Welcome to episode 132 of the G2 on 5g. It's the latest I scoop on everything 5g. We cover six topics in about 20 minutes, and it's brought to you by more insights and strategy. I'm Will Townsend, and joining me again this week is Fellow Analyst Ancho sag. Let's get started with my first topic and it's earning seasons.

So I'm gonna talk about a couple of infrastructure providers actually a mobile network operator and an infrastructure provider. I wanna start with at and t. So earnings broke this week and it was quite impressive. The company continues to report subscriber ads as well as fiber growth, but there were two particular nuggets that I found really interesting.

Within the the release one at and t reported that it is continuing to deliver on its mid band 5G spectrum deployment. And that actually now they're covering 150 million. Which is two times higher than its original end of 2022 Target. And we've talked about mid band Spectrum best balance of performance and coverage and at and t is really executing against building out those particular assets.

The other thing that I found compelling is that Sumer actually wrote about this week. That John Stanke has stated that there's gonna be a renewed focus on fixed wireless access services, and this is gonna be what they refer to as a copper catch plan, which is an attempt to move people off of older connectivity technology onto newer connectivity technology.

I was expecting maybe a focus on business or a renewed focus on business. That's historically where at and t has focus, it's fwa service, but I think this is a brilliant strategy. There weren't a lot of details that were shared it's probably very early stages here, but I do think it's a brilliant strategy to move people off of copper onto a more modern connectivity option.

And I'm sure ancho you caught the news this week. Any additional insights you want to. Not really that much. I think it's just that, at and t focusing on connectivity. A shocker they did better financially. I think, at and t with their strategy around, divesting from content and making sure that.

They have the right strategy in place for their connectivity. I don't know. It's paying dividends. It's a huge shocker. And I think it may be a bit of a lesson for someone like a Verizon where maybe they also made some mistakes in their strategic plans. And maybe we'll talk about that later on.

I think we might as well I'll also add, I'm gonna take a victory lap. I talked about my predictions article last week on the podcast, and I pointed to the possibility of fixed wireless access momentum building this year. Probably nothing surprising to our viewers and listeners. But this just echoes my prediction.

I did predict that that we would see some momentum from at and t and thank you, Mr. Stanke, for making that prediction a reality just a week later. But let's move to your first topic and you wanna talk about Verizon and Razor? Yeah, so I think I've talked about this in previous podcasts. Verizon is the launch partner with Raz.

I think they're the exclusive launch partner, actually. . And this is a 5G handheld gaming device purpose built for 5G gaming. So it's the first in the world like it. And Verizon is the first carrier to deploy it. The interesting part is this is also running Qualcomm's first 5G gaming.

Chip, the G three X . And it has a 6.8 inch screen which is actually the same size as a very high-end smartphone, like a Galaxy Note Ultra, or sorry, Samsung Galaxy S 22 Ultra. Same phone now. And it's an interesting device because it's the first one to really do this and Verizon is offering it.

For 3 99. I.  for the wifi only version. So there is a wifi only version if you don't want 5g. The 5G version is 5 99, so a $200 price delta for that modem. Yeah. Which is, tough for some people to accept. And I think the biggest mistake I think Verizon's making with this device is that they are charging 30 bucks a month for the 5G plan for it.

. They are offering, however, a 90 day promotional period where you don't have to pay for. So I think that's good cuz it's gonna be a good way for them to get people addicted to the service. And being able to game everywhere anytime. I do think this device probably would be more successful later in the year when Verizon's 5G network coverage and speeds are much better.

But I can tell you somebody who uses Verizon every day their ultra wideband network is permeating in more places. , but it's still not ubiquitous. Like T-Mobile's? Yeah. Or even at t's. Actually I think at and t and Verizon are a little bit more on par terms of coverage, but for mid-end at least.

But I think it's not quite where T-Mobile is yet. And I think, T-Mobile's two and a half, two year lead is obviously a factor in that. But overall it's a really cool device. I also. That it's a mid, middle, happy place between the G Cloud, which is a cloud only gaming device from Logitech and the Steam deck, which is mostly a local gaming device.

So it balances performance on the, on local device with the ability to stream off the cloud, to access even higher performance, higher quality gaming experiences. Now that all. , I think this could be a better form factor device. I think the problem is it's basically a tablet with a controller attached to it.

So a lot of people are gonna be like, why don't I just buy a phone? And they're attached a controller to that, right? And they're right in that sense because this is just like a bigger tablet with a bigger bezel and it's really not that compact. So I think they're making a mistake in doing this kind of tablet with attached controller on it.

They should be doing a full-blown handheld gaming device that has optimiz. Battery and weight and cooling that and end radio to make it a more, tailored experience. And I think that's the one thing I think Verizon's missed here.  Not Verizon, but razor's missed here. Yeah.

But we'll see. I haven't had a chance to actually review the device. I'm hoping to get one in hand to test, but I've had some time with that. And those are my quick thoughts on it and what it enable. . Razor has a heck of a brand when it comes to gaming, right? They do a lot of PC gaming peripherals as well.

And this might just be their first generation. But let me comment on the Verizon pricing. Who came up with 30 bucks a month? Man, that I think that's gonna limit adoption. Especially to your point as Verizon continues to work on. Building out its network. Certainly, a millimeter wave's gonna provide, pretty decent performance, but it's not available everywhere.

And so that actually, yeah. That actually      tees me up for the second half of this topic, which is they just admitted that, their projections for 2022 were misguided. Yeah. And that they're expectations for growth. Were pretty off, they said that they had revenue.

Are expecting revenue growth between two and a half and four and a half percent for this year which is significantly below the eight and a half percent that they were quoting during their analyst day last year. So they're really struggling on growth. And, $30 a month is not gonna help, I don't think.

And I think, the way their strategy is I'm not really sure. I agree with Hans Berg's decision to stay the course.  on their strategy and to do targeted promotions as opposed to lowering pricing. But that also means that I think they believe that this strategy will work out in the long term and that and that they shouldn't be lowering their prices to be competitive with at and t and for and t-Mobile.

I just think that  even to their own claims, they're not really gonna see things turn around until q4, which I think is accurate. I think Q4 will probably  be the beginning of Verizon's turnaround. . It also happens to be when more spectrum is available for their competitors.

So I'm not sure how much of a turnaround they're gonna see, but I think their coverage will be much better and they'll actually start to be able to sell, I think, edge Services and a lot of other 5G capabil. Yeah, I agree. As well as drive their F D B A growth because the performance has been pretty lackluster with their initial rollout.

But let's move to my second topic this week and I wanna talk about Nokia. They ended last year on a high note. They reported earnings this week. And I guess the million dollar question is is new leadership turning the company around? C e o of Pcca Lund Lendmark joined in 2020 and he's been very focused on business operation consolidation and that sort of thing.

And so just at a high level, The results basically indicate a sales increase of 16% year over year in the final quarter of 2022. It's about 8.1 billion and they had growth across all of their business units. And there's also news this week about Growth in their private wireless business.

Not huge. I believe it was on the magnitude of 45%. But in comparison to Ericsson's, one to 2% again, I've spoken about Nokia in the past and private wireless. They have been the established leader. But we are starting to see Erickson close the gap there. But all in all, it seems like their new c e o is implementing the right things, the right strategies to to turn the company around.

What do you think? I agree. I think this is more of a validation of their focus. Yeah. And I think the timing is good too. I think they, they planned for private networks to. Take off. And they are starting to, and I think this year could probably be huge for them because private networks are only gonna become a bigger thing as network slicing becomes a standard feature in all the networks.

I agree. And, combining that public network with the private network will make private networks more valuable, I think. And I also think that this teed them up for their. Their partnership or their multi-year 5G patent agreement that they signed with Samsung. I think there will be long-term revenues for those patents as well.

Cause I think Samsung is licensing them from Nokia. Yeah. So I think, overall I think Nokia is doing a lot of things right. And I think they've had a rough couple years. But I think they've right sized their business and focused on the right places. Yeah.

And it started to pay dividends, but I also think that they can't really, take their foot off the gas because they have people chasing them. I agree. I agree. It's also worth mentioning that Nokia is in the optical business as well. And they reported solid earnings there as well.

So again, solid earnings across all of their business units. Yeah it'll be interesting and fun to see how things play out for Nokia as we move through Mobile World Congress. And I'm sure we'll have a podcast and a post. Yeah. And a post as well. But maybe if we have time, we can do on onsite.

Yeah, we should try to do that for sure. But let's move to your second topic, and you wanna talk about e esa expansion, but before you go there, it might be helpful for our viewers and listeners to understand what the e ESA is. So the e s A is the European Space Agency. It's basically like nasa, but for the European Union.

Yeah. And ESA has does a lot of really cool stuff. . They do a lot of the similar things that NASA does. They do forecasting for the environment. They do help with weather satellites. They do space exploration. They build, a spacecraft or co, co-developed spacecraft.

So they're very important to the world space community. Yeah. And they themselves have announced that they're expanding their 5G and 6g.  Which is based in the uk . And they are doing this project as a consortium between satellite operators, utelsat and one Web as well as mobile network operator, Vodafone.

So there's a lot of companies involved that are already helping build this this hub. And they said that this hub will. Power a bunch of capabilities. It's gonna be a, it's already a demonstration room, a technical lab and a private high capacity integrated network. , but there's also other capabilities they're gonna have enhanced satellite services, edge computing, multi-network and multi orbit orchestration, and improved ease of use as part of how they use this hub.

So it seems like it's gonna be like a good test hub for them to move forward, combining satellite technologies with 5G six G, which we're starting to see happen. So yeah, I think that's just a good thing. . It is also partially backed by the UK Space Agency because it is located in the uk , which is funny because the UK is no longer part of the European Union.

Yeah. But, the E ssa I don't think is necessarily directly part of the European Union. I think they're, they might be partly funded by it. But I don't think they're wholly funded by the European Union. . Yeah, that's the deal. It'll be interesting to see what kind of innovations come out of there.

Because, companies like Tallis are also based in the uk and could participate in this as well. But yeah it's interesting and, satellite's becoming a more and more interesting and important component of 5g. I totally agree. And this is a super innovative approach from my perspective, when you look at the United States.

really, NASA has taken a backseat and when you look at, just like the space program, it's been SpaceX, right? And, you don't see as much, sort of coordination with NASA like you're seeing with E S A. And this could signal a shift in, leadership across the pond here with respect to your.

Integrating satellite, low earth orbit satellite communications in, into possibly the back haul to support, a lot of rural deployments of not only lte, but 5g. I'll just add that, the way Europeans operate, especially when you like, look at the e esa Yeah.  They see it much more of a public good and a public necessity and funding for that is a little bit easier to get than it is in the us.

Yeah. Also the ESA.  arguably has better and more accurate weather modeling than the US does. So usually when people look at the European space model for weather and they look at the US space model, the European model is more advanced and more granular. So I think they might already have an advantage in that area.

And they, they might just keep moving forward because they see it as a ne necessity for moving the industry forward and helping the European economy move. Yeah, no, it makes total sense. Total sense. So let's go to my third and final topic this week. And you actually brought this to my attention.

NIST has joined the Orran Alliance, and so the question that came to my mind was, what could this mean for future 5G deployment? Explain to our readers and listeners what N I S T. Yeah NIST is the National Institute of Standards in Technology. And what NIST is focused on is really promoting stable and diverse supply chains, which has been part of the push around Iran.

It's it's disaggregating Iran.  and it's bringing new entrance in. It's disrupting the CapEx and opex, opportunity for operators. The NIST is also heavily involved in sharing data privacy and cybersecurity. Yep. And this has been one of the criticisms that I've had of open ran.

When you look at open the open Ran policy coalition, when you look at the Orran Alliance and you look at the underlying working groups within those organizations, There's been very shallow focus on security, and so that's been one of my biggest concerns. So with NS joining the O Alliance, I think what that means is better hardening of, future deployments.

Now certainly 5G, new radio. One of its superpowers is improvements in encryption over l t e, but more's gotta be done because, bad actors continue to be more sophisticated. I cover this, I also manage the security practice for more insights and strategy, and it just amazes me at how sophisticated these bad actors are getting in in these cyber attacks, nation state attacks and that sort of thing.

So I think this is really good news for open ran in general.  and I know that, I'm the infrastructure guy, you're the device guy, but any additional color you want to add before we move to your third and final? Yeah, I think this is a big deal because NIST first of all has funded a lot of the 5G security white papers that the US government has come out right, with so I think they're definitely.

Acutely aware of what the security concerns around are around 5G networks. And I think that they are part of the reason why the US government has pushed so hard on stuff like open ran. . So I think this was something that I, NIST wanted to happen and I think was going to eventually happen, but I think they were waiting for Iran to get more momentum.

Yeah. And become something that really has Val validity in it. And as a result, I think they're now, they're helping validated even further by joining. And I think they're gonna help drive a lot of the security discussions. What will be part of the standard and how it will be implemented, in software and in hardware.

Yeah. And I think they're, they have all kinds of capabilities that I think other companies wish they could have. And I think they have access to resources that other companies don't have. So I think them being a part of this is a big deal. I don't know if you read the press release on their website, but they were talking about, promoting stable and diverse supply chains.

Yeah. Which are a priority for this administration.  And they said that, N will also promote open and transparent standards for 5G and other next generation warehouse technology. So this isn't just about 5g. Yeah, this is also about setting up 6G for open ran and Iran. And I think that's really to think something, think about as well.

So this is definitely another short term thing and it's gonna be a big deal and I think it's a bigger deal than people. . Yeah, I know. That's a great observation around, next generation as well. It's interesting. NIST has been operating its own testing and and proof of concept labs.

But I think, joining the O Alliance just furthers not only the se the integrity of the security behind Open ran, but also, the reason why the Iran Alliance was formed. Was to ensure standardization. So this stuff can get deployed more efficiently, less costly, that sort of thing.

So I think it's a win-win to have this joined. So it'll be interesting to see, what comes out of that and what we can share on future podcasts. But let's move to your third and final topic this week. You wanna talk about Samsung and a company that I've been a little critical of in the past Gogo.

Yeah. Gogo. Has been trying to launch a 5G network for airplanes to, have inflight wifi. And this is a terrestrial network, so that means that it's actually on the belly of the plane as opposed to the top, which is satellite, right? And this is ex, this new service is dependent on a Samsung 5g.

Which is obviously just like a 5G modem. Yeah. And they were having some shoes where they first production run had issues and as a result they had to do a respin of the silicon. So now they are basically passing their review to, to get this in mass production. So they're starting to mass produce the chip.

And there are expectations that this network will be in operation in the fourth quarter of this year. The network itself is already in place, so this is really about building the equipment. I believe the equipment that the modem is inside is called the mb. It's the X three 5G line of replaceable units, LRUs.

Okay. So they're, you. They're going to have to pass some F FAA regulations and third party validation. But basically these 5G modems will connect to the towers that are already in place and be operational in the fourth quarter. They're expected to do average of 25 megabits per second with peaks in the 75 to 80 megabit range.

and allow for streaming of data at low latency. This might actually be the first InLight wifi that has latency under a hundred milliseconds . And you could actually use it for, potential video calling, things like that, which is pretty much impossible on a plane today. But I'm not really sure if I want people video calling Juan flying.

No.  The big use case in my opinion, is probably just streaming content. But overall I, it seems like a good thing for go-go and their investment into 5G network. They also said that they plan to expand their 5G network into Canada this year as well. It's a Samsung announcement, but it's also a Google announcement.

And, inflight wifi is also one of those things.  Has been the vein of a lot of people's existence. And I'm, I'm hoping that this noon 5G network will improve that. I hope so too, because it's it's oftentimes unusable on flights. I'm looking forward to having 5G on flights like you and I will be taking soon to Barcelona.

But my friend, it's been another great podcast. Why don't you take us. Absolutely. We hope our viewers and listeners found this week's topics interesting. If anyone out there would like to provide insights on a specific 5G topic for a future podcast, please reach out to us on social media. Will is at Whale Town Tech and I'm at On Shell saag.

We hope you have a great week and please tune again next week.