are completed and that work
can start in the hardware and then they'll update
it with software as time goes on. But that stage,
they call it a stage one freeze. That stage one
freeze is a really big sort of milestone in the
development of the 6G standard and previous standards
from the 3GPP. So that's the first one. A couple
of other takeaways from this post that I thought
were really interesting was that it sounds like,
based on this recent 3GPP meeting, it sounds
like they have officially settled on the using
5G standalone, the SA, 5G SA standalone architecture.
They want to use that as the base for 6G, which
is pretty interesting. It's not a surprise. 5G
standalone is far more capable. than the initial
version of 5g which is the non -standalone version
of 5g the nsa version of 5g but the fact that
they've officially standardized on the standalone
version of 5g as a base for 6g is important moves
everything closer to sort of reality and it also
creates a little bit of motivation i assume it
creates a little bit of motivation for the 5g
operators out there who have not yet begun upgrading
from the nsa version to the sa version of 5g
i assume that this will give them another reason
to upgrade their systems to the standalone version
of 5G. And just a side note here is that my colleague
Luke recently put out a report on standalone
5G, and you really do see some really impressive
performance improvements when operators upgrade
to the standalone version of 5G. Not a surprise
that's a version of 5G that everybody's been
watching for, and it's also not a surprise that
it will be the sort of baseline architecture
for 6G. the underlying baseline architecture
for it. But still, we're making progress. We're
making progress towards 6G. And then final takeaway
that I'll briefly mention from Guy Daniels' post
is he talked a little bit about non -terrestrial
networks, the satellite networks that are out
there. His basic takeaway was that they're going
to talk more about that. So not a surprise. Again,
the idea of smartphones connecting to satellites
is still a relatively new one. There are... technologies
out there that already do this. There's a number
of standards that they're using now and will
into the future. But it really is a sort of collision
between two industries. It's the cellular industry
and the satellite industry. And they're really
in the process right now of a slow moving collision.
And the work at 3GPP is part of that. They're
essentially integrating cellular standards with
satellite standards as part of their work on
6G. And so it sounds like work will continue
on that and we'll probably get more details as
time goes on. It certainly doesn't, it's not
going to stop any of the work that has happened
so far. It's not going to affect any of the commercial
deployments that have happened so far. But it
is an indication that satellite is increasingly
important in discussions about 6G. I think that's
the real takeaway is that when you talk about
6G, you talk about a couple of things. And one
of the things that you'll talk about in 6G will
be satellites, which I think is great. And it
goes back to our conversation about space, right?
How are these satellites going to get up there?
They're going to use big rockets just like Artemis
did. Probably not that size of rocket, but similar
rockets. Interesting takeaways from Guy Daniels.
Yeah, they're most likely something like a Starship.
But what I would say on this topic is I'm very
glad that the conversations we've been having
about 6G that have led up to this point have
culminated in the agreement. that NSA was a mistake
and that 6G will have to be SA only. And obviously
there will be a 5G network. There will be tons
of 5G in coexistence with 6G. But if you want
to leverage 6G, you have to do SA, which is great
because my whole argument for the longest time
was that carriers were lazy and cheats and did
NSA and didn't really like... make the investment
to go SA. And we were just talking, Turkey didn't
even roll out 6G until last week. 5G. 5G until
last week. 5G until last week. It's very frustrating
because people are upset about what they've been
promised with 5G and what they've done. People's
immediate reaction is, why do I need 6G if 5G
didn't deliver what I wanted? I think NSA was
the main reason why that happened, which is really
unfortunate because... Now 6G will theoretically
deliver what 5G could have done because it will
force NSA, right? Yeah, I'm very excited about
this. Everything seems to be looking pretty good
in terms of things we've been talking about in
the last year or so about what might be at 6G.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to that first freeze
as well as the culminating second and third freeze
that kind of solidify things. Having that happen
in 27 does set the opportunity for some pretty
standard. potential compliant deployments in
28 and 29. I remember the timeline. I was looking
at the article you were talking about. That timeline
looks like everything will be pretty buttoned
up and ready to go by March of 2029. That does
set us for a potential 2029 full commercial launch
and easily a 2030. I'm getting the sense that
2029 is when people, when infrastructure vendors
want things to happen. And maybe carriers are
pushing for 2030. I think we might see maybe
a T -Mobile push for 2029, but I think everybody
else is more likely to be 2030 timeline if they
can nail that. But yeah, I'm excited and I appreciate
you looking into the latest RAN meeting from
3GPP. That does lead me to my next topic, which
is AT &T launched a new plan called OneConnect.
In the surface, it seems pretty cool because
it's a one subscription, one monthly price, and
you get both fiber and wireless, which is pretty
good. You get a gig of fiber, and it's basically
$90 a month for one person, which is pretty good
because I pay $90 a month for my fiber right
now. So I would basically be getting a line for
free on my AT &T service. But it's $120 for two
people and $225 for unlimited members up to 10
lines. So if you've got a big family, this is
a deal. Because it comes out to $22 a line, your
fiber is basically free. But I think the big
thing here is it's only for people who have access
to AT &T Fiber, which is a limited footprint
on the national scale. It is growing, but it's
still limited. Also, you have to bring your own
eSIM compatible unlock smartphone. So this is
not for somebody on a contract or someone who
want this subsidized contract. It's a BYO situation.
There's also, it's not prioritized traffic for
the wireless. So if there's any kind of congestion,
you will get throttled. So this is like, how
do I put this? This is a cheapo plan. There's
like a prepaid plan almost. And it does exclude
satellite. So that's also interesting. But my
colleague from another firm, GreenGuard, did
catch some of these terms and conditions. And
it was really interesting because there's almost
more terms and conditions than there are actual
features to the plan. So I think it's really
important to understand that it's a family plan,
but it's also a bundle. And it's interesting
because it like really locks you in, right? Because
it's so cheap. But I think that the fact that
it's bring your own device and that laptops are
in support and it's not priority wireless. But
it is interesting, right? Because it leverages
fiber. It's a strength AT &T has. And I think
their wireless business is doing okay now. It's
not hurting. It was before. And it's innovative,
right? I could see Verizon doing this too right
now that they have a much bigger fiber footprint.
It's like the return of bundling. Yeah. But a
little bit more creative. Yeah, I definitely
see it as I would take this. The launch of this
plan is TNT and others now are beginning to react
to the cable bundle. So I think what we saw last
year through to the end of 2025 was that cable
companies like Comcast and Charter. were really
working on offering very competitive prices for
their bundle of fixed internet service and MVNO
services. And so they were really offering some
very competitive pricing plans to the point where
mobile was almost free. And so I would expect
that this plan from AT &T, I would expect other
plans to come out that are similar to this in
terms of, it's essentially the telco response
to the cable threat or to the cable pricing strategy.
I would also say, I forgot about this because
this happened this morning and I was half awake
when I saw it. T -Mobile also launched a bundle
plan, which I forgot to mention, which is $45
a month, which is half the price. And it's called
5G Home Minternet because it's using Mint, an
unlimited wireless plan with 5G Home Internet
for $45, which is absurd. But again, it's not
going to be very fast, right? Because it's FWA.
It's mint, so it's going to be a deprioritized
mobile connection. But if you don't care about
the price or if you don't care about the speed
and you do care about the price, I got to say
45 bucks a month for home and for your cellular
line is pretty impressive. It's a pretty good
deal. And it really does. I think what it does
is it reflects the this is the new competitive
landscape in the U .S. telecom industry today.
It's really industry where. these competitive
bundles of fixed services and mobile services?
And what are the terms and conditions? How can
they reduce the price of one in order to sell
the other? I think that is the game that we're
going to see this year. I think it really is
a game of convergence, bundled services, lower
prices in some cases, but they're still, like
you said, it's the terms and conditions are really
where this is. How can they eke out a little
bit of profit by selling extra services to these
customers? I think that's where you're really
going to start to see In general, the U .S. telecom
industry is moving to this new level of competition,
which used to be free phones. It used to be additional
mobile services. It used to be you get Netflix
for free. And now the game has changed a little
bit in that it's a bundled service offering.
You get fixed and mobile together. I think that's
where things are headed right now. Yep. Yeah,
fun, fun stuff. So I've got another topic. I'm
going to pivot to my second one. which is a very
different topic than what we've been talking
about. And frankly, I think it's a lot more complicated
topic, but I think it's worth bringing up here.
It's about the sort of the future of the wireless
network, what it's going to look like. And I
bring it up because I've really been thinking
about what, as operators upgrade their networks,
their mobile networks, what are we going to see?
What is it going to look like? What are they
going to do in order to remain competitive? And
a big topic that they've been talking about,
as you and I have discussed in the past, is this
idea of installing GPUs inside the network, inside
base stations, in order to conduct AI inferencing
business. This is a big part of the AI RAN story
that a lot of companies have been talking about
in relation to 6G. And we keep getting additional
insights into what this battle is really about.
I remain unconvinced as to the value of putting
GPUs inside of base stations on a widespread
basis. I think that it may make sense in certain
circumstances. Certainly T -Mobile and SoftBank
have been very vocal about that. But the reason
I bring it up today is because we get a little
bit more sort of commentary on this topic. And
so I'm going to mention two, I think, two very
telling quotes about this that I think casts
a little bit of cold water on the idea of...
putting a set of GPUs inside of a base station
in order to run AI inferencing, in order to sell
inferencing as a service and for operators to
make more money that way. The first quote comes
from Egal Elba at AT &T. I'm sure you've talked
to him in the past. He's a real outspoken guy.
He's a real smart guy. He really has a real good
outlook on the industry. And he speaks in a way
that I think is understandable and relevant.
So one of the quotes that he just gave is that
he talked about... the proliferation of computing
across the nation in all metro areas, he said,
I'm not sure that there's much value in extending
that compute all the way to the far edge to save
another millisecond or two milliseconds of latency.
And so he was discussing that in the context
of whether it makes sense to install GPUs inside
of AT &T's network in order to sell AI inferencing.
And essentially, he's having trouble seeing the
value in that idea. And I think that's interesting.
Obviously, operators have very different approaches
to strategy. Some operators go real heavy on
5G, some don't. So it does make sense to have
a different view on this particular topic from
AT &T compared to T -Mobile or others. But I
think it is interesting. And then the last quote
I've got here that I think is also interesting
and talks to this. topic specifically is from
i guess it's from the wall street journal but
i'm reading it through axios but they talked
about um the recent you talked about it the nvidia's
new products that nvidia released at the at their
big conference the gtc conference yeah ai grid
stuff and the quote here though is just talking
about it's from a from a guy named paul kadrosky
a venture investor anyway he told it OK, yeah,
I've never heard of him, but I thought this quote
was interesting in that he told Wall Street Journal
that the inferencing stuff is incredibly important
to NVIDIA because it's all efficiency driven.
And that basically his point is that NVIDIA is,
quote, desperately trying to find a way to extend
the franchise into inference. And I thought that
was interesting. Essentially, GPU or sorry. NVIDIA
has built their business on selling the chips
that make AI training possible. And obviously
AI training is extremely compute intensive. You
really need tons of GPUs in order to get the
AI training working. But when you talk about
AI inferencing, which is after you train an AI
model, then you use AI inferencing in order to
deliver the results from that AI model, not necessarily
as computing intensive. And so NVIDIA is in this
position where they need to stay relevant as
AI inferencing becomes more important. And so
that's a big focus for NVIDIA now, which that
just ties into the idea of putting GPUs inside
of the base station. Obviously, NVIDIA wants
to expand their market dominance and put their
chips into more and more places. So they've been
talking about making their chips relevant to
telecom operators, putting their chips inside
of base stations. I think it remains to be seen
whether big equipment vendors like Ericsson and
operators like AT &T will adopt that strategic
effort by NVIDIA and others. Obviously, we've
seen Nokia. Nokia has a huge investment from
NVIDIA. So obviously, Nokia is a proponent of
this idea of putting GPUs inside of base stations.
But I think it remains to be seen whether that
will be adopted by other... players in the industry,
such as AT &T and Ericsson and people like that.
So I think this is, I think the real battlefield
to watch is as 6G standards are finalized, it's
like how many, how many 6G players are going
to want to adopt NVIDIA, Silicon and their base
stations? I think that is an open question. And
it is one where basically billions of dollars
hang in the balance as to whether they decide
to chase AI inferencing and this new business
model. I think it remains to be seen. But I know
you have a slightly different take on that topic.
I don't know. It's a big one. A lot going on
there. But I don't know. I'm collecting these
quotes to understand these different perspectives
on this industry to understand what's happening.
So at least I can understand what the battle
is. Don't know what to say. I do think NVIDIA
is absolutely the key places to use inference.
I would say their architecture is not, wasn't
originally designed to be as efficient for inference
as it was for training. But they've worked through
a lot and they've re -architected their GPU delivery
generation to be better at inference. There's
other, they have more competition in inference
than they do in training. So I actually think
there's more compute available to the industry
for AI inference that's very efficient. So I
think that's something to consider as well. It's
not just an NVIDIA story to be told in inference.
They're just the loudest voice for all AI, whether
it's inference or training. And I think. Paul
Kudrowski is right in that sense. I will say
Egolyba is definitely one of the better voices
in the industry. And I do believe a lot of what
he has to say. But I also believe that AT &T
is behind T -Mobile in deploying standalone and
probably 6G as well. While I think AT &T is on
the right path, I'm not sure that they're necessarily
the leader in the space to be. making leadership
statements. And I want to see them be a leader.
I want competition. I want Verizon to also be
more competitive. Right now, T -Mobile is like
the one carrier that's really talking about AI
rant, right? Out of the big three. And I think
part of that is just because they've basically
been running on standalone for way longer than
their competitors have. Whether you're talking
about their 600 megahertz or the 2 .4, that.
So I think... They're mentally in a different
place, I think, in D &D and Verizon. Also, their
capex cycle is totally different too, right?
Like they front -end loaded so much more of their
capex. And I think they're going to be doing
a refresh like they said earlier too. So I think
the reality is going to be somewhere in the middle,
right? It's not going to be zero, but it's also
not going to be 100%. I believe it's going to
be a mixture of stuff at the RAM and stuff. sitting
somewhere in the near edge, but I don't think
everybody's going to need it. And I think the
CSPs are probably going to be the ones who actually
drive it in terms of demand. I do think T -Mobile
is showing that there are some ways to do AI
in the core, like with the live translation feature,
which is just one of many. But I also have a
feeling there will be some applications that
they want to deploy that will require like RAN
-based compute for really low latency applications.
And to Egal's point. He's right. There probably
aren't any applications today that require kind
of the latency. But if we're going to do stuff
like remote drone operation, you're going to
want as low latency as you can get. Then again,
that might be fully autonomous, right? But again,
what's going to be driving that? Maybe you need
to run an agent in the RAN to control the drone
efficiently and faithfully. So I think we're
so far out in terms of actually figuring out
what the topology is going to look like. In my
mind, I would be looking to the GOs and the T
-Mobiles of the world on how this is going to
work, less so the ones that are staff followers
or even people that are trailing. I wish AT &T
wasn't behind, but they very clearly are. I want
to see what the leaders who are leading are doing.
And maybe we'll see some competitive hopscotch,
right? We can see someone leapfrogging another.
Which we saw with 5G, right? T -Mobile very clearly
was a distant fourth or third, depending on how
you measure it. And they now are number one.
There are ways that things can change. And I'm
optimistic. I love competition. I don't want
to see T -Mobile be the one and only leader in
the space. I want them to be challenged more.
Like I really thought Jio was actually going
to be more aggressive with how they deployed
5G. And we're going to see more unique 5G use
cases. And they did deploy some slices, but it
didn't really seem like it took. Yeah. I'm really
curious to see how this pans out. I think your
skepticism is fully warranted. I just think that
will probably land somewhere in the middle. Yeah.
It'll be interesting to see who makes what decision
and when. Now is the time when they're really
charting out where they're going to invest, how
they're going to do it. And I think it'll be
interesting to see how. different companies arrive
at different decisions given the same inputs.
They all essentially have the same view of the
market, but I expect that they're like, just
like in 5G, they're going to make very different
decisions about how to go forward. And like,
it reminds me of the whole Verizon edge compute
story, right? Like they deployed all these edge
compute nodes all over the country and nothing.
Yeah. Yeah. There is a penalty to moving too
early. But there is a lot of rewards if you move
at the right time. And I think that's the question.
I assume eventually, yeah, AI inferencing will
be everywhere and deploying it at the very far
edge would make sense. But is that a 2040 situation
or is it a 2030 situation or is it a 2028 opportunity?
Really hard to know at this point. Yeah. All
right. I'll move on to my final topic and we're
back to talking space. and SpaceX specifically,
which is now the parent company of XAI, and a
joint venture with Tesla on TerraFab. This happened
a few weeks ago, and I had some press reach out
to me about it. And I was brutally honest that
I don't think it's going to happen in the way
it was presented, which was Tesla's going to
build a fab with SpaceX to make one terawatt
of... capacity available to those companies for
compute. And guess what? Today they announced
that they were partnering with Intel. And that
makes way more sense. Intel's CEO was pictured
and did announcements with Elon and the Terrapad,
which will make processors for Tesla and for
SpaceX. And that will mostly be for these data
centers that they're building for AI, but also.
For all the chips that SpaceX needs for its rockets,
for Tesla and all its cars and all its robots.
But I will say that this is not a near -term
story. They haven't purchased any land as far
as we know. They haven't built any facilities.
They haven't ordered any tools. Tools alone,
best case scenario, 18 months, probably more
like 24. So minimum, if they had even placed
any orders, would be two years from now. Realistically,
I think we're looking three to four years from
now. So that makes sense why Tesla's inked a
deal with VIMS last year to basically continue
its supply chain for automotives using the latest
possible nodes. And it'll be interesting to see
what'll happen in terms of how these fabs would,
what these fabs will look like. They say it's
two chip factories. So I have a feeling what
will most likely happen. is that one will be
a logic factory which is chips for and processors
and it will be like a memory factory which will
be probably samsung enabled application because
they're already partnered with samsung today
in texas like the way i look at it is that's
not doing any of this on their own to begin with
and chip design is much easier than chip fabrication
especially if you don't have the know -how there
are actively like five companies in the world
that are producing nearly 100 % on chips on earth.
If you take TSMC, Samsung, and Intel, you've
already 70, 80 % of the market. Then you add
SK Hynix and Micron, you've got 100%. It's just,
there's not that many companies doing it. It
costs tens of billions of dollars. I think the
quote was 25 billion. Elon said, that's pretty
realistic. I think if we're talking two fabs.
But that's with help. If they did this on their
own, that was a low number. It probably would
have cost them double. And is this, they're going
to build the manufacturing facility that will
make the chips, right? That's what they're going
to do? Are they going to do it in Texas or somewhere
in the U .S.? Yes, a cluster of factories that
they've built. My former colleague, Will, lives
out in Bastrop, and that's where their center
of orbit is. So I believe they'll probably be
doing this out in Bastrop because they own the
land already. Realistically, like they do with
battery electric vehicles, the battery fabs are
near the vehicle fab. I expect these chip fabs
will probably be close to the data center and
also the car manufacturing facilities because
then you can make very quick turns. And if you
look at like how the Chinese have been able to
build these cars so cheaply and so effectively,
it's because the supply chains are right there.
So when they need to troubleshoot things and
make adjustments and change things quickly. Everything,
the entire ecosystem is near them and around
them. And that's really how they're able to make
things happen fast. So I understand the need
and desire. Also, it gives them more control
of the supply chain, costs. They can custom build
things as they see fit. But I have a strong feeling
that this is going to be massively accretive
to Intel for their founder business. They're
going to be able to claim quite a bit in terms
of revenue and profit. I sort of think this is
going to be a near -term story for them, but
it does look good for their stock. Last I checked,
it was up a good 5%. That's 4 % now. But in the
last week, their stock is up 26%. So the good
news is rolling for Intel. And this also means
that an American company will be producing chips
or helping to produce chips for another American
company, which is very much part of what the
tracking administration wants. And truthfully...
I think every administration has wanted for a
long time. Yeah. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense.
What I think is interesting, here's another example
of the expansion of Elon Inc. Elon Incorporated,
now he's going to be building chips too for all
of his various businesses. I know he's talked
about how important it is to have control over
the supply of chips for everything from Tesla
to SpaceX to XAI. I would not say it's a surprise.
I think it's very interesting. I think I will
assume it will accelerate the work that Elon
Incorporated is doing. And will this bring us
a million data centers in space? I know that's
part of the SpaceX IPO. That's the plan is to
launch data centers into space and have them
run AI out in space because it's better and cheaper
there. I don't know. We'll see. But presumably
this is part of the plan. I am not a believer
in the space data center thing. I do think there
will be some space data centers, but not at the
scale that Elon's trying. A million seems like
a lot. Yeah. And the truth is that, like, I actually,
when SpaceX, long time, when SpaceX first started
launching reusable rockets, I was like, I'm going
to invest in the SpaceX IPO when it happens.
But now there's, like, XAI, which is losing tons
of money, and Twitter, which is also losing money,
or not as profitable as it should be. Like, I
don't want to touch its stock now. Like, I don't
want anything to do with it. I was such a big
fan of that. I'm like, I still believe space
is the future. You want to invest in these space
companies before they become trillion dollar
companies. And by the way, the IPO might be the
first trillion dollar IPO. We'll see what happens.
I don't want to touch it. Because let's remember
how many of these satellite constellations have
come in, right? We had some discussions online
with some people on Twitter recently, yesterday
or today. It's going to cost them billions of
dollars to maintain these thousands of satellites
as they... blow up, but it had to blow up recently
as a decommission within the five -year span.
Like having to launch more of them, it costs
a million for the satellite and a million to
launch it. It's $2 million a satellite. That's
an expensive endeavor. So you've got to have
that momentum constantly going and that's a very
high risk, especially when you add a fab, which
was a conversation point that I had. One of Intel's
biggest costs is just depreciation of the foundries.
And that's why there's so many, you know, fabulous
semiconductor companies because nobody wants
to eat that depreciation. It's depreciation is
a blessing and a curse when you look at it on
accounting, right? Because it's a write -off,
but it's also like a bleed on your financial
viability. I think this is good for Tesla. Maybe
they'll take on the financial risk. I don't know.
Those details were not disclosed. And I don't
know if we'll know those details for quite some
time. But maybe we'll get some news from Intel
on earnings and see that. I feel like they wanted
to wait till earnings, but they couldn't for
some reason. Maybe it was going to be. But yeah,
I think this is great for everybody. I can't
really see a downside. No, it does make a lot
of sense. Those two companies partnering to do
the manufacturer. Yeah. Yeah. And so it does
dovetail in a little bit with my last topic,
which is really about direct to device satellite
stuff. It is within the realm of satellite operations
a little bit. So the news item that came out
about a week ago. was that, and this is, again,
it's a little bit related to the topic of satellites.
So there's a company called Grain Management.
It's an investment company. And they, about a
year ago, they agreed to purchase some 800 megahertz
spectrum from T -Mobile. Not a huge surprise.
Grain has previously dabbled in spectrum ownership.
They're one of several investment companies that
has done so. owning Spectrum in the US. But anyway,
so they have already agreed to buy this 800 megahertz
from T -Mobile. The new thing is that Grain mentioned
in one of their FCC filings that they might be
interested in leasing that Spectrum to direct
-to -device companies like potentially Starlink.
They didn't mention Starlink in the filing, but
they said they may lease their 800 megahertz
Spectrum to... D2D companies, and they didn't
name any of them, but there's only a few of them
out there. But I think what it reflects is that
this D2D market is hot right now. This is where
a lot of the activity is happening. We see Starlink,
SpaceX launching Starlink, getting into the D2D
market, direct -to -device, where a phone connects
directly to a satellite. We've seen a lot of
interest in AST Space Mobile. Same thing. They
sell D2D connections. Tons of interest in that
company. Link is another one. They merged with
a company called OmniSpace with backing from
a satellite operator, SES. They also were chasing
this D2D market. I guess it shouldn't come as
a surprise that a lot of these companies are
clamoring or more companies are coming into this
space. Grain management is talking about leasing
its spectrum for D2D operations. But you're right.
You talked about, is this... Is there too much
investment going into satellites right now? Is
there enough interest in satellites in order
to maintain this level of investment? I think
that certainly remains to be seen. Grain Management
is one of the many companies that's coming into
this space, hoping to take advantage of all the
interest that's going on right now in there.
They didn't say that anyone had leased their
spectrum yet. They just said it's essentially
available for lease. They're asking the FCC to
make sure that... They can lease that spectrum
out for a D2D application is essentially where
they are now. They have not yet completed the
purchase from T -Mobile. So presumably when they
do, if they are able to close their purchase
of that spectrum from T -Mobile and also receive
an FCC waiver for D2D operations in that spectrum
band, then they could go about leasing that spectrum
to companies like potentially AST SpaceMobile,
Starlink, Link Global. We don't know yet. But
this is the market jostling that goes along with
a market that is unclear how big it's going to
be. Is there still opportunity here? It's really
in its early stages of developing. And so I think
it's interesting. I think it's something worth
watching. It's just an indication that, yes,
there's still excitement going on right here
in the D2D market and the wider satellite industry.
It's a sector of the market that is really fun
to watch right now because practically anything
can happen. And anything can happen any week.
We don't know if maybe Amazon will buy GlobalStar
next week. That was the rumor that came up about
a week ago. We'll see. I think a lot of this
stuff is just rumor and speculation, but we'll
see. There could be something big that happens
relatively soon. We don't know. I was going to
say, this is an extension. So Grain is getting
this 800 megabytes from T -Mobile. which was
originally supposed to sell it to Dish. But Dish
didn't have the money to buy it, and they had
first refusal. But what's funny is, what's not
talked about is, in Grain getting this 800 MHz
spectrum, and also paying some cash to T -Mobile,
T -Mobile's also getting all of Grain's 600 MHz
licenses. So T -Mobile will strengthen its lowest
band and coverage. with more frequency, which
they obviously need in the 600 megahertz band.
So T -Mobile wins, Grain gets their money, and
SpaceX gets more spectrum, which they are massively
starved for because they're going to be powering
all of United's fleet. And we found out that
Delta is going with Amazon Leo. So I think there's
going to be way more airline using Starlink or
some other Leo service. So there's going to be
lots of demand for that. Plus on top of all the
other things that are happening, like I wanted
a cruise late last year. It was Starlink powered.
They had the six or seven Starlink terminals
on the ship. And it was the best internet connection
I've ever done on a cruise ever. Obviously there's
tons of room for improvement, but yeah, I gotta
be honest with you. I don't want to drag that
any longer. I just don't think D2D as a market
is as big as people seem to be acting like it
is. I think if there is a market for it, it's
in the commercial space and like for commercial
logistics. And offering, I think Amazon's approach
is a lot more what I think where the market is
going, which is servicing businesses. Because
I think consumers would love to have satellite.
I think it's a great service to have. I don't
think it's the majority of the population. I
think it's great for airlines. As a user, I don't
want to pay for that additionally because I'm
not going to need it 99 % of the time. Now, you're
going rock climbing. I'm sure you do not have
service where you're rock climbing. I do appreciate
it for that situation. Yeah. So I think there
are people who absolutely see the value and their
lifestyle matches the need. But let's be honest,
that's probably 10 % of the population. It might
be like 1 % of my month, for example, that I'll
need it. Exactly. So I think I like the idea
of having the service and it being available.
I think it's going to be huge for emergency services
and other places where people need to have coverage
where there just isn't any. but I just don't
think it's going to replace. The way people are
behaving is it's going to replace smartphones
and terrestrial services. And I'm like, no, it's
complimentary, but it's necessary. I think at
your point, it will be part of the 6G standard,
but I just don't think, I think it's like a component
carrier. It's not an anchor. So I think that's
important to understand. And it's expensive to
send satellites up. Like it's really expensive
and to maintain them and to keep them fed with
data. And that's why Starlink. is so successful
because they have that criticalness. When you
buy a Starlink terminal, there's a 99 % chance
you're going to have coverage, right? Like it's
very high. So that's why I think it's going to
be a challenge for smaller services to just keep
up. And I think we're going to see some consolidation.
Somebody might end up buying GlobalStar. It would
also end up being Apple. They already own a big
chunk of it. So it wouldn't be a big lift for
them. But yeah, we'll see what happens. I don't
think we're anywhere near knowing. Where the
end state will be in, most likely we'll know
until 2030. Yeah, this is going to be a pretty
fun ride. I think for the next few years, while
everybody figures out the opportunity here and
how much revenue there really is going to be
in there. But yeah, for the next few years, it's
going to be practically anything goes. And yeah,
we'll be interested to watch it. Yeah, I think
that kind of wraps up our conversation for this
week. Thanks again, Mike, for joining me. I also
want to say thanks to our viewers and listeners
for following on. for this week's topics. And
if anyone has any topics for a future podcast,
please reach out to us on social media. I'm at
Anshul Sog and I'm at Mikey Dana. We both meet
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