Welcome to episode 144 of the G2 on 5g. It's the latest insight 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 this week is fellow analyst Anshel Sag yet again. So let's get started with my first topic and I did publish a Forbes piece on this company this week.

So go hit my Twitter feed. At Will Town Tech if you wanna read it, but it's about Edge Q and HQ is a silicon company. Their their team is comprised of former Qualcomm, Broadcom, and Intel executives. And I've had the chance to have a couple conversations with its c e o and founder. Vene Riveri and so I wanna talk a little bit about what they're doing.

And so they have developed basically what they're calling a base station on a ship. And it's a really cool architecture. It's a blend of risk five and arm. And it's it does a couple of things. So it's multi-mode, so it supports both 4G and 5g. It can support open ran distributed unit, radio unit and compute unit functionalities.

And it can also support macro cell and small cell platforms. And what I really like about it is it's a single design, it's single purpose, or it's multipurpose. They've also integrated an AI engine to do things around optimization of beamforming and spectrum management and that sort of thing.

And they believe that with their solution they can enable some very disruptive solutions that are low foot low profile, low power. And just overall a very low footprint. So again, I wrote a Forbes article and I know you know, you, that actually, that you're familiar with the company as well.

But what do you think about all of this? Do you think, they can really disrupt the ran with what they're doing? 

Yeah I think it's an interesting company. I don't think I've delved as deeply into what your article talks about, and in fact, I should probably read it to educate myself, Uhhuh.

But as I've been traveling quite a bit these last few weeks. Yeah. We've and I haven't had a chance to catch up, but what I do know is I am seeing Edge Q in a lot of places that I see their competitors, like qualcom com. And I think there's really something special to what they're trying to do.

I think the real question is who's gonna use their chips? Which. Which infrastructure vendors are gonna take it and try to do something with it. These things always take time. Yeah. For a new entrance, it may take a couple generations for them to actually start to get design wins.

They'll probably get a lot of test proof of concepts and things like that. But I just think that it's really compelling. I think the flexibility is really interesting. I think when you look at the way. The market has been built in the past there was a lot of special specialized asics for specialized applications.

Yeah. But I think it would be really interesting to have a more general purpose chip that can do a lot of things. Yeah. And can enable you to potentially build a more software defined. Network where you can be flexible with how you build your network and how you can redefine, maybe even rejigger it by software if your needs change.

And I feel like this really plays well into what's going on in the open rant space. Yeah. And I think it plays really well into private networking. Maybe not so much. What we're talking about in terms of Brownfield Network deployments. But I just think that there is some opportunity in the coming years where new applications surface with 5G or maybe even 6g.

And I think this might be one of the solutions that enable that. 

Yeah. And they're s o c does it it's programmable. One of the things that they're touting is software upgrade ability for future, feature sets and that sort of thing. I will say that the company was founded in 2018.

So they've got, they've had about a five year runway on Velma and they're just now getting into production. You'll start seeing some proof of concepts that'll happen later in the year. But yeah, I think it's super compelling and I'll continue to spend time with the company and update our listeners and viewers as things develop there.

But let's move to your first topic and you wanna talk about a s c space mobile, a leasing spectrum from at and t. And there was a big announcement this week around it. I unfortunately at the very last minute at and t pulled together an analyst call, so I missed that. But but you want to talk about what was was announced.

So I'll let you take it away. Yeah. 

So this is on the heels of their successful two-way voice call that I think they had announced with at and t and Roku. So this is an evolution of something that happened a few weeks ago. Yeah, I feel like we either covered it or it just didn't make the podcast, but it was still a relevant thing.

But this is a, at and t is applying in an FSC filing to. Lease certain 850 megahertz A and B block spectrum, as well as some B and C block spectrum of a 700 megahertz band. So there's multiple pieces of spectrum that they're looking to test with this blue Walker three satellite that, that's currently in use by a T space Mobile to test and validate the applications.

They're expected to launch. These new satellite services next year when they have four satellites go up with SpaceX. So there's, this is like a primer for next year's deployment. And that test that happened with the the test call was using at T'S Band five, which is their 800 megahertz band.

Yeah. And was conducted with an S 22 smartphone. So it's already going to most likely support S 22, S 23, and all the Samsung products within those spectrums. And I'm sure there will be more devices, but this is really interesting because it continues to move forward. What's going on in, in the satellite 5G space.

I also saw some news about other satellite companies trying to deploy l e o satellite networks that are already in geo. The space is heating up. We're gonna not stop talking about this probably for the next couple years, at the very least. And we're just gonna keep paying attention to how it affects.

Smartphones and iot and just keep following it. 

Yeah, no it's exciting. I call it the space race and, at and t I've had the opportunity to build a relationship with Chris Sandbar that runs all of networks globally for the company. And I will be pending a Forbes article on what at and t is doing with a s t space mobile in the coming weeks.

And that'll feature some insights from my conversations with Chris. But I agree it's exciting and. It could be, one of, a number of elements and helping to bridge the digital divide, just based on the conversations that I've had with Chris and his team. But let's move to my second topic this week, and I wanna talk about Dish, and they're continuing to turn subscribers.

I. And the big question in my mind is, can, it's eventual 5G postpaid service, save the day. And, in the first quarter, this is tied to their financials. In the first quarter they reported, they turned about 81,000 wireless subscribers from their prepaid Boost mobile service.

Now that is significantly better than one quarter a year ago where it was, 343,000. And good news, bad news, they're still churning. But that number is coming down. I think wall Street looked somewhat favorably on it, but man, it also didn't help that they've had another security breach.

And I don't know if you caught the news on that, but they admitted that was a 30 million expense for them to address. And so I looked into their churn rate. The industry out, the industry goal is to be under 1%. They are almost at 6% churn on their prepaid business.

And their RPU is in the toilet as well. Now that's to be expected with with a prepaid service, but they're really gonna have to, take some lessons learned and how they've manage the prepaid business as they go to postpaid, because it's an entirely different animal.

And they just won't be able to survive if they can't get that churn rate, well below 1%. But what are your 

thoughts? I think they're in a tough spot. Yeah. I think they, they need to be pushing harder on network deployments, making the network more reliable improving coverage, improving speeds, and I think the users will follow.

Yeah, no, I agree with that. I agree with that. Let's move to your second topic this week and you wanna talk about Ctal rolling out some mobile edge computing services. 

Yeah, so this is a follow on to something that we had talked about in the past where they, where we talked about how Singtel is, moving forward with a lot of different 5G applications.

Ones that will enable xr. And this was one of those things where it built on that. And now we're seeing that Sintel is rolling out mobile edge access. Mo, multi-access edge computing over 5g across Singapore. And it'll be doing so in partnership with Microsoft, with Azure.

And it will all be accelerated using Nvidia compute. This is gonna be one of those things where Microsoft's gonna enable a lot of these applications through its cloud including large language models. And other AI applications like video analytics and, conversational avatars.

So there's gonna be some really interesting applications that are gonna come out of this because Microsoft is very closely tied to open ai. And open AI is utilizing video hardware. Yeah, so this is like the perfect storm of capabilities from all of the companies that are involved, and Singtel is basically one of the leaders in, in, in the world in enabling this.

And it's gonna be the ideal application and it will be built on Singtel's, 5G standalone network, which they're also one of the first in the world to deploy. And yeah, to be fair, they, they claim, to have 5G standalone across their home network. Singapore is still very much a city state.

Yes. So it's not as challenging as almost any other operator. But nonetheless, I think. This will continue to perpetuate the Singapore is a future technology haven for the next generation of what's possible. They're always talking about autonomous vehicles and all kinds of crazy stuff and factory automation.

So I think this will just continue to perpetuate that Singapore is at the bleeding edge. 

Yeah. You mentioned kind of nation state, I've been to Singapore on a nu number of occasions, and it's, I believe it's about the size of the city of San Francisco, a tiny island nation.

And so one of the advantages there is that, you don't have to contend with, intra state management of. Spectrum or intra country management of spectrum and auctions and that sort of thing. So that's pretty clean. I think. The other observation I have on this news is I continue to be impressed by Nvidia.

So at G T C there was an announcement with at and t where at and t is leaning into. NVIDIA's AI platform to do things like smart truck rolls and use AI to optimize network performance and accelerate the deployment of cell tower sites and that sort of thing. And Nvidia has, built, a networking and telecommunication practices over the years.

With, through acquisition and through organic, roadmap development and bringing bench strength on the team. And so I think just this points to another. Success for for Nvidia as it focuses on the Telco vertical, which, in my mind there is a lot of applicability with respect to ai.

But with that, let's move my third and final topic. And I was actually in New Orleans earlier this week. I was not having fun or in the French Quarter partying, I was at Connect X 23. It's the W i a signature event. It moves around from city to city. This was my first Connect X and I had the opportunity to participate in a panel very early in the morning at 7:00 AM So that's probably why I behaved myself when I was in the big easy.

And then I actually moderated a panel. I. On actually a subject that's near and dear to your heart. The use of ar vr for training within the telecommunications industry. It was a great event, but there were a lot of operators, a lot of infrastructure providers there that used the event as a platform for, making announcements.

And I caught one from US Cellular and they were speaking to their 5g fixed wireless access success. With their low band spectrum max assets. And so what they stated was they're up to about a hundred thousand subscribers, which, when you compare that to, you know where T-Mobile is at, it's a drop in the bucket.

But you've gotta keep in mind that US cellular really serves the rural parts of the country. And so you basically they're probably the fifth. Carrier in size, behind Dish, although, you know now with Dish and some of the churn. US cellular could be, a strong number four there behind the big three.

But I think this is great. This sort of points to, again, the momentum that we're seeing with fixed wireless access emerging as one of the early killer 5G use cases. And I think Once US Cellular starts to build out their mid band spectrum assets, which will give them a better balance of performance and propagation, and most importantly, capacity to support both fixed wireless access customers and mobility customers.

I think they'll see continued success. And what I really like about US Cellular, again they're a rural operator. And as I've spoken in the past, fwa will be one of those other elements that'll be critical in bridging the digital divide with things like low Earth Orbit satellite. But any comments here before we move to your third and final?

No, I think, US Cellular is one of the operators. That I would've expected to see success with fixed wireless. Yeah. And they did a lot of early trials as well. I remember they, they were showing off some millimeter wave stuff with Qualcomm going, five miles.

Yeah. So I think there's still a lot more to be done. With fixed wireless, and I think, the spectrum congestion issue is less of a concern with them, in my opinion. Because if they're actually deploying in less dense areas then they don't have to worry about. Cellular op, cellular users competing with fixed wireless users for Spectrum.

Yeah. Because it's unlikely that either of them are using too much of it. And I think that you'll probably see, as people stop, wind down their cellular usage their fixed wireless goes up. Could see a pretty good balance there and I'm hoping to see them grow and improve their fixed wireless offerings.

And even maybe have some competition from the likes of T-Mobile and Verizon, where we're applicable. 

Yeah, no that, that's great insight. And with respect to like rural and, less concern around conjunction, and it's always a good thing to have another competitor out there. I'm a proponent, and I've said this on many podcasts competition breeds innovation and price competitiveness.

We'll definitely keep we'll keep an eye out for what they do there. So let's move to year third and final and it wouldn't be a podcast with Ancho unless you talked about a device. And so you wanna talk about Verizon and their launch of a pretty aggressively priced TCL phone. 

Yeah, so Verizon has announced.

They're, this is a prepaid phone. It's a $120 5G phone. Wow. Remember when we were talking about smart 5G smartphones becoming mainstream this year, and hopefully that would be, a less than $150 smartphone. I think we might have even said $120, but I think we said less than one 50.

It's here. It's available in the us. Via tcl. And it's the TCL 40 X e 5g. And it, it doesn't have crazy specs. It is powered by a media tech density 700. So it's, by far not their most powerful chip. In fact, I think it might be their most inexpensive 5G chip. It's really interesting because that helps people make that transition from 4G to 5g in a very inexpensive way. Yeah. Cause so many people are going to eventually have to transition from 4G to 5g. And having affordable 5G phones will be really a key component to making that happen.

Obviously we're not going to sunset 4G probably for another seven years or so. Yeah. But that's something to think about. Other than that, it's got a 6.5 inch screen seven 20 P display, 13 megapixel camera. But the real component here is that it's affordable.

Yeah. And if there's somebody who just cares about making phone calls, This is going to be the right device for them, most likely. Because that will have, capabilities to, to make the most out of 5G and take advantage of all the new bands that are introduced and all of the coverage that operators are building on.

It's something that I think a lot of people really miss when it comes to their 5G experience. They don't understand that there's still a lot of new spectrum being deployed. And coverage isn't where it can be and where it will be in the next couple years. And if they're using an older phone that might be, maybe doesn't support those bands that their 5G experience is going to suck, especially if that phone is a 5G millimeter wave only device.

Yeah. So yeah, I think we're still very much in a place where 5G is still evolving and, we're getting these kinds of devices where it's becoming much more affordable. And what's interesting is that initially this phone, when it launched was $50 more expensive.

So this is a kind of like a price cut for this device as it becomes available on at and t. And yeah I think. We'll see more 5G devices that are affordable. And I, it's not a huge part of the market for the US at least. Yeah. But there's a huge component of the rest of the world where these lower cost devices will be really important.

Yeah, no, I totally agree. And based on the SPACs, it's a great value. TCL has been doing this for a number of years with its television products, providing a great balance of performance and value. And certainly this demonstrates media tech's capability to help address sort of the value end of the market.

But, hey, my friend, it's been another great podcast this week. Why don't you take us home? 

Absolutely. We hope our viewers and listeners film this week's topic's. 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 Will Town Tech and I'm at a We hope you have a great weekend and please tune in the in next week.